I'm too lazy to actually read the bill so I will just say this. No matter how many citizens or companies oppose this it is ultimately up to the elected officials. So getting our panties in a bunch over what this bill "could" mean or "does" mean is pretty useless. I know that I will not be letting this effect and part of my life, nor will it keep me up at night worried for my life. If i broke down and thoroughly disected every bill in legislation, it still wouldn't change a damn thing.

The simple fact is Piracy DOES need to be stopped and if it takes one failed bill or some kind of mistake in order to better mend the future of the internet then so be it. You cant make a beef stew without slaughtering a few cows first. Eventually PETA will step in and be like wait wait wait a minute. At least kill them repectfully!

For the fun of it I would like to see it go through.

:P

Originally posted by obii

For the fun of it I would like to see it go through.

:P

In the same way that throwing batteries in a campfire can be?

Originally posted by GTwander

Originally posted by obii

For the fun of it I would like to see it go through.

:P

In the same way that throwing batteries in a campfire can be?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eYK-k0eobQ

looks fun to me.....

Originally posted by GTwander

Originally posted by obii

For the fun of it I would like to see it go through.

:P

In the same way that throwing batteries in a campfire can be?

 

Sort of :P

I also think the internet would advance quicker if such a law would go forth as more underground stuff would be developed which would be even harder to control.

And you should see a full can of hairspray in a decent fire. That looks FUN!

Originally posted by waynejr2

In the USA we need more amendments to the constitution to counter everything in SOPA so that this dies forever!  We need to prevent other stuff like net neutrality, fair use and satire rights, business are not people and money is not free speech.  We must cut the money out of funding political campaigns so add limits such as:  only people (remember business are not people) can donate and then only to someone they can vote for and to a limited amount of money.

Sorry, you obviously missed the reality that we face. At this point, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights mean only what those in New Rome say that they mean. In other words, they effectively no longer exist. SOPA is just the most current example of that, in quite a long stream of bills and acts, that have been passed into law over the last 10-12 years.  

SOPA *will* be back in some form or another. Big Contents bought and paid for politicians will see to that. The only thing that has delayed it this time, was the opposing massively funded lobbists with Google, Face Book and other such.  

As for the rest, any real attempt to clean up the system, would be met with *what ever* degree of force was required.  Do you honestly think that those who have real control of the most powerful economy in the world, would ever allow that control to be taken from them?

Originally posted by veratutazz

Originally posted by GTwander

What's going to happen is that they will use the US as a test ground for this, and then we will be no different than China and many Middle Eastern countries that aren't allowed access outside their network. Yes, it will slip into our own intranet, where viewing outside material is criminalized (regardless of if it's porn or network tv you're watching), and used to keep subversive elements *out*, culturally stunting us. I really do believe this is the beginning steps of a cruel nationilization effort, but with the interests of corporate media in mind.

After all, they can make sure you pay for streaming videos if you simply can't find a proxy in Denmark. Other countries will catch on, and all will be suck.

 

 

 I feel a little sad inside when I read all this text-walling hateraiding on SOPA and PIPA. Look, it is real simple:

 

And, for the record, the "they wouldn't pay for it anyways" argument is a hysterical red herring. I know *WAY* more people that steal/pirate in my professional *AND* private life not because they are criminals, not because they are 'bad people', not because they are 'poor' or "wouldn't buy it anyways" ... They do it because it is fall-down-blind easy to do. There are next to zero deterrents, "everybody does it", "everybody knows how", and it is "no big deal".

 Do you honestly think humans would pay good money for food if it was equally easy to just grab the same food for free all the time and it was only minorly socially unacceptable?????

1. 
   
   
   The people in washington are (mostly) a bunch of old fat white men who barely understand the internet or anything technical. They are nerd-morons.
















2. 
   
   
   We have gone from a world where 'hacking' and 'piracy' is something a rare fringe group of people participate in, to a world where just about every teenager is flagrantly breaking federal laws just because they want free smack & don't want to pay for it.
















3. 
   
   
   Hackers and/or internet "pirates" have gotten wildly more brazen recently. Going so far as to even openly attack corporations & governments. This is not about where you stand on the issue(s) that caused said individuals to act. Merely that they are & affecting millions of people.
















4. 
   
   
   Online associated (or data associated) crimes are fast becoming the #1 and best target for criminals -> organized or otherwise.

And this problem is only getting worse, much, much worse. The younger the age group, the more it is "acceptable".

 I have been an adult in a professional career path for 20 years. Only recently (the last 2-3 years) have I seen young professional adults coming into the industry thinking it is somehow "OK" to be breaking federal laws (pirating) while ON THE JOB.







 One of our most recent professional co-workers actually brought a microsoft key-generator TO WORK!







It is this kind of change in the cultural environment that has older adults backpedaling haistily and considering extreme measures like SOPA or PIPA.

Don't get me wrong.

I, personally, think SOPA and/or PIPA is probably a bad idea.

I think musicians and actors are paid FLAGRANTLY too much for their "art", anyways.

I think movie theaters gouge you like a pig at a carnivore festival

AND



 

I think big corporations are the suck and the federal governament (US) is a laughingstock.

BUT







Please try and see it from the opposite end of the coin.







Try to see this from a non-geek perspective.

Not because the perspective is somehow "correct", but because THEY the OLD people... and all the OLD peeps are in *congress*.

(their POV)

ID theft is the #1 crime

Organized crime is now heavily involved in the internet







Digital piracy is rampant

Wikileaks publishes *classified* information

Anonymous attacks companies, breaks laws flagrantly, and thumbs its nose at the government







LOLsec..... dont get me started. and they couldn't even remove their website

They are being  reactive not proactive.







We want them to sit down, shut up, and go back to fixing (lllllaaaawwwwwlll!) the debt, right?







So lets figure out a way to try and fix the abovementioned problems FOR them.. since we know how to do it better.

Because if you are *not* going to police and punish piracy appropriately, then you might as well make it legal.







And if you think THAT is a good idea. ... .. .. .. ... then ... .... ... wow.

 

 

It won't matter if the united state's passes it or not the fact of the matter is other countries do not share the same anti piracy or intelectual property law's as us here in the united state's its another waste of money our government is going to put out to put us in further debt and cripple its economy more. I watch pirated movies online all the time and play pirated games as well and nearly all the websites I visit and do these things on are not based in the united states there fore the united state's has no jurisdiction over them.

The only thing they can try to do is block of some parts of the internet like some countries like north korea and like when in Egypt they shut down internet access and we all saw what happend with egypt when it did. Here in the united states the economy is already at a boiling point and extremely unhappy with the way our government is being run its pretty much about 75% controlled by major corparations buying political votes from politician's making them vote one way or another through campaign contribution and investment deals.

Let them try let them waste more american tax dollars on things that don't concern the average american in the least were just as fed up with our country as everyone else out there that complains about our country they keep kicking this dog while were down and sooner or later were bound to turn around and snap and bite at them.

Originally posted by ForumTroll

I'm too lazy to actually read the bill so I will just say this. No matter how many citizens or companies oppose this it is ultimately up to the elected officials. So getting our panties in a bunch over what this bill "could" mean or "does" mean is pretty useless. I know that I will not be letting this effect and part of my life, nor will it keep me up at night worried for my life. If i broke down and thoroughly disected every bill in legislation, it still wouldn't change a damn thing.

The simple fact is Piracy DOES need to be stopped and if it takes one failed bill or some kind of mistake in order to better mend the future of the internet then so be it. You cant make a beef stew without slaughtering a few cows first. Eventually PETA will step in and be like wait wait wait a minute. At least kill them repectfully!

Restricting freedom of speach is never a good idea no matter how good your reasons for it might sound.

And just letting whatever happens because regular people can't have a say is a misstake. The elected official gets elected by us and if enough people protest they often do as their voters want because otherwise they wont get re-elected.

The internet does not get better because governments censors it, censorship is worse than piracy and can lead to pretty nasty stuff in the long run. If you give a goverment the right to censor the net as it see fitting that will happen sooner or later and once it started you can't stop it.

There are better ways to stop piracy than to censor things. They have tried to close down sites like piratebay a long time and even if they would succeed it still wouldn't stop pirates. Here is Sweden most people don't download music anymore because we got a good legal alternative instead in Spotify. People don't pirate copy MMOs because you pay for server space instead of just the game. Companies needs to think like that instead of just raising their prices and blame piracy.

*Uploads copyrighted pictures to every game site for signature*

Next day

*no more gaming sites, since the government shut them all down*

yeah that isn't cool.

And you can forget using usernames of your favorite characters...those will get the sites taken down too lol.  ridiculous

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhwuXNv8fJM&feature=g-all-u&context=G27277feFAAAAAAAAGAA

Educate yourself on SOPA and PIPA. 

I say stop both no question about it!

First off, it is easy to get around DNS blocking, so it only effects the uninformed.  

At least understand what is in the bill before you go off the deep end and try to support it.   The bill eliminates due process,   With the current laws several sites have already been taken down without any method of appeal beyond filing suit against the government.  The judges allowing this won't accept appeals.   This just shouts the media companies being lazy and just want the government to do their dirty work.  Besides everyone knows how government agencies work, they act before they have any facts to support them.  Those sites taken down are mostly back up, but it took them almost a year to get them back up.  This bill will make that almost impossible. 

Secondly, the bills puts the responsibility on monitoring on the website.  Please explain how something like facebook, U-Tube, etc can even begin to monitor the millions of posts made every day.  Right, they can't.  That provision alone destroys the internet as we know it.

Piracy is a bad thing and I am all for something that controls it.  Neither of these two bills will do that.   When a bill is sponsored by the media companies you can bet it is bad for everyone else.  Their agenda is "we don't need to change" and "the world is out to get us".  

If you are for these bills then you completely do not understand what is in them.  You might want to take some time and read up on them.   There is a ton of information out there.

I'd be pretty suspect of this the main elements of the bill will shut down the funding for these malignant elements.  I'm mean sure these people will still be able to download pirated stuff... but the people who do it won't get paid for it.  DNS blocking won't stop the powerful computer users who can get around it.  Nor will a lock on your car stop a criminal.  But it will stop all of the 'innocent' people from committing crimes of opportunity.

Honestly you will rather have the government deal with this than some vigilante movie studio.  If the Warner Brothers went running around with a baseball bat getting their money back you would be horrified and you'd be crying for your government to deal with it.  The political arena is the exact lawful avenue for this debate.  If you feel that corporations should become vigilantes and leave it to be acceptable you will find a dangerous world.  (Columbia Pictures hiring a private army to invade small countries?)

Restricting freedom of speach is never a good idea no matter how good your reasons for it might sound.

And just letting whatever happens because regular people can't have a say is a misstake. The elected official gets elected by us and if enough people protest they often do as their voters want because otherwise they wont get re-elected.

The internet does not get better because governments censors it, censorship is worse than piracy and can lead to pretty nasty stuff in the long run. If you give a goverment the right to censor the net as it see fitting that will happen sooner or later and once it started you can't stop it.

Let's get this argument out of the way right away.  All freedoms are restricted al lthe time.  There is no such thing as an unrestricted freedom or rights.  Many Americans think they have it, but they do not.

Take for example this classic case.  It is the middle of the night and I'm in a Jewish neighborhood.  As an expression of my freedom of speech I yell at the top of my lunges "THE HOLOCAUST IS A LIE BUT IT SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED YOU KILLED JESUS!"  Now I keep repeating this obscenity over and over and over and over.  I do it from 12AM to 8AM.  At this point I decide to go home and sleep.

Am I really so free to do this?  Would you as a citizen of the United States really ALLOW me to violate someone like this to protect MY freedom?

Of course not.

Any time a freedom or a right violates a citizen's freedoms or rights you are responsible to bring it into question and write laws to protect one from the other.

Let's give another example to round out this "I should be free to say what I want" type of argument.  Let's as a child are responsible for bringing an item to school for a presentation, kind of like how kids bring frogs and toys to show everyone.  But this one kid brings his favorite thing, a German sex tape to the class.  Now if he is free to express himself he should be able to run this tape as loud as he wants.  No one has to watch it, but he should be able to run it.

Should we let this happen?

Of course not you monster.

So no, saying something is against freedom of speech is not an acceptable argument.  The issue is not freedom of speech it is the freedom to elicitely do illegal things with no punishment all because you are protected by International esteem.

@ troublmaker

See, the thing is that no one is arguing that piracy and child pornography should be allowed to run rampant. Most people who say they're against SOPA and PIPA preface it with the fact that they do agree that piracy and those other undersirable things on the Internet are very much issues that do need to be dealt with on some level. Why we argue against SOPA and PIPA however, is because these bills are the wrong way to go about it.

SOPA and PIPA would create huge legal loopholes to allow for gross abuse of the first and fifth amendments.

It has nothing to do with defending piracy or whatever other dirty little thing on the Internet you try to shove in our faces. It has everything to do with the fact that these laws are too vaugely written and overreach far too much, and even with all of that they still completely miss the point of the intent they're advertised for.

While there may be no such thing as completely free speech, that does no mean we should support mechanisms that supress reasonable speech. Likewise while there may be no such thing as complete justice, that does not mean that we should allow the government to ignore due process.

Just because a few movie and music studios are crying foul over unprovable lost profit, despite still making cash hand over fist, doesn't mean the laws should be drastically changed to cater specifically to the rich minority of IP holders, and at the expense of everyone else's rights and freedoms.

Keep in mind that copyright infringement and things like child pornography are already illegal, and there are already methods to shut down sites that facilitate these things, as well as methods to go after those who commit these crimes. These things are not by any means being allowed to run rampant. There are already several laws written specifically to deal with these issues on the Internet alone.

To answer the article's question... YES! For God's sake, YES! Stop SOPA! It's an enormous wad of death for freedom of expression over the internet. It must be stopped if America has any hope for keeping its freedoms for much longer in the future.

DOWN WITH SOPA!

Now, the article itself is well written and approaches the issue objectively. I enjoyed reading it. Unfortunately, I don't like expressing myself objectively for something I feel is so important to my way of life. It just feels so cold... >_>

Well written and brilliant. My thoughts exactly.

Originally posted by troublmaker

 

First off, it is easy to get around DNS blocking, so it only effects the uninformed.  

At least understand what is in the bill before you go off the deep end and try to support it.   The bill eliminates due process,   With the current laws several sites have already been taken down without any method of appeal beyond filing suit against the government.  The judges allowing this won't accept appeals.   This just shouts the media companies being lazy and just want the government to do their dirty work.  Besides everyone knows how government agencies work, they act before they have any facts to support them.  Those sites taken down are mostly back up, but it took them almost a year to get them back up.  This bill will make that almost impossible. 

Secondly, the bills puts the responsibility on monitoring on the website.  Please explain how something like facebook, U-Tube, etc can even begin to monitor the millions of posts made every day.  Right, they can't.  That provision alone destroys the internet as we know it.

Piracy is a bad thing and I am all for something that controls it.  Neither of these two bills will do that.   When a bill is sponsored by the media companies you can bet it is bad for everyone else.  Their agenda is "we don't need to change" and "the world is out to get us".  

If you are for these bills then you completely do not understand what is in them.  You might want to take some time and read up on them.   There is a ton of information out there.

I'd be pretty suspect of this the main elements of the bill will shut down the funding for these malignant elements.  I'm mean sure these people will still be able to download pirated stuff... but the people who do it won't get paid for it.  DNS blocking won't stop the powerful computer users who can get around it.  Nor will a lock on your car stop a criminal.  But it will stop all of the 'innocent' people from committing crimes of opportunity.

Honestly you will rather have the government deal with this than some vigilante movie studio.  If the Warner Brothers went running around with a baseball bat getting their money back you would be horrified and you'd be crying for your government to deal with it.  The political arena is the exact lawful avenue for this debate.  If you feel that corporations should become vigilantes and leave it to be acceptable you will find a dangerous world.  (Columbia Pictures hiring a private army to invade small countries?)

 

Restricting freedom of speach is never a good idea no matter how good your reasons for it might sound.

And just letting whatever happens because regular people can't have a say is a misstake. The elected official gets elected by us and if enough people protest they often do as their voters want because otherwise they wont get re-elected.

The internet does not get better because governments censors it, censorship is worse than piracy and can lead to pretty nasty stuff in the long run. If you give a goverment the right to censor the net as it see fitting that will happen sooner or later and once it started you can't stop it.

Let's get this argument out of the way right away.  All freedoms are restricted al lthe time.  There is no such thing as an unrestricted freedom or rights.  Many Americans think they have it, but they do not.

Take for example this classic case.  It is the middle of the night and I'm in a Jewish neighborhood.  As an expression of my freedom of speech I yell at the top of my lunges "THE HOLOCAUST IS A LIE BUT IT SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED YOU KILLED JESUS!"  Now I keep repeating this obscenity over and over and over and over.  I do it from 12AM to 8AM.  At this point I decide to go home and sleep.

Am I really so free to do this?  Would you as a citizen of the United States really ALLOW me to violate someone like this to protect MY freedom?

Of course not.

Any time a freedom or a right violates a citizen's freedoms or rights you are responsible to bring it into question and write laws to protect one from the other.

Let's give another example to round out this "I should be free to say what I want" type of argument.  Let's as a child are responsible for bringing an item to school for a presentation, kind of like how kids bring frogs and toys to show everyone.  But this one kid brings his favorite thing, a German sex tape to the class.  Now if he is free to express himself he should be able to run this tape as loud as he wants.  No one has to watch it, but he should be able to run it.

Should we let this happen?

Of course not you monster.

So no, saying something is against freedom of speech is not an acceptable argument.  The issue is not freedom of speech it is the freedom to elicitely do illegal things with no punishment all because you are protected by International esteem.

 

 

you sir,   have a good grasp on this topic, I was going to write something similar but realised that I'm too lazy so I figured the next best thing would be to repost yours :) .  As far as corporations that send out goons to collect for them, we aleady have an example of that.  Just Google Monsanto and "The Seed Police"  its a scary thing. 

SOPA and PIPA: Two bills with an ideal purpose. Piracy is one of the worst diseases of the internet. Unfortunately for some it is the only viable means available to them.

The fact of the matter is this: From the entertainment side this is nothing more than an attempt by the Aging movie and TV industries to stop sites like netflix and hulu and Itunes. Netflix last year was nearly destroyed because of the MPAA and movie publishers (along with major television companies) forcing netflix to pay far higher fees and in turn passing those fees onto its consumers. As a former Netlfix customer it hurt me to leave the service but it no longer provided value for the money i was paying. I knew the reasons behind it but i can not throw money at that problem. Itunes Hulu and Netflix should serve as a model for the TV and Movie industries and show the way to end 'movie theaters' all together. Defeating of these bills in a sound matter will hopefully serve as the much needed wakeup call these idiots require. Forcing them to actually innovate rather than legistlate.

PEOPLE WILL PAY FOR PRODUCTS AT A FAIR PRICE. A proven fact. Right now the prices for such things are nowhere near fair in these economic times. 20 bucks for a brand new DVD? Just one? Come on man. Look at how Itunes is doing and tell me that isnt profit.

From a game perspective: Too few companies are willing to provide honest hard demo's in advance of their games. Triple A titles rate a 60 dollar launch price and if you're going collectors its higher. A survey of online pirates conducted in 2010 (i have not been able to dig the relevent article up if someone can find it PLEASE do so i believe it involved one of the battlefield games) Suggested that they would not pirate leaked copies if proper demo's were released giving the player the chance to evaluate the game. Demo's used to be something offered to everyone. I remember picking up PS1 discs from an EB that had 10-15 demos on them. Happend all the time for PC's they were incredible ways to evaluate the games upcoming and determine if they were worth your money.

Companies expect too much from the American Consumer: And there are pirated copies of far more expensive software as well. AutoDesk (AutoCad) The top of the market online drafitng program. Adobe Creative Suite. One of the premier if not THE premier ways of preparing media content in a number of forms. Offering them online offers no real value over a boxed copy. It shows. Compare prices. You think someone in a small business can readily afford to spend 1500 bucks? Or 2000 for a PROGRAM

The companies supporting it have lost me as a movie customer. And that hurts especially with Avengers coming out this year. I was gearing up to see that until their parent company that company voiced support for these bills. The gaming industry is adapting far faster however than TV and Movies. And have a more stable platform on which piracy needs to be combated. But they arent doing everything they can themselves to prevent it.

Draconian security measures like securRom and others (you know what i'm talking about) Are among the leading culprits. Limits on installations and a number of things lead to people looking for copies of the game without restrictions. They are not solving the problem. THEY ARE CREATING THE PROBLEM. Any one up on their computers could reinstall games several times in a year. Uninstall if they need space install again etc. Or they need to reinstall windows because of a major error/virus.

Proper Demo's. For MMO's the Beta's are good demos they have the advantage of a lack of piracy but RMT plagues them. Thats a battle for another day. For an FPS or RTS there hasnt been a real honest to god demo of a game in a while has there? And if there has been why havent people been blogging/raving about it?

Fair pricing: Stop putting 60 dollar tags on things that arent worth it. Many FPS's MMO's at Launch and supposed AAA titles dont deserve that opening price. Several recent ones do for the quallity and the content but not nearly as many as poeple think.

Three things the gaming industry as a whole can do that they are NOT DOING to curb piracy. SOPA and PIPA have the right idea. But are far too heavy handed and in the hands of people that can NOT be trusted. Congress has i believe around a 20% approval/trust rating. There is a reason for this.

That's my 2 C-bills/Isk/Credits. Defeat this bill and force the industry to innovate and adapt or live in a world where net neutrality is gone forever.

Originally posted by Hyperion5182

SOPA and PIPA: Two bills with an ideal purpose. Piracy is one of the worst diseases of the internet. Unfortunately for some it is the only viable means available to them.

 

The fact of the matter is this: From the entertainment side this is nothing more than an attempt by the Aging movie and TV industries to stop sites like netflix and hulu and Itunes. Netflix last year was nearly destroyed because of the MPAA and movie publishers (along with major television companies) forcing netflix to pay far higher fees and in turn passing those fees onto its consumers. As a former Netlfix customer it hurt me to leave the service but it no longer provided value for the money i was paying. I knew the reasons behind it but i can not throw money at that problem. Itunes Hulu and Netflix should serve as a model for the TV and Movie industries and show the way to end 'movie theaters' all together. Defeating of these bills in a sound matter will hopefully serve as the much needed wakeup call these idiots require. Forcing them to actually innovate rather than legistlate.

 

PEOPLE WILL PAY FOR PRODUCTS AT A FAIR PRICE. A proven fact. Right now the prices for such things are nowhere near fair in these economic times. 20 bucks for a brand new DVD? Just one? Come on man. Look at how Itunes is doing and tell me that isnt profit.

 

From a game perspective: Too few companies are willing to provide honest hard demo's in advance of their games. Triple A titles rate a 60 dollar launch price and if you're going collectors its higher. A survey of online pirates conducted in 2010 (i have not been able to dig the relevent article up if someone can find it PLEASE do so i believe it involved one of the battlefield games) Suggested that they would not pirate leaked copies if proper demo's were released giving the player the chance to evaluate the game. Demo's used to be something offered to everyone. I remember picking up PS1 discs from an EB that had 10-15 demos on them. Happend all the time for PC's they were incredible ways to evaluate the games upcoming and determine if they were worth your money.

 

Companies expect too much from the American Consumer: And there are pirated copies of far more expensive software as well. AutoDesk (AutoCad) The top of the market online drafitng program. Adobe Creative Suite. One of the premier if not THE premier ways of preparing media content in a number of forms. Offering them online offers no real value over a boxed copy. It shows. Compare prices. You think someone in a small business can readily afford to spend 1500 bucks? Or 2000 for a PROGRAM

 

The companies supporting it have lost me as a movie customer. And that hurts especially with Avengers coming out this year. I was gearing up to see that until their parent company that company voiced support for these bills. The gaming industry is adapting far faster however than TV and Movies. And have a more stable platform on which piracy needs to be combated. But they arent doing everything they can themselves to prevent it.

 

Draconian security measures like securRom and others (you know what i'm talking about) Are among the leading culprits. Limits on installations and a number of things lead to people looking for copies of the game without restrictions. They are not solving the problem. THEY ARE CREATING THE PROBLEM. Any one up on their computers could reinstall games several times in a year. Uninstall if they need space install again etc. Or they need to reinstall windows because of a major error/virus.

 

Proper Demo's. For MMO's the Beta's are good demos they have the advantage of a lack of piracy but RMT plagues them. Thats a battle for another day. For an FPS or RTS there hasnt been a real honest to god demo of a game in a while has there? And if there has been why havent people been blogging/raving about it?

 

Fair pricing: Stop putting 60 dollar tags on things that arent worth it. Many FPS's MMO's at Launch and supposed AAA titles dont deserve that opening price. Several recent ones do for the quallity and the content but not nearly as many as poeple think.

 

Three things the gaming industry as a whole can do that they are NOT DOING to curb piracy. SOPA and PIPA have the right idea. But are far too heavy handed and in the hands of people that can NOT be trusted. Congress has i believe around a 20% approval/trust rating. There is a reason for this.

 

That's my 2 C-bills/Isk/Credits. Defeat this bill and force the industry to innovate and adapt or live in a world where net neutrality is gone forever.

Basically this is the problem, and how I've felt about it as well.

These days most IP related products are simply too overpriced, poor quality, the same old that we've had for years. Rather than try to lower prices to a more reasonable level, put more effort into quality, or innovating, the IP industries are instead putting in enormous amounts of effort to try to change the rules on consumers.

Yes piracy is one alternative, but there are countless legal ones as well. Like you mentioned, Hulu and Netflix for example. Hell Youtube and the Internet in general has countless hours worth of free and legal entertainment. Pay $15 to go to the movies or $20 to buy a DvD that lasts a couple hours... or pay $15 for a month for gameplay time in an MMO.

Basically these industries know they're in trouble. But rather than adapt to the times, they want to try to destroy the new to keep everyone stuck in their stone age system where they can make consumers pay out the nose for sub-par products, that they make ridiculous returns in profit on.

Continue to let your congressmen know that SOPA is not okay!

Companies have become so aggressive (youtube is a great example) to the point that their hassling the average-joe for karoke with a friend or two.

If SOPA pass there is going to be a lot of fan-created works that will suffer as well as other trail-blaze websites that rely on users to generate content!

I just wanna add that nobody seems to remember the criminalization of VHS recording a football game, nor the single mother that was fined hundreds of thousands of dollars to make a statement about 'stealing' music with kazaa. They are going to make information trafficking have the same penalties as those dealing in drugs ffs.