E-Piracy Act

I don't know if this has been posted anywhere on this website yet but I just found out about this today. If you live in America take this law seriously, because if it passes it will be the end of the internet. Please read this petition and sign it.

"This post is to simply provide a link to the petition for this new act that is proposed for Americans. I simply ask that all Americans please help by signing this.

This act and its kin, SOPA and PIPA, would effectively give content providers and copyright holders control over the policing of the Internet. It would also institute a "Great Firewall of America" similar to China's which would be capable of censoring content from US citizens. This is not the right way to end piracy, and we need to let the Obama Administration know that we want nothing to do with E-PARASITE."

"This bill, if passed and signed, will spell the end of tons of similar anime sites (perhaps even including this), deviantART, MAL, Facebook, YouTube, Google and the Internet as we know it. This bill will do more harm than good. "

Source: Your text to link here...

Petition: Your text to link here...

These pop up, and I always say the same thing. It will never pass.. Even if it were to pass, it won't last or be effective.

Walk around, ask people who actively use the internet for more than just facebook, or instant messengers and you'll quickly see how many American's pirate at the very least, music.

I know people to this day that ask me the question "WOAH YOU CAN GET MUSIC FOR FREE?! HOW!?"

prohibition all over again...

love when the federal govt gets involved in things they have absolutely no right to, don't you? LOL

Yeah, but those are the idiots who when they call tech support the tech support ends up telling them to box up their computer and return it because they have no right to even own one. My mom is one of those people.

commerce clause, by law they have a right to, but it doesn't mean they should or over extend their control

And 4chan will save the day. Those guys have a lot of power when they band together for a common cause (they rigged an election once, didn't they?), it's doubtless that they would band together for something like this.

At stated above, the commerce clause is typically the doorway to vast quantities of federal interference. And you know what's funny about it? In one of his later Federalist Papers, James Madison wrote that his original vision of the purpose of the commerce clause was to repress the legislative tyranny of the state in economic affairs, NOT to enable to positive expansion of the federal government...and yet, time and time again, the intent of the clause has been violated. Big government ftl.

I can't wait for the day when America's "internet" is just one big ad-hoc wireless network due to the BS laws politicians and media lobbyists try to pass and the likelihood of ISPs eventually succumbing to them.

yea they'd no doubt try to use it, as they love to warp the interpretation of it
would meet hefty debate tho and I think would probably lose

I don't really get how people are so ok with theft like this. It seems like if your at a physical location stealing a physical copy of the cd or movie well that's wrong but if you steal a digital copy well that's ok.

I say people bring attempts at legislation like this upon themselves. If piracy wasn't so prevalent...

I do have to say though after reading some articles about the proposed legislation that I do have a problem that companies would be able to shut down sites with no legal proof whatsoever. That, to me, is stepping out of bounds.

I usually own acquire things for educational purposes or things that I would have to acquire secondhand anyway, which makes it so the copyright holder wouldn't get my money anyway.

it's still illegal, I know that, but quite frankly I just don't care, I'm literally not hurting anyone.

that being said: I have a friend who only purchases hardware, he won't purchase software, nor will he purchase hardware unless he can obtain full control on it.

I do not understand his viewpoint.



I do buy a lot of media though, mostly anymore 360 games (ps2 here and there when I find one that I want).

Whether you're hurting anyone or not is another subject altogether and depends on who you talk to how that is answered. You're breaking the law and you're stealing something. It's not like you're even denying that you know its wrong but you do it anyways. Its like hey that guy robbed a bank and took 100k but the bank is federally protected for more than that so we should just let him go! I know its a stark comparison but a crime is a crime. It just doesn't make sense to me that people are ok stealing digital copies but not physical copies... or that its just easier to steal digital copies (lower chance of getting caught).

I think it's with how I was raised. When I was young, I had my own tape recorder that was directly connected to a radio. If one of the songs I liked came on the air, boom, I'd record it. Later on, I'll let friends borrow these cool mix tapes I had made. Same with TV, I'd just record through VHS, my favorite cartoons so that I could watch them whenever I pleased.

Nobody yelled at me and said that I was a bank robber or some villain stealing people's hard work.

My family was fortunate to get a computer before they really were popular, so I enjoyed playing on it. Didn't take me long to think of using some of my mix tapes and recording them via a computer microphone. It wasn't anything worse than what I had already done, recording radio waves.

In middle school, a friend and I would play around with HTML. We started putting .wav and Real Player songs we had heard on the radio onto our "awesome Geocities website". What had changed? Nothing. It was all the same to me. Nothing to have felt guilty about or worry about some copyright infringement.

In the early days of the Internet, no one cared. Just like no one cared if you had a tape recorder and did your own thing with your group of friends. But once the Internet became popular, it became a whole different story.

Not surprisingly, back in the 70's and 80's when cassette taping was becoming popularised, there was a huge backlash from the music recording industry, saying that cassette tapes and personal recording devices would destroy not only the recording industry but also terrestrial radio.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Taping_Is_Killing_Music

So really nothing changes...the industry balks at changing to accommodate the new technology, is eventually forced to accept the realities of the new media, changes its product bundling philosophy and strategic approach...until the next development.

The same thing occurred during the whole Napster-to-Itunes progression, too.

It's a weird cycle of doom-saying and industry backlash trying to protect marketshare and traditional industrial standards against a changing world, only to meet the market on its terms later on.

It's not going to pass because it would risk blocking access to porn sites and what else do you think Congress members spend their working day doing?

The UK ISPs are being asked/forced to block porn at source now, customers are going to be asked to opt in if they still want to view it.

This is a hilarious story from the RIAA's over assertiveness in taking down sites with "illegal" downloads. If you have the time, should check it out for some serious lulz.

Here's the jist of it if you're lazy:

Obviously not in the best interests of the artist, but in the best interests of the middlemen.

This is pretty much why I still pirate stuff. I don't really care about the legality of it, the only halfway decent argument against it is when people say that if we keep pirating stuff then it's going to destroy the industry. But it's not, they've said this over and over as new technologies came out, and it hasn't destroyed the industry.

Theoretically, sure it could destroy the industry, but then again, theoretically a meteor the size of California could hit the Earth 5 minutes after I post this, it doesn't mean it's likely, or that it's going to happen.

People can demonize me or try and make me feel guilty about pirating stuff all they want, I won't feel guilty. My personal pirating isn't hurting anything, I'm not taking money out of anyone's pocket, the stuff I pirate, I pirate because I don't deem it worthy of buying. Now if I was stealing physical copies, I would be hurting someone, because that physical copy is in my possession and not in the hands of a paying customer. This isn't true of content I downloaded, my piracy doesn't keep someone else from getting their own copy. Either way, I wouldn't have ended up paying for it.

Seriously though, so many copyright institutions and legalities have an extremely skewed and downright inaccurate representation and definition on what piracy/theft really is.

That's the funniest thing to me. I don't find it worthy of spending money on it but I do find it worthy of owning and using it! Whether you feel bad or not I don't really care that's on you. As long as you understand you're a theif, as it seems you do, then thats cool with me. Like everyone else here, I'm not the one making or enforcing the laws just sharing my opinion.

As for those bringing up how they were brought up I personally was brought up to never take things that were not mine. I remember one time my older brothers friend stole a comic book and my brother I guess was holding onto it for him. When my parents found out they made him return it to the store, buy it, and then was grounded forever lol. I just find it interesting how people differentiate between physical and digital theft. I also find it interesting how people try to excuse their actions.

As it goes for big business I thought everyone was aware they were out to make as much money as they possibly could. If you don;t think their product is worthy of your hard earned money then don't partake in the use of their product. I could see if this was an essential thing to survive as I have known people who, in their past, had to steal food just to be able to give something to their kid to eat. I don't necassarily agree with stealing but I can definitely empathize with that kind of situation more. This is entertainment,it is far from essential and not gauranteed to us as a right.

If you want things to be different than work to change the way things are currently.

I'll admit I do pirate a song here and there once in a while but when I do, I usually end up buying 3~8 songs from that album from itunes

http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/hear_11162011.html

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