Thoughts on SOPA?

[The Gravekeeper]

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

From what I understand, the primary concern is that the wording is vague enough that the US government could use this against American-owned sites that use any sort of copyrighted content. This includes badmovies.org, it includes Facebook, tumblr, twitter, etc. It seems to me that if this goes through the way it's written, if somebody doesn't like some criticism toward their product or a bit of satire, there may be a risk of the site it's on could be de-listed and thus inaccessible.

There are legitimate businesses that use copyrighted content to create entertainment (see: reviews). De-listing sites that use the internet to distribute this content could sink them, which in turn costs jobs. Considering that there are more unemployed folks than there are job openings in the US, destroying jobs, even those of entrepreneurs, strikes me as a poor choice at the moment.

What I find really disheartening for me is that there isn't much I can do about it; I'm not an American citizen, but this is still going to affect me. All I can do is just help spread the word that this is a thing that's happening. I think it needs more work to keep it from being abused and hurting legitimate businesses and harming protected speech (from my understanding, it's very difficult to actually defend parody and reviews if you don't have a very good lawyer).

As for piracy, blocking content doesn't seem like it'd be very effective. Yes, many pirates just don't want to pay for products...but how many are doing it because there aren't any legitimate ways for them to access it?

Let's try to keep this from being a political shouting match, guys. My intent in bringing this up is not to start an argument between right and left wing, but to just try and get people thinking about this.

[Cthulhu]

Won't pass.

[Flick James]

The first thing that strikes me about SOPA, given that I don't know everything about it, is that it seems unnecessary. I get what the supposed agenda is, to protect copyrighted material.

The main thing that has me scratching my head is that it is supposed to make unauthorized streaming of copyrighted material a felony. The enforcement of copyright, from my understanding, is the responsibilty of the copyright holder. Making it a felony take the responsibility out of the hands of the copyright holder and puts it in the hands of the government, therefore increasing their ever-expanding influence over our lives.

In my opinion, if you're going to have a copyright on something, and you want to market it on the Internet, then you have to assume that risk. That's life. That's the cost of doing business. If one copyrights a book and markets it on the Internet, with the widespread ability to exploit that material that exists on the Internet, then that is a choice. I don't see any reason why it shouldn't remain the responsibility of the copyright holder to go after offenders. Why further increase the government sector?

[ulthar]

Why further increase the government sector?

Short answer, not limited to this particular issue?

Because at least two generations have now been duped  brainwashed  convinced "educated" that government is the sole, proper source of all of the solutions to life's problems.