I know Google and other sites are doing the black out thing today. Give me the short version of what I really need to know.
It is supposed to stop piracy, but it will allow the government to shut down sites that have any type of copyrighted material. They could shut down BH.com if someone has a copyrighted avatar or posts a link to a copyrighted video. It gives the government way too much power and censorship.
Yes, really. And if SOPA doesn't pass, they will more than likely just stick it on the back end of PIPA, because no one will be against a bill that supposedly about protecting children from porn.
That would shut down 99.99999% of all forums wouldn't it?? I mean every picture taken has a copy right. Technically as soon as the shutter closes the picture is copy righted by the photographer. I guess this is also the end to all links to products also or am I reading to far into it??
You are not. I doubt they would shut down a forum because of a few copyrighted avatars, but they could if someone pressed it. And that is the problem. They could shut down the entire website for 1 infraction. It would be like nuking an entire city because someone in that city commited a crime.
One of SOPA's main objectives is to block foreign websites that violate said privacy laws. I'm sure there will be ways around it, which will lead to more regulation to prevent that. Its fun to scream socialism though.
If I read the proposed bill correctly, it is specifically seeking to block foreign websites that support pirated material. Technically, if a site was found to host illegal content in the states, I believe an injunction can currently be brought against them and have the site shut down. Youtube had to deal with this previously. There are several companies whose images or videos you cannot search for directly. These came about through legal action. It should be noted also that District Attorney has to actually obtain something in the realm of an injunction in order to actually shut anything down. As far as I understand, that means he still has to see a judge about it. After reading through it, I still think that the wording is utterly too vague. While they do talk about foreign websites as their target, they do not expressly say that it is the only hosting location they can moderate. Also, the method with which they plan to "block" said websites is asinine. The websites in question would still be accessible by their IP addresses and could utilize a different domain to host from.
