to think that SOPA will be the death of mumsnet and any site which ordinary people can post on?

[threefeethighandrising]

The SOPA blackout yesterday - it was about piracy on the internet, right? Well yes and no.

If SOPA passes, then it will be illegal not only to host illegal content (e.g. songs) but to link to them. And it's not just in the US - they want to censor everyone in the world.

So, that wedding video of yours where you're dancing to your favourite tune for example? If you post a link to your youtube video of it on mumsnet, not only will you be committing copyright infringement, so will youtube, and mumsnet too for linking to it.

You, youtube and mumsnet will be committing a crime under US law
Under these new laws they will have the power to effectively switch off mumsnet, extradite and jail or fine you, the owners of mumsnet and youtube.

(If you think this won't happen, see this [[http://www.chad.co.uk/news/local/alfreton/bolsover_mum_calls_on_government_to_step_in_after_son_loses_extradition_battle_to_united_states_1_4151073 23 year old student extradited to US and facing up to 10 years because he made a website - legal under UK law - which ^linked( to material which was infringing copyright

[[http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2007/10/riaa-jury-finds/ Single mother fined $222,000 for downloading 24 songs).

The US government will see mumsnet as coming under US law - as mumsnet has a .com address, it's american as far as they're concerned.

If the website breaking their law is outside of the US, then they will still have the power to effectively shut down the site - even if what the site is doing is legal its own country. The law also prohibits the website owners from suing - e.g. for having their business destroyed - even if found innocent! (There's loads of room for abuse for commercial gain by rival companies here).

If passed what this will mean in practice is that it's just too risky to run websites which have user-generated content.

Youtube, Flickr, Facebook, Twitter are obvious examples, and sites like mumsnet too.

It will destroy the internet as we know it.

Why are they doing it? The sponsors of the bill include many large media companies. They basically want to turn the internet into a media channel, where they can broadcast to us. There's a huge amount of money at stake here for them.

Nothing has happened yet. In one day 4.5 million Americans joined a Google protest to vote no on SOPA and PIPA. Hundreds of thousands to millions more have signed other petitions (both internationally and American specific).

Obama has said that he doesn't support the bills.

From what I have read, the two biggest financers or supporters of the bill have caved and withdrawn support.

It's looking positive that this will not be signed into law.

Aw, MrsDeVere

Hopefully nothing will change.

It's not going to happen. Everyone I know here is against it.

Couldn't be better for Ron Paul's campaign...this election is going to be verrrrry interesting indeed.

What are you thinking, Yank - will Ron Paul split the r-wing vote and Obama will come through the middle? (What I'm vaguely hoping for. I know Obama's not great, but the thought of Romney or Santorus... bloomin' heck)

YANBU. It's a horrible attempt to take away democratic power over information.

My books are on googlebooks, free. Ok, I lose a tiny bit of income from royalties, but I gain readers. We should oppose SOPA in every way possible.

I think he might turn out to be one to beat, is all.

thisis,
You cannot be neutral when it comes to breaking the law. Either you help someone break the law or you do not. Imagien if the yellow pages decided to eb enautral and list every illegal brothel, shop that sold hooky dvds, stolen goods etc. If you ask a business for details of a place where you can steal, and they give you directions they are responsible for that regardless of whether they judge you or not. If soemoen comes up to you and asks you where there are unsupervised children that are easy to take and you give them directions you have some responsibility if they take a child, you cannot claim that you are law neutral and do nto judge and it is up to individuels not to follow your directions. the same goes when google a business is asked for details of a place for watching vidoes of child abuse and directs people to it. The same goes for stolen goods, telling people where they can get hold of stolen goods in RL is a crime, companies cannot just decide they are above the law.

sieglinde,
It is not information, but actual products. If you want to give away products for free then you are allowed to. But you are not allowed to steal books claiming it is your right to steal. Blockbusters and waterstone's might give books and films away fror free if they choose, but you do not have the right to march in there and take any book or film you want -that is called theft, and it is no different if you steal from the shop or steal online.

Kelly, as I understand it, he was simply linking to lots of sites where people could stream stuff. I believe there were legitimate sites included. At this point it becomes the individual's responsibility to decide whether they use a legitimate site and pay for their goodies or not. The consequences of this guy's action are completely disproportionate to what he has actually done. Apart from the fact that it is perfectly legal for him to have done it, or did you miss that bit?

And please don't impugn my honesty.

I don't think we're arguing about whether it's legal Jux, I think we're arguing about whether it's moral. I think the TV Shack guy, morally, needs to take responsibility for deliberately signposting stolen content.

I agree with kelly - the idea that all actions on the internet are somehow morally neutral is nonsense on stilts, surely? The big search engines have done their darnedest to filter out links to sites containing images of child abuse, so it's not like it can't be done.

Why are we placing the responsibility for searching and finding illegal material with the people who have created a program which finds anything. Why are we not placing the responsibility with those doing the searching?

It is not for a search engine or an ISP to police the internet; especially since this will not actually stop people finding illegal goods.

People need to be responsible for their own behaviour.

Net neutrality is important because if we don't have it, where does it end? All massive changes happen with small ones.

i think it's a really interesting point Nickname, and I don't really know what the answer is.

Automated processes, like the Google spider or ISPs - yes, I can see it's completely unworkable to hold them accountable for every bit of content. (It's not unreasonable, though, to ask them to manually exclude content that has been found (after due legal process) to be illegal in the country in which they are based.)

But I'm guessing TV Shack wasn't automated; it was curated by an individual; there was motivation/intent there. So yes, he needs to be accountable for that, doesn't he? If I knowingly linked to illegal material from my blog, for example, I'd expect to be held accountable.

More broadly, there is a philosophical problem with the internet. The tech lobby's position on copyright infringement, for example (as I understand it) is: sorry, copyright's a goner; get used to it. Practically speaking, they might be right. That doesn't make it morally OK, though.

So Cube, are you now arguing it's fine for a UK citizen to be extradited to a foreign country to face charges and a draconian jail sentence for something which was done and perfectly legal in this country but just happens to be immoral?

Do we really want to tread the path where people can be thrown in prison for moral crimes?

if you knowingly aid someone to steal you should be held accountable. net neutrality can extend to politics, religions etc, but they cannot extend to laws. You cannot decide to go onlien and commit crimes and be exempt. Google and co have no problem using laws to protect their patents (and they have copyrighted their logo and name), but it seems they think the law is there to only protect big corporations such as themselves.

I bet not one person here would argue that the yellow pages have neutrality and therefore have a right to post details of comapnies offereing illegal services. people who steal films, music, books online are no different from shoplifters, and those that aid and abet them shoudl also be accountable. If people feel the internet is no good to them if it does not help them nick stuff then that is their problem.

If you doubt this law would be misused, I agreed with you until I read this At the moment, copyright owners can issue "DMCA takedown demands" asking copyright-infringing sites to remove pages. This law has already been used in many bogus ways, for example:

In 2007, blogger Michelle Malkin made a youtube video criticizing hip-hop artist Akon for his "degrading" and "misogynistic" lyrics. She included clips of his songs to demonstrate her point, and the video sparked widespread criticism of Akon. In response, Universal Music Group filed a DMCA takedown demand and got youtube to remove the video, even though this usage of clips was actually allowed under the 'fair use' section of the DMCA. With legal help, Malkin managed to get the video restored to youtube.

There are many similar examples of misuse of DMCA on the link above, with big companies claiming copyright infringement to suppress criticism or creative expression.

So that's what's already happening with the existing laws; with SOPA and PIPA it could be far worse. Sites hosting material that the copyright holders claim is infringed (so not just straight piracy cases, but potentially videos with short song clips, or parodies, etc) can be effectively forced offline, even if the vast majority of the site is legitimate. Worse, then if someone posts a link to the infringing site on mumsnet, mumsnet could be in trouble too. If mumsnet is accused of "facilitating the activities of copyright infringement", a broad definition which could include not preventing mumsnetters from posting such links, then the act would require US search engines to stop linking to mumsnet, require US advertising services to no longer serve ads on mumsnet, require US payment services to stop providing transactions for mumsnet, and require US service providers to stop the web address "www.mumsnet.com" from reaching the site.

I'm not an expert, but the above is what I understand from reading various articles- it looks very worrying. A good detailed explanation is available from reddit.

Youtube simply would not exist if SOPA/PIPA was around.

Most people won't realise or remember but when YouTube first started (before Google rocked up and bought them for $$$ billions), it was a young start up firm and most of the videos uploaded were pirated TV shows, music etc.

So it would have been blocked shortly after going live and never have been given the chance to develop into the highly useful tool billions of us use on a daily basis for one reason or another.

Excellent, excellent, excellent. Anything which restricts access to the internet is EXCELLENT imo.

At this point I don't care about rights and all the rest of it (although obviously I'd squirm a little less with my Excellents if it was privately owned)- I think the internet is so damaging and the benefits are far, far outweighed by the costs.

The thing is, this act isn't just about pirates, it's much bigger than that.

The US already has the power to go after people it perceives to be pirates. The British 23 year-old for example has been extradited and faces a possible lengthy sentence under existing laws.

The single mum fined £222,000 for downloading 24 songs also was prosecuted under existing laws.

Youtube certainly wouldn't be able to exist as it does now if these laws are passed. Nor Flickr, Facebook or any site which allows users to upload content.

This isn't about whether people should be able to distribute pirated material (that's already illegal). It's about whether you should be liable to be prosecuted if someone you have no connection with uploads a non-copyrighted video onto your site, or links to one.

And it's much easier to fall foul of copyright laws than you might realise.

Did you realise that "Happy Birthday" is a copyrighted song?! If you've ever posted a video of anyone singing happy birthday online, you've infringed copyright!

"It's about whether you should be liable to be prosecuted if someone you have no connection with uploads a non-copyrighted video onto your site, or links to one."

Sorry I should have said it's about several issues like this example - that's not the only one!

kelly, information is NOT a product, and thinking it is or should be IS the problem.

It all may be down to curbing piracy, or controlling consumer choices, but I have a suspicion it's a little deeper than that.

If this bill were passed - then that would mean only the media companies/ entities holding the copyrights for any given Internet material could legitmately broadcast that. No more links.

Say a blogger wanted to make a contentious point about something - j dunno let's say US foreign policy - then make a link directing readers to the point being contended about. The blogger would no longer be able to substantiate his/her viewpoint using the link.
If you wanted to know about this particular area you would in all likelihood have to go to the horses mouth so to speak. So in this case it would mean going to any of the news broadcasting channels online (CNN, BBC etc). Where you would be getting their particular slant on it.

I think it's more to do with wanting to curb the Internet down as much as possible and allowing broadcasting of information to be in the hands of a very select few. These select few can then allow whatever agenda to flow to the masses.

Sorry about any incoherent babblings... Just a thought!

"I think it's more to do with wanting to curb the Internet down as much as possible and allowing broadcasting of information to be in the hands of a very select few. These select few can then allow whatever agenda to flow to the masses."

I think you've hit the nail on the head, unfortunately I think this is exactly what's going on here.

To understand what the web would look like if this law were passed I suggest you go and look at The Times newspaer website (owned by Rupert Murdoch). You can't read anything without paying The Times for access past their Paywall and you cannot cut and paste quote anything without breaching copyright. You cannot post a link because anyone clicking a link cannot get past the paywall.

The long established 'fair use' policy on photocopying newspapers and books in libraries does not seem to apply.

Did you realise that "Happy Birthday" is a copyrighted song?!

No I didn't - can you tell me who owns the copyright please?

Ivykaty According to wikipedia, it's owned by the Warner Music Group. One legal expert disputes whether it's valid, but due to the copyright, the song is rarely shown in films.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Birthday_to_You.