Reading through this and it's like walking through sludge......anyone else seen this?  Any thoughts about what this is going to effect ?

This is a sincere effort to try to understand this bill and not to start up any type of political BS or debate.  Trying to understand it to see if this will in fact help us as artists and merchants.

 

Thanks :)

http://www.publicknowledge.org/files/The_Stop_Online_Piracy_Act_HR-3261_10-26-11.pdf

I am not a lawyer, but from what I've understood, this act tries to implement DNS filters for warez sites. But I may have missed central points. 

Attached Link: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:HR03261:@@@D&summ2=m&

This is, for all intents and purposes, a summary.  Basically, this would have nothing to do with artists or anyone in this community, unless they are gathering and selling databases of information collated or created by another person.  This doesn't have much to do with copyright, IMHO.  Even in what I read, there was almost NOTHING to do with the copyright of artistic works, unless it's hidden in the legalese.  

YMMV, IANAL.

There was an article on Lifehacker about it. Don't have the link tho.

Laurie

Hmmm...Jen not sure that's the same animal anymore, I've been reading the pdf on the latest incarnation of the bill, .......but I'll look that over again thank you :)

 

Laurie, thank you for the tip, I'll look them up on Lifehacker.

 

First of all this is a House Bill and must be voted on, if it hasn't already, and if it passes then it goes to the Senate who will then add to or delete portions of the House Bill and then the Senate has to vote on it.  Then it'll go back to the House who will either vote on it or make changes and then it goes back to the Senate... when both chambers finally reach an agreement it gets voted on and if it passes then it becomes law.

Second, the US has to have jurisdiction.  If the internet site is outside of the US jurisdiction then there isn't a whole lot that this law can do.  But, it appears they are trying to make a law that allows the US Attorney General the ability to prosecute those sites that provide access to digital content.   

I heard that Google is thinking of leaving the US chamber of commerce because of this.  I also heard that the MPAA (movie guys) are for it, which is kind of hypocritical because Hollywood was created by the early filmmakers who wanted to get around Edison's patents and the 9th circuit helped make that possible.

One possibly troubling thing is a 3rd party can say "I own the rights to X on site Y" and make the credit card companies and ad companies stop sending funds to that site.  Also it doesn't target out of country sites only, it has rules effecting US companies. 

All I know is that I don't trust it nor do I trust the government with it.  :

Quote - Hmmm...Jen not sure that's the same animal anymore, I've been reading the pdf on the latest incarnation of the bill, .......but I'll look that over again thank you :)

 

Laurie, thank you for the tip, I'll look them up on Lifehacker.

 

I'm reading the one you posted here.  I'm reading a lot about protecting consumers from purchasing drugs online that are either impotent or too strong, preventing people from purchasing drugs without a prescription, and preventing people from buying from out-of-country pharmacists. I'm reading NOTHING about copyright.  And, of course, about 40 pages of defining what the internet is (because THAT is the most important part, lol).

I heard Al Gore knows most about the internet. I wonder if they consulted with him?

Laurie

Not sure...Jen, this bill appears to be all over the place. If one was to believe what they are calling it "Stop Online Piracy Act"  we should be led to believe that it's about stopping online piracy which has nothing to do with prescription drugs etc.....

Our politicians are really in touch, aren't they?

Of course the eyes glaze over after about the 20th time they try to define the internet LOL!!

I'm going to go back through it again, cuz it's got so many twists and turns in it that it makes you wonder what they are really trying to do.

Winterclaw, after getting deeper into this bill (what a fargin' mess this thing is) I can see why the MPAA people are behind it...

Jen I see the pharmaceutical reference, I'm still trying to figure out what that has to do with the true definition of "online piracy"....unless they have redefined it to mean "stealing people's money" or it's just something that was piggybacked onto it to get it passed.

I have a headache from trying to figure out just what the heck this bill is about. It was brought to my attention by someone that watchdogs bills pretty much, and they wanted me to sign a petition or write my rep about it.  Bottom line is I don't write anyone or pass info along until I look it over myself.  I figured you all might be good second sets of eyes as well :) since anytime the term "piracy" and "intellectual property" comes up it definately is something we as artists and merchants should at least glance at to try to figure out just what's going on. :)

The bill is also 7 years old.  If it hasn't gotten out of the House by now...

Jurisdictional limitations render the bill toothless, whether it ever passes or not.

I totally agree with Winterclaw. Whenever the government tries to implement controls over the internet, or any other communications medium, the cure is always worse than the problem.

I usually give the Electronic Frontier Foundation's position on these things serious consideration.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/10/sopa-hollywood-finally-gets-chance-break-internet