Posted on 12/22/2011 5:07:51 AM PST by surroundedbyblue
SOPA, or the Stop Online Piracy Act, is another one of those bills that sounds like it's going to do something mildly positive but, in reality, has serious potential to negatively change the internet as we know it. It puts power in the hands of the entertainment industry to censor sites that allegedly "engage in, enable or facilitate" copyright infringement. This language vague enough to encompass sites you use every day, like Twitter and Facebook, making SOPA a serious problem. Here's how it works and what you can do about it.
SOPA's coming to a vote very soon. In fact, it was supposed to come to a vote today but was delayed, likely because of all the pushback. Reddit users have already started compiling a list of the IP addresses of popular sites in case SOPA passes and access will be restricted within the United States. A decision is going to be made soon, so if you still don't know what SOPA is or haven't done anything to stop it, read on to learn how you can help beat the bill.
How Does SOPA Work, and Why Should I Care? The idea behind SOPA sounds reasonable. It came about in order to try to snuff out piracy online, as the entertainment industry is obviously not excited about the many people downloading their product without their permission. The issue is, however, that it doesn't really matter whether you're in support of piracy, against it, or just don't care. SOPA makes it possible for companies to block the domain names of web sites that are simple capable of, or seem to encourage copyright infringement.
(Excerpt) Read more at lifehacker.com ...
I am posting this because I don't see much outrage about SOPA here on FR, and I think it's crucial that we stop this.
Why should any of those stupid nerds on tech blogs act shocked about this?
They were happily asking the same government to impose “net neutrality”.
Web sites exempt from SOPA,the Stop Online Piracy Act:
1) Gay porn sites
2) ‘Religion of Peace’ blogs
3) KOS Kids
4) The Nation
5) Moveon.org
6) Bush is a smirking chimp
7) Democrat Underground
8) Planned Parenthood.com
9) World Socialist Website
10) any anti war website
All websites are equal but some are more equal than others.
” and I think it’s crucial that we stop this.”
That assumes that we have any power
As usual the net neutrality opponents try to tie every unrelated issue to it, likely because they don't have a leg to stand on with the facts.
Net neutrality requires carriers to keep the status quo with an open Internet, retaining the ability of anyone to access any website with equal ability. SOPA is about blocking and cutting off access to web sites. The two are diametrically opposed.
Just cannot understand this....they do not seem to be deterred by senseless drivel...they just go on to one thing after another...almost like.....they got our #!
Very true. What ever dosen’t pass thru Congress, Obama will enact anyway by making it a “regulation”. It helps when you’ve got your unconstitutional czars running every facet of gov.
So... exactly HOW could this end FR?
And that’s different from what I said?
You want the government to nose in on one thing? Then expect it to nose in on the rest.
Also, are you aware of this:
Firefox Add-On Bypasses SOPA DNS Blocking
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2823313/posts
The IP addy for Freerepublic is 209.157.64.201
The article says that won’t be blocked. If you just type that number into the URL line, you go to the latest articles.
Very cool! Thanks ...
More going on here:
Free Press finally answers Blackburn, SOPA vs OPEN, FCC Reform
You are hopeless if you can’t see the difference between the government preventing corporations from ruining the Internet, and the government itself ruining the Internet.
Hmmm, I guess to you a law preventing the harassment of abortion mill protesters is just as bad as a law that bans abortion mill protesters.
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