You think it's bad now, if SOPA gets passed, it is gonna get worse

[DainBramaged]

SOPA is ostensibly designed to squelch pirate content sites by allowing the US Attorney General to get a court order forcing ISPs to block access, and by denying sites financial services like credit card or Paypal access. But critics charge that it is full of vague language, defining an infringing venue as "dedicated to theft of US property" if "it is taking, or has taken, deliberate actions to avoid confirming a high probability of the use of the US-directed site to carry out acts that constitute a violation" of US copyright laws. The bill could thus allow rightsholders to end run the DMCA's notice and takedown procedures—harming legitimate search engines and sharing sites alike.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/11/republicans-democrats-google-and-church-of-sweden-unite-to-halt-hollywood.ars

[PoliticAverse]

1. Have people learned nothing from the Righthaven fiasco ? n/t

[hootinholler]

2. Where is the due process? n/t

[Gregorian]

3. Read this for a Rude Pundit style explanation of the mess that it is.

http://cenaris.deviantart.com/journal/I-think-I-m-ready-to-boycott-Hollywood-now-269475067

No, instead, all you have to do is acquire the blacklisted website's numerical IP address and you're back in. In fact what blacklisting will do is damage the inner workings of the web. It will damage what makes the web tick. This means everyone gets screwed over by an internet that's not longer as stable and reliable. What happens when you want to view those sites you use daily? You won\'t unless you grab the IP. If it even has a single image copyrighted by any company, a small group of easily offended prudes can simply press that nuke button and glass it over. It also allows the US to pull this shit anywhere it wants. And they always accused China and Iran of having horrible censored online. You become what you hate, it seems.

So hearing about the coverage of the hearing from congress yesterday really sickened me. It really did. It's so incredibly one sided it's not even funny. For example:
-A claim was made a google search for the upcoming movie J. Edgar brings up 8 instant pages of links to a pirated version of it. It doesn't. It was proven. They were called out.
-Of the 6 witnesses brought in to testify for or against the legislation, only one, a Katherine Oyama, Google's copyright counsel, was the only one allowed in to testify against the bill. They then taunted Google for not sending someone higher up when everyone knows damn well they fiddled the panel of witnesses to stop this. Engineers, and the EFF were denied entry to testify.