Stop SOPA & PIPA

[Dracaena]

There is some very bad legislation being attempted to be passed in the US Congress that everyone who uses the Internet needs to be aware of. Part of this is already shelved, but that just means they will regroup and try again so vigilance is needed. I am not good at eloquent writing so I will give you some links and let you check this out for yourself.

http://americancensorship.org/

http://fightforthefuture.org/PIPA

A very frightening video here on youtube with background information, do watch. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJIuYgIvKsc


A link here for people outside the USA to voice their objection.

http://www.avaaz.org/en/save_the_int...?cl=1425589399

This is not an all inclusive list but I wanted to get the word out to people since I didn't find a thread on this topic here.

[Akrion]

http://community.istaria.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=24977

This is the original thread about an earlier iteration of the bill before it became SOPA/PIPA. But yes, definitely needs to be made as public as possible.

[AmonGwareth]

Dead! For now anyway... http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/te...g&st=cse&scp=1

[Thicklesip]

Dead! For now anyway... http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/te...g&st=cse&scp=1

I like how that article never even alludes to how many small people who weren't feeding politicians money stood up and screamed to get those proposals killed. No, it was that some of the other lobbyists suddenly dumped more money in. Nothing to do with a flotilla of politicians suddenly faced with huge swathes of their constituents threatening their reelection odds. Nope.

But hooray! Glad to hear this didn't just get killed, it go buried in the back of the closet for now. (Not that they won't try again, but next time they might not be as complacent about it.)

[Fratricide]

As you can see, as proven by this article, Hollywood Money is the source of this bill in the first place. I'm so glad that special interest groups have the ability to grab the ear of congress so far as to get a bill written to completely stifle the rights of the individual in this country. Doesn't it make you wonder how many other laws have been written and passed to support some wealthy persons business?

I've got one.

Auto Insurance... Wow, most states won't let you get a car, or drive one, or even have a license if you can't prove you have insurance on the vehicle you plan to drive.

[Vaz]

I am proud to be Oregonian. Our politicians bring honor to the word "politician" by doing the right thing again and again and again. That article is far from the only one to mention Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR)'s dedication to stopping SOPA and PIPA.

[Steelclaw]

Good... for now. It'll be back again... and again... and again... unless...

If only there was a way to direct the SOPA/PIPA attention and momentum to a more fundamental focus: copyright reform. Current and proposed copyright law only protects big players and locks away their work long after it has lost its commercial value. Copyright violations only become criminal if the work in question exceeds a certain commercial value threshold and the work has been registered. SOPA set this threshold at $2500. (This means you go to jail if 11 people download a record label's song that you uploaded, but the record company gets to tell you to go pound sand if they use your painting from dA without your permission on their album's artwork.)

I'd very much like to see a shorter lifetime on works (on the order of 15 years) and/or diminished protection once a predetermined net profit has been made from distributing the work. Without a line, some budgeted goal that was missed, there's no reasonable way to quantify or deal with losses.

[Dhalin]

As you can see, as proven by this article, Hollywood Money is the source of this bill in the first place. I'm so glad that special interest groups have the ability to grab the ear of congress so far as to get a bill written to completely stifle the rights of the individual in this country. Doesn't it make you wonder how many other laws have been written and passed to support some wealthy persons business?

I've got one.

Auto Insurance... Wow, most states won't let you get a car, or drive one, or even have a license if you can't prove you have insurance on the vehicle you plan to drive.

No offense dude, but um...

Auto Insurance is a very necessary thing.

Yes it does help out Insurance companies, but just picture what would happen if you weren't required to have insurance:

Say you have insurance and you wreck your car into someone else's car.

Your Auto Insurance is the only thing that keeps you from going bankrupt, especially if there were fatalities involved.

If it weren't for your Auto Insurance, the other party could sue you, and the damages would be simply astounding, so astounding that your average Joe wouldn't be able to afford it.

They know that most average Joes can't afford lawsuits that would result from car crashes, so Auto Insurance was created, same reason Medical Insurance was created.

I was in a car wreck just last Christmas (not this past one, the one before it, 2010). The bill for the whole wreck was in the thousands of dollars; I would have been utterly broke, and that's without any possible lawsuits that would have been involved if I had not had car insurance.

Considering how stupid a lot of people drive, you'd have a lot of people homeless and out on the streets after a single car wreck if it weren't for Auto Insurance.

It is a very necessary thing.

Do the insurance companies benefit from it? Heck yes. But this is one case where I'd have to agree with the law -- we Need it, plain and simple. Especially with how everyone is so itchy to sue everyone else over everything these days.

[Fratricide]

Dhalin... Im not discounting the fact that people need the insurance, what I have issues with is the fact that the Government is dictating to everyone that they HAVE to have insurance. I would personally have insurance even if the government didn't require it, because it is the Intelligent thing to do, unless of course you have millions of dollars just laying about that you could pay compensation to others from.

I also have home insurance, renters insurance, fire insurance, health insurance, dental insurance, eye insurance.. etc... doesn't mean that I need the government to force me to have it, I have it because it is usually cheaper to have insurance then to deal with the prices of things if you didn't have it. Forcing people to have insurance shouldn't be the way to go.

The only people that should be able to force you to have insurance on your vehicle, is any lien holder of your vehicle. If they require you to have full coverage, then you won't have a vehicle very long if your loan contract says you have insurance or they repossess your vehicle. I nearly had that happen to me because I failed to update my lien holder with my new insurance company when I swapped companies. It was ridiculous.

[Steelclaw]

The requirement for you to carry auto insurance isn't so much to protect you; it's to compensate the other parties when you're at fault. (You need liability insurance by law, not comprehensive/collision.)

Consider with no law requiring insurance:

If a driver hits you, they're at fault, and you suffer $25,000 in medical bills, there's a problem. If the driver doesn't have insurance, your only options are to sue the driver, or get your insurance to pick up the tab, if your policy covers uninsured drivers. The driver may not have the money or assets to cover your legal fees and the medical bills (even if you won a lawsuit). They shrug and keep on driving with no insurance. You, however, are screwed.

Your insurance company may pay up to your policy limit as part of uninsured motorist coverage, but anything beyond that is out of pocket. Your premium will probably go up as a result as well. Failing that, you're stuck paying out of pocket for whatever your medical insurance won't cover from the $25,000.

Requiring auto insurance means that your journey for compensation hopefully stops when you present your medical bill and busted up car to the other driver's insurance company, at which point the hospital gets paid, your bank account stays level, and your car gets fixed.

[Dhalin]

The requirement for you to carry auto insurance isn't so much to protect you; it's to compensate the other parties when you're at fault. (You need liability insurance by law, not comprehensive/collision.)

Consider with no law requiring insurance:

If a driver hits you, they're at fault, and you suffer $25,000 in medical bills, there's a problem. If the driver doesn't have insurance, your only options are to sue the driver, or get your insurance to pick up the tab, if your policy covers uninsured drivers. The driver may not have the money or assets to cover your legal fees and the medical bills (even if you won a lawsuit). They shrug and keep on driving with no insurance. You, however, are screwed.

Your insurance company may pay up to your policy limit as part of uninsured motorist coverage, but anything beyond that is out of pocket. Your premium will probably go up as a result as well. Failing that, you're stuck paying out of pocket for whatever your medical insurance won't cover from the $25,000.

Requiring auto insurance means that your journey for compensation hopefully stops when you present your medical bill and busted up car to the other driver's insurance company, at which point the hospital gets paid, your bank account stays level, and your car gets fixed.

^^
He explained it better than I did admittedly. That wreck I mentioned earlier? It wasn't my fault. Thankfully, though, the other driver -was- insured and between the two insurance companies, my medical bills were paid. I didn't have collision (that is crazy expensive), so I had to buy a new car... but hell, $2500 bucks is better than the $8000+ for the whole thing, with the CT scans, ambulance fees, stitching up my hand, the doctor visit to get stitches removed, whatever fees 911/police would charge, blah blah.

[Fratricide]

I totally understand why they have mandated insurance, the problem, as I've already stated, isn't the need for insurance, its the Mandate itself.

People should be smart enough on their own to have insurance, the government shouldn't be needed to require people to overcome their common sense deficiency syndrome. I grew up in California, a state that has required insurance on vehicles probably longer then most states. I don't know all the initial reasoning behind the requirement, but I know it had something to do with Illegal immigrants / Migrant workers. There were apparently too many of them getting into accidents without any insurance or any way to compensate the victims of accidents that they caused.

The problem with laws that try force people that are either illegal, or choose not to obey the laws in the first place, is that the laws also punish the law abiding citizens as well. True, in some cases you can claim you are choosing the lesser of the two problems, force everyone to do one thing, so the ones that aren't can be punished because they don't belong in society in the first place. But there is also reasoning that we shouldn't have to force law abiding citizens to do things against their will, and that will cost them money.

It is true that I don't technically have to drive a car, thus not requiring a license, or insurance, but... what about if Im riding a bicycle, and I run into a vehicle, put a scratch down the side of a car, or t-bone someone that is encroaching on the bike paths. I am still liable for the damages, and required no license, or insurance, are you now going to require everyone that rides a bicycle to have a license and insurance. If that is the case, are you going to license children?

How about helmet laws? If you ride a motorcycle, you are required to have insurance as well, but what about helmets? States have laws about seat belts, but some of those same states don't care about helmets, so who's helping the people that could otherwise be saved from their common sense issues with not wearing a helmet?

Where do you draw the line on where the government ends and where ones own common sense begins?

[lightning claw]

With great sadness i must report that the movie industry has found a catch 22 even throw Megavideo and affiliates complied with every request to take down and or shut down accounts the following day after the bills where killed the feds backed by Pita Rora and the rest seized the domain arrested the owners and drummed up bogus charges of racketeering as well as copyright infringement and a conspiracy to commit money laundering

Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom and three other employees were arrested by authorities in New Zealand on Thursday while three others remain at large. A federal judge in Virginia ordered the seizure of 18 domain names affiliated with what the feds called the “Mega conspiracy,” knocking the website offline. About $50 million in assets were seized and 20 search warrants were executed by law enforcement officials in the U.S. and eight other countries.

A 72-page indictment in the Eastern District of Virginia lays out a consipiracy in which the Megaupload employees were part of a “worldwide criminal organization whose members engaged in criminal copyright infringement and money laundering on a massive scale.”

Dotcom allegedly made over $42 million from the conspiracy in calendar year 2010 alone, according to court documents. Authorities seized dozens of luxury cars as well as large LCD televisions and various pieces of artwork from the defendants.

The Justice Department estimated that the conspiracy caused half a billion dollars in harm to copyright owners,My edit lets see Megavideo complied with all copyright infringement notices if they where notified B. yes there where some new shows on megavideo but a big hunk of there content where shows that have been out of production and circulation for YEARS you where not doing anything with the content you where not getting any form of money form the series so whats the harm in letting people who enjoy your work watch at there leisure?

While the indictment mentions that premium users of Megaupload had paid for access to copyright materials, a law enforcement official said that the investigation targeted the leaders of the conspiracy rather than users.(HORSE CRAP there is a saying in the great state of Montana it goes something like this, "Don't P--- on my leg and tell me its raining." YOU got agitated that the American people took power and in one voice told you NO

Thursday’s bust came a day after a variety of websites went dark in protest of the Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), which they say would give far too much power to the government to essentially shut down websites. The sponsor of PIPA said the Megaupload development actually demonstrated the need for such legislation.Obviously your not paying attention to your audience Wake up and smell the cyber cafe people Why haven't you thought of doing this your self ? YOU just admitted that a sight hosting a mix of content some new some out of circulation and some random videos on some ones I phone supposedly caused you only 500 m in losses i for one thing that's a very liberal estimate on the high end so your mad at them for finding a new market ? to keep a good hunk of content you cant even find on amazon anymore alive and giving credit to the people that made it

“Today’s action by the Department of Justice against the leaders of MegaUpload.com shows what law enforcement can do to protect American intellectual property that is stolen through domestic websites,” Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said in a statement. He continued:

Unfortunately, there are no tools in the arsenal to protect that same American intellectual property from theft by websites hosted and operated overseas. Why should we give greater protections to criminals engaging in the same conduct overseas? Meaningful legislation to stop online infringement and piracy by foreign rogue websites will protect American workers, American consumers and America’s economy. The PROTECT IP Act would close this gap and offer a meaningful solution to this costly and corrosive problem.” If this is your congress men Please give him your vote for a PINKSLIP this November for being a complete and utter moron

YOU are way off target dude sights like megavideo are not he enemy there is a sight called PIRATE BAY lets look at that name for a minute PIRATE BAY Hmmmmmmm nope not one chance any copy infringement is in that sight *cough* hacker hideout *cough* lets for once use our god given brains and use that gift called common sense ( knows i might be flamed by the left for saying commonsense cause they think that's an evil word )
sights like pirate bay should be taken aim at cause i will guarantee you that sight is 100 X more damaging then Megavideo ever was


Truth of the matter folks you just kicked over a hornets nest and your messing with forces you have no idea of how powerful they are

Last comment supported by articles and other web-sights and not my brain
Anon posted the following on there twitter account after taking retaliatory action Hackers 1 feds 1 lets see who makes the next move the war has begun .

Last comment source was anon's twitter account and a article on Fox business network

[Steelclaw]

People should be smart enough on their own to have insurance, the government shouldn't be needed to require people to overcome their common sense deficiency syndrome.

The people who don't carry liability insurance (or an equivalent bond) don't give a crap about putting someone else in the hospital and over their head in debt. That's the problem. There's no law against being an inconsiderate jerk. The closest we can do is have laws that mitigate the harm caused by inconsiderate jerks.


Bicycles are a totally different story. There aren't many cases where a bicyclist causes tens of thousands of damages to someone else. Not that they don't happen; they just don't happen with the frequency to require legislation.

Helmets... that's more interesting. I'd agree that they should be optional. Your failure to wear a helmet won't alter the damage to the other party should you get into an accident. (Well, you could argue that having brains splattered all over oneself constitutes extra damage...)


How did we get on about insurance? ... Right. Greedy businesses.

Some legislation protects the common good -- your average person, from getting wiped out by someone else (person or corporation). This, for the most part, is a good thing, even if it is funded by greed. I'd rather see a fix to the underlying system that allows that type of situation to arise, but that's not going to happen (see greed). Like it or not, it's likely the best we'll have for our lifetime in this country.

[lightning claw]

Perhaps i better ex-plane the structure of the post
The first few lines i am posting the death of a great nich market

the Red test are completely my thoughts to the normal black text granted i need to figure out how to get a hold of a mod to edit it for grammatical content .

The normal text is an articles I copied and pasted to educate on what actually happened both dem articles and republican based articles as stated in a different thread (wt- was the government thinking) I am NOT Democrat NOR Republican I call them as I see them

the last few lines where a copy past from anonymous twitter account vetted by the Fox business network and seen with my own eyes

[Fratricide]

Some legislation protects the common good -- your average person, from getting wiped out by someone else (person or corporation). This, for the most part, is a good thing, even if it is funded by greed. I'd rather see a fix to the underlying system that allows that type of situation to arise, but that's not going to happen (see greed). Like it or not, it's likely the best we'll have for our lifetime in this country.

Why can we not expect our government to work towards a fix to the inherent problem then instead of having to write all kinds of backwards bandaid legislation, most of which is designed to make people with common sense become ignorant like those that can't decide for themselves what is the most pertinent thing to do.

While bandaids are a good temporary solution, when the country needs heart surgery, a bandaid doesn't do a whole heck of a lot of good.

[Fratricide]

And Lightning Claw... good thing that SOPA and PIPA didn't pass, those sites you copied from might be looking at for legislation, least ones your plagiarism hit 11 reviews...

That would be awesome you know. Students in school, no longer able to quote their favorite lyrics in research papers any longer because of SOPA. Even if they site the works properly.

The whole thing with New Zealand, and the "mega's", and why didn't they hit Pirate Bay.
Makes you wonder doesn't it? Why wouldn't Pirate Bay be targeted, or any of the other many various sites dedicated to P2P sharing of information. Perhaps some of those are under contract by the very music/movie industry in the first place. Yes, it sounds quite like a conspiracy, but where one place is being prosecuted for hosting the data, but the one tracking how much data, which files, where the files are going to, etc doesn't get prosecuted one bit, kinda makes you wonder.

[Dhalin]

The whole thing with New Zealand, and the "mega's", and why didn't they hit Pirate Bay.

TPB is hosted overseas.

That's one of the arguments they're using to support SOPA: "We can't hit sites that are not hosted on American Soil!" unless they abuse some sort of loophole in a country that has an extradition policy with the USA.

Megas just happened to exist in a country that DID have an Extradition policy with the USA, and they used a loophole and this to can those guys.

If I remember correctly, several European countries have tried to kill TPB, but they always seem to bounce back and dodge legal bullet after legal bullet.

[lightning claw]

And Lightning Claw... good thing that SOPA and PIPA didn't pass, those sites you copied from might be looking at for legislation, least ones your plagiarism hit 11 reviews...

That would be awesome you know. Students in school, no longer able to quote their favorite lyrics in research papers any longer because of SOPA. Even if they site the works properly.

The whole thing with New Zealand, and the "mega's", and why didn't they hit Pirate Bay.
Makes you wonder doesn't it? Why wouldn't Pirate Bay be targeted, or any of the other many various sites dedicated to P2P sharing of information. Perhaps some of those are under contract by the very music/movie industry in the first place. Yes, it sounds quite like a conspiracy, but where one place is being prosecuted for hosting the data, but the one tracking how much data, which files, where the files are going to, etc doesn't get prosecuted one bit, kinda makes you wonder.

Um i Did not plagiarize I DID NOT say that throws ideas where mine. I gave credit to Fox and the sights i copied from .

I am 100% agents the SOPA and PIPA as for the Morons that wrote the bill with out being Literate in the Internet. It is my hope that Americans give the writers and sponsors of the bills there pink-slips as well

[Fratricide]

Lightning, I wasn't trying to imply that you did plagiarize anything, I was stating about people in college writing research papers. If they didn't get permission from movie producers or song writers for phrases quoted from their movies, whether properly cited or otherwise could technically also be drummed up on charges from SOPA...