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Internet Censorship
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    benduhova posted on Nov 20, 2011 12:47:28 PM - Report post
     
    quote:
    originally posted by Shotgunmaniac

    quote:
    originally posted by Shibby

    From what I understand you only have something to worry about if you are doing something you shouldn't.

    Sure, it could be abused, and if it is then jump up and down and protest by all means... but wait and see how the law will be used first.

    That's the problem. That's realistically not how US politics works any more. I mean, look at how long it took us to "solve the debt crisis." It was an artificial problem, and raising the debt ceiling is done quite frequently. Why was it such a big deal this time? GOP wants more seats, so they did what they do best and created a problem to make it look like they were going to solve it. Which brings me to:

    quote:
    originally posted by Neo7

    That's why I believe the bill is poorly written (or rather using a bad strategy). Technically you can circumvent it with extreme ease by setting your DNS settings to something like OpenDNS.


    That's why we're so screwed as a country. If the law is not precise, exact, and strictly written to its addressed purpose, all it takes is a local court to say "well, go ahead and take down youtube and google for all your users, ISP #1." Google appeals, and the ruling is granted in their favor due to the uncertainty in the law.
    So Big Business (that paid for the bill) #1 decides to take it to state level. Google wins again. Then it's taken to a federal level. Then the Supreme court. Supreme court ruling invalidates all previous rulings, states that Big Business #1 was well within its rights to file, continues to roll downhill as congress "debates," when really, every politician in the States is far right of center, "liberals" here still blow-for-blow agree with everything conservatives do, but they have to make the ideas sound even worse - for the people!

    you have a major flaw in your big business theory google is a big business facebook is a big business and why would a business want to shutdown the thousands of free plugs and advertising they receive on a daily basis from nonprofit sites or pay sites that link to the big business that would be robbing peter to pay paul no person or entity is going to cut off their nose to spite there face because it makes no business sense it sounds to me that someone has an issue with other people making money

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    Neo7 posted on Nov 20, 2011 12:52:54 PM - Report post
     
    I'm actually rather tired of all this "conservative blah blah blah" and the "liberal blah blah blah". Government and the people should be working to solve problems, not shoving rhetoric down my throat. That's the one major complaint I have for both government and the so called "99%". Neither side is making any kind of effort other than "I want attention" to suggest or deploy any kind of action that would solve problems.

    At the very least I can say that this bill is at least attempting to solve the piracy problem. I haven't heard any alternative plans from opponents other than "OMG UR PLAN SUXORZ AND SILENCE MEH"

    [Edited by Neo7, 11/20/2011 12:53:47 PM]
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    Shibby posted on Nov 21, 2011 1:25:05 AM - Report post
     
    quote:
    originally posted by Shotgunmaniac

    quote:
    originally posted by Shibby

    From what I understand you only have something to worry about if you are doing something you shouldn't.

    Sure, it could be abused, and if it is then jump up and down and protest by all means... but wait and see how the law will be used first.

    That's the problem. That's realistically not how US politics works any more. I mean, look at how long it took us to "solve the debt crisis." It was an artificial problem, and raising the debt ceiling is done quite frequently. Why was it such a big deal this time? GOP wants more seats, so they did what they do best and created a problem to make it look like they were going to solve it. Which brings me to:

    quote:
    originally posted by Neo7

    That's why I believe the bill is poorly written (or rather using a bad strategy). Technically you can circumvent it with extreme ease by setting your DNS settings to something like OpenDNS.


    That's why we're so screwed as a country. If the law is not precise, exact, and strictly written to its addressed purpose, all it takes is a local court to say "well, go ahead and take down youtube and google for all your users, ISP #1." Google appeals, and the ruling is granted in their favor due to the uncertainty in the law.
    So Big Business (that paid for the bill) #1 decides to take it to state level. Google wins again. Then it's taken to a federal level. Then the Supreme court. Supreme court ruling invalidates all previous rulings, states that Big Business #1 was well within its rights to file, continues to roll downhill as congress "debates," when really, every politician in the States is far right of center, "liberals" here still blow-for-blow agree with everything conservatives do, but they have to make the ideas sound even worse - for the people!

    Then rather than complain about one silly law how about getting rid of your government if it's not working how it should.

    Shibby __/--

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    QueenNic posted on Nov 21, 2011 1:32:23 PM - Report post
     
    Link

    Now, I was under the impression that democracy meant the people having a say and that the government was supposed to do things in the best interests of it's people. Generally, if so many oppose something then a decision to ignore those voices will only lead to outrage.
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    Shotgunmaniac posted on Nov 21, 2011 3:13:15 PM - Report post
     
    quote:
    originally posted by Shibby

    quote:
    originally posted by Shotgunmaniac

    quote:
    originally posted by Shibby

    From what I understand you only have something to worry about if you are doing something you shouldn't.

    Sure, it could be abused, and if it is then jump up and down and protest by all means... but wait and see how the law will be used first.

    That's the problem. That's realistically not how US politics works any more. I mean, look at how long it took us to "solve the debt crisis." It was an artificial problem, and raising the debt ceiling is done quite frequently. Why was it such a big deal this time? GOP wants more seats, so they did what they do best and created a problem to make it look like they were going to solve it. Which brings me to:

    quote:
    originally posted by Neo7

    That's why I believe the bill is poorly written (or rather using a bad strategy). Technically you can circumvent it with extreme ease by setting your DNS settings to something like OpenDNS.


    That's why we're so screwed as a country. If the law is not precise, exact, and strictly written to its addressed purpose, all it takes is a local court to say "well, go ahead and take down youtube and google for all your users, ISP #1." Google appeals, and the ruling is granted in their favor due to the uncertainty in the law.
    So Big Business (that paid for the bill) #1 decides to take it to state level. Google wins again. Then it's taken to a federal level. Then the Supreme court. Supreme court ruling invalidates all previous rulings, states that Big Business #1 was well within its rights to file, continues to roll downhill as congress "debates," when really, every politician in the States is far right of center, "liberals" here still blow-for-blow agree with everything conservatives do, but they have to make the ideas sound even worse - for the people!

    Then rather than complain about one silly law how about getting rid of your government if it's not working how it should.

    Again, does not work like that. If I wanted to "get rid of my government," I could feasibly go about this two ways: armed revolt, or raise a billion dollars. I would need the latter to even attempt the former in most third-world countries, and pure political work: doesn't. Not advocating the former either, I'd rather have our current idiots nipping at each other playing at being the country's bossman than a government of people who'd actually offered up their own lives clawing at each other.

    quote:
    originally posted by Neo7

    I'm actually rather tired of all this "conservative blah blah blah" and the "liberal blah blah blah". Government and the people should be working to solve problems, not shoving rhetoric down my throat. That's the one major complaint I have for both government and the so called "99%". Neither side is making any kind of effort other than "I want attention" to suggest or deploy any kind of action that would solve problems.

    At the very least I can say that this bill is at least attempting to solve the piracy problem. I haven't heard any alternative plans from opponents other than "OMG UR PLAN SUXORZ AND SILENCE MEH"


    That's what I'm trying to get at, more or less. We're just a country of rights who want more money and more power. Conservative and liberal mean the same thing here, they're just strawman buzzwords. And the simple fact is, it's difficult to go about policing piracy. Do you sue the organization/person hosting the site, the person downloading it, the company hosting the domain, or any combination of the three? Do you just remove the website? Do you sue for each pirated item, whether or not they're present on one party's harddrive? Do you have to contact each company affected, and have them decide whether or not to press charges, or have it all handled federally and then dispense proportionate compensation to each party? Equal compensation? What constitutes an "illegal download?"

    If I'm asking all these questions, then you can be damn sure no US politicians are going to come up with a law that treats both the copyright owners (big and small) and the pirates (big and small) fairly.

    quote:
    originally posted by Nic_Durron

    Now, I was under the impression that democracy meant the people having a say and that the government was supposed to do things in the best interests of it's people. Generally, if so many oppose something then a decision to ignore those voices will only lead to outrage.


    America is a "Federal presidential constitutional Republic." As a citizen, my entire involvement in any political decision is who I vote for. My father was a prominent police official in my state for some years, even met two governors, not to mention countless local officials. This was back in the 60s-80s. You know, "before" America got bad, when the Cold War was still the big thing. The only thing he ever heard from a politician, despite having secured the land for a state police station and three local, on matters of policing?

    "I understand your concern, and I will take it under advisement." IE: "Oh, it's so sad that you've fed five kids on minimal government pay because it was a job that had to be done, now your wife's left you for a lawyer? I like lawyers! Yeah, your ideas on pension are stupid, because you're not that lawyer."

    That. That is American politics.

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    Neo7 posted on Nov 21, 2011 5:17:06 PM - Report post
     
    Getting rid of the government costs lots of resources and would have extreme future problems. Given the US's current economic status in the government, this really isn't an option unless you're prepared to say goodbye to independence and probably become China's dependency for a very long time if not permanently (if this happens, then way more of your freedom goes bye bye in the long term).

    Now to address those questions:

    Do you sue the organization/person hosting the site, the person downloading it, the company hosting the domain, or any combination of the three?

    -It is possible to sue both parties but it is much more effective to go after the person providing. Note that with the rise of decentralized file sharing (P2P, torrents, etc) that the user becomes both the provider and the user making it much more susceptible to suing all. The protocol often puts the blame on the users (meaning the company providing the service will throw its some of its users under the bus to cover its own ass) when it comes to using it for piracy. This is selfish since the service should be providing means of moderation (look at our site. We have us the moderation team go around and enforce the rules including piracy). File sharing very rarely provides this moderation which is poor design on them.


    Do you just remove the website?

    - The site needs to be regulated and altered with laws specifying 2 conditions: (1) The site serves a genuine purpose (i.e. YouTube is meant to broadcast original content made by other users such as Ashens, AVGN, NicePeter, etc). Next (2) the site needs to have an active moderation system in place to filter out the bad links in a timely manner (look at CHU's own moderation team for example). Sites that do not follow these should be taken down.

    Do you sue for each pirated item, whether or not they're present on one party's harddrive?

    -The law is based around what you can prove. The internet is a dangerous place and framed crimes happen all the time (both with technology and without). Proper knowledge of computer security is a requirement to safely use the internet. Improper security leads to malicious users leaching your connection to do bad things. Just like here on CHU, we hold the user ultimately responsible for what happens on their account regardless of it being hijacked beyond their control or not, many ISPs already have such a clause in the Terms of Service for the internet. If a company can prove that you pirated item "x" then they have every right to sue you for it.

    Do you have to contact each company affected, and have them decide whether or not to press charges, or have it all handled federally and then dispense proportionate compensation to each party?

    -The company has the full range of what it can do in terms of the legal system. They can ask for compensation and arbitration instead. They can choose to use the legal system. That is the rights of the company.

    Equal compensation?

    -Worth is determined by legal process, outside settlement, or arbitration. It has always been this way for civil crimes regardless of the charge.

    What constitutes an "illegal download?"

    -An illegal download is the acquiring of software/file to which you do not have the rights to.
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    Shotgunmaniac posted on Nov 21, 2011 9:35:24 PM - Report post
     
    'Tis a pity these are not the rational answers you would find from anyone in the US government. I won't nitpick each point, but needless to say, there is always going to be more to it, (well, in reality, just a lot of definitions and terms to expand on what moderation is and all that jazz) and we still have the majority of our major decision makers coming from the baby boomer era - people who either own the rights and will thus be entirely hardliners, or lack a full understanding of the issue.

    I honestly see pretty much all major crime as black and white (see "cop dad" post) but I just don't see piracy as something that can effectively be persecuted, or stopped, similarly to any other kind of crime. If you sue the people getting the pirated material, you'll rapidly see families with children and internet access homeless. And no, that's not an exaggeration, try having a 16 year old with a brand new license in the US without car insurance (though driving without such is illegal in my state anyway, not sure on others) so much as ding a high-end car whose driver has a lawyer - I'm good friends with a man who has been a driving instructor for the better part of fifteen years, and it happens more often than I can say without retching.

    If you go after the source, well, there'll always be havens. Always. Tax havens, drug havens, data havens. I know it's not that simple with something like pirated material, but to take that down, you have to take down or essentially redact sites, and investigate each accusation of hosting the material. At best, it takes a lot of manpower and a lot of man-hours. At worst, you do get the "we've got no freedoms!" deal in play.

    I honestly don't know if I'm babbling nonsense at this point or not, I'm tired. The last thought I had on the issue earlier was: if we actually want to crack down on piracy, like I said, we need the opposite of what we have: coherent people who understand the issue, making precise definitions and accounting for every little inevitability they can. But we also need the copyright holders who really don't want their work pirated to understand that potential solutions will take time, effort, and money. They need to be proactive in determining the law, but not padding the lawmakers' wallets.

    In my opinion, they especially need to be involved in the investigation of both the hosts and users, (if the latter are to be charged to any large degree) and contribute funding to an independent body that does said investigating. Possibly tax the larger corporations that file claims for a dedicated federal bureau, I dunno.

    Blegh. All this political talk is making me more sleepy.
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    Neo7 posted on Nov 21, 2011 9:57:39 PM - Report post
     
    Some of the concepts I used I would not expect a standard user to understand. I know them because I study computers formally and have a career in computer science. I wouldn't expect a typical user to understand what P2P or torrent or FOSS is. What I do expect is that I have to explain it to them so that they can get at least the main idea. The only company making any effort to make the jargon easier to understand is Google.

    When freedom is abused, everyone will suffer for it. Government or no government, that is the basic law of human interaction.
    Your bitterness, I will dispel
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