At 12/23/11 03:18 PM, Camarohusky wrote: The "and" ties 103(a) to 103(b) which qualifies any action on a site having an illegal item, upon that site that either... well now my adobe isn't working. But I remember it speaking of the same languagwe as is PIPA. This is along the lines of a site that is either solely or almost wholly dedicated to comitting or facilitating piracy, or a site that has done some other form of direct support of piracy.

So what sound like a really wide sword, 103(a) is greatly shrunk by the "and" with its conjunctive 103(b) limits.

Sec. 103. a. 1. B. ii. II.)
operates the U.S.-directed site with the object of promoting, or has promoted, its use to carry out acts that constitute a violation of section 501 or 1201 of title 17, United States Code, as shown by clear ex-pression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement.

... which still qualifies Newgrounds (and OCRemix.org, another site that I frequent) as a target, if someone wants to push for it. Newgrounds promotes parody, which could easily target it for site shutdown if someone pushed for it.

Even if it ultimately didn't allow the site as a target (which I believe it does), the court can still issue it's duty to shut down all access to the site if someone came to them in good faith (i.e. 'because someone says so and the court thinks they're being honest about it' - no seriously, that's what it means, and it's in the bill) and claimed that there was copyrighted material on the site, and the site openly allowed the illegal material to remain on the site. See, even if the bill dotted all of it's i's and crossed it's t's, they still removed due process from the system, which allows for the damage to occur even if nothing illegal was done wrong, and there's nothing the site owner can do in his/her defense until the damage starts rolling in. Read through the bill again and tell me when they tell the site owner to remove the material or else action will be taken. It's not there - there is no negotiation, only action once the court hears of the infringement, which is a highly abuse-able law.

No, it wouldn't be legal for companies to use the law in this manner, but most people can't afford to fight it (I know from personal experience that this is how the legal system works, and those who play it in their favor). Legal assistance isn't cheap, and even if there was promise to compensate a victim if proven innocent (which this bill, to it's credit, provides), the victim still needs to make the down payment him/herself to start with, which more often than not the victim simply cannot do. Moreover, as I mentioned before, once a site loses it's funding for a significant period of time the domain providers will shut them down... and everything will be lost, if that is the case. No amount of money can compensate the loss of all the work on this site. It doesn't matter that someone is liable to provide assistance to rebuild the damage that was done - how on earth would anyone be able to restore 600,000 flash movies, 400,000 audio tracks and numerous art pieces that have accumulated over a period of more than a decade?

Once the bill gets passed, then every website I know and love- and ever single one of them is from the US- is going to be shut off completely. Not even Australia can save them.

America may just as well become a hypocrite.

At 11/17/11 01:04 AM, cjsnow1 wrote: Stop Online Piracy Act

I say let them do it

Have some copypasta taken from here.

(And by clearing up, I mean copy and pasting an explanation of the bill from a lawyer-in-training I know in my city)

To understand the background behind SOPA, you have to understand the rationale that arose to create the DMCA. This will be incredibly simplified, but don't worry about the details. Basically, back in 1996 the WIPO passed two copyright treaties, and in 1998 the US decided to pass the DMCA to implement those treaties (dealing with criminalizing infringement mechanisms) and at the same time deal with a major problem that was already beginning to arise: that of the publisher-infringer.

See, under the copyright act of 1976 (I think, I forget the year), publishers of infringing content are also liable. So, for example, Youtube would be liable for content published. Obviously, internet publishers (like ISPs, hosts, etc) didn't want this. Unlike traditional publishers they had no real ability to screen all of their customer's content, and didn't want to be obligated to do so. At the same time, getting content down was expensive and difficult; they had to sue, go to court, get an injunction- and with the rise of the internet, they might not be able to figure out WHO to sue, or even know that that person was located in a suable jurisdiction.
Hence the DMCA created a compromise. Publisher-hosts (ISPs, Youtube, even though it didn't exist yet, etc) were granted 'safe harbor' as long as they obeyed the takedown requests. The takedown requests allowed copyright holders to take down infringing content without suing or without finding out where the people who put the content up were. That saved them (and the people who put the content up) the expense and trouble of a lawsuit. And, the counter-notification process required that the person provide their full name an address so that they could theoretically be sued if it went that far.

Essentially, the DMCA created a compromise regime- it was faster, safer, cheaper, and basically more efficient for everyone. It didn't stop the copyight holders from suing- it just made it so they mostly didn't want to because this was more efficient. On the flipside, most infringers didn't get sued because their content was removed quickly. Now, to be fair, the primary objection to the DMCA regime was that by making it easier for corporations to push these takedown notices, they would start taking down material they didn't have the copyright to or for which some affirmative defense existed (like fair use), and that nobody would counter-takedown for risk of lawsuit, and so it would have a chilling effect.

Over the past 13 years, the primary issue for the copyright holders has been that the DMCA doesn't let them target hosts which are overseas. For example, say I run metube.com out of Belize. The copyright holders could send all the DMCA takedown requests they want, but my host (Belize Internet Services) doesn't give a crap about the DMCA. They won't respond to the takedown notice. And at the same time, metube.com is of course available from anywhere on the internet.

So the content holders went back to Congress, and said "Look, we need to be able to target metube.com." The way they chose to do that is SOPA. It contains a number of different provisions, but the two that are relevant here are S.102 and S.103 (they're the most important sections of the bill anyway). They allow for two different mechanisms of targeting foreign sites.

S.102 is the seizure rule. It allows the United States Attorney General to make a request to the US District Court for an order to seize the DNS of a website if:

(1) the Internet site or portion thereof is a U.S.-directed site and is used by users in the United States;

(2) the owner or operator of such Internet site is committing or facilitating the commission of criminal violations punishable under section 2318, 2319, 2319A, 2319B, or 2320, or chapter 90, of title 18, United States Code; and

(3) the Internet site would, by reason of acts described in paragraph (1), be subject to seizure in the United States in an action brought by the Attorney General if such site were a domestic Internet site.

It also allows the USAG, on receipt of this order, to 'take down' the same things as are authorized under S.103 (internet advertising and payment processing), and allows the USAG to tell search engines to delete the site from their registers.

That's so much legal chatter, but basically what it means is that the Attorney General can seize foreign sites which are committing or facilitating criminal IP infringement if those sites are targeted at US users, and would be seizeable if they're hosted in the US. The last point, (3), is actually relevant, because under 18 USC 981 and 18 USC 2323, the Attorney General can already seize websites if they're based in the United States. And it has done so in the past, and continues to do so. It's worth noting, though, that the USAG doesn't target Fanfiction.net. It doesn't target Spacebattles.com. Its primary target is actually counterfeitters- domains like nfljerseysupply.com, handbag9.com, and dvdprostore.com. A few other sites have been targeted- large torrent hosters, primarily. Given that the provision in S.102 basically mirrors the domestic seizure provision for sites outside the US, it seems unlikely that the Attorney General is going to suddenly go on a spree of seizing websites with its new powers.

S.103 is the secondary takedown power. People tend to confuse the two, feeling that anyone can get a DMCA-like takedown request to take down entire websites under SOPA, but that isn't really the case. Anyway, S.103 basically creates a DMCA mirror provision, but rather than targeting publisher-hosts, it targets payment network providers (b)(1) and internet advertising services (b)(2). Exactly the same thing, basically: a copyright holder can make a request to one of those two services, saying "This site is an open and notorious infringer of copyright". Under that section, a payment processor is required to freeze or deny transactions between the site and US customers, and an IAS is required to stop advertising to or from (i.e., stop putting advertisements on their website and taking money, and stop putting advertisements to their website on other websites) the infringing site. There is, also, a counter-takedown procedure, just like in the DMCA.

Basically, SOPA creates two primary tools: 1) It expands the seizure rule for domestic sites to foreign ones (and adds a few more powers that domestic seizures don't have, like blocking off IAS and payment processors) and 2) it creates a DMCA-like takedown procedure that IP holders can use against sites which are outside the US and therefore can't be targeted directly. The rationale here is petty simple: most payment processors (Paypal, Visa, mastercard) are based in the US, and most internet advertising services that people in the English-speaking world are likely to see are also based in the US (google, primarily).

*Breathe* Wow, that was long. I hope it helps, though?

Unless the Attorney General position magically transforms anybody who's in it into a Card Carrying Villain when the act passes, I don't think people have much to worry about.

At 12/28/11 09:21 AM, LightandDark wrote:
Unless the Attorney General position magically transforms anybody who's in it into a Card Carrying Villain when the act passes, I don't think people have much to worry about.

Knowing how much the RIAA put money into this. It wouldn't surprise me if that were to happen.

At 12/28/11 02:43 AM, Gario wrote: ... which still qualifies Newgrounds (and OCRemix.org, another site that I frequent) as a target, if someone wants to push for it. Newgrounds promotes parody, which could easily target it for site shutdown if someone pushed for it.

Newgrounds is safe. SAFE. Newgrounds goes through a great deal of effort to kill copyrighted(stolen) material. Same for Youtube. Furthermore, while these sites are driven by traffic based ad revenue, the majority, stated goal, and actual traffic on the site is a super majority (above 95% on NG, and above75% on youtube) of people who are not looking or intending to get copyrighted material.

Now on Parody, NG is very safe. Parody has never been outright protected, but the fair use cases of the early 1990s (2LiveCrew) put parody in a very safe position in terms of fair use. Parody has a very large leeway in using copyrighted material in terms of parodying it. It's rare that a parody even come close to the line, so NG is well in the clear.

Sites like NG, Youtube, and such are not likely to get shut down. The sites that will be targetted are the torrent sites and the file share sites. I couldn't even see a case where the US government would overstep its bounds and shut down NG or Youtube. Smaller sites like the anarchists cookbook and are more likely to be targetted.

The world will not end with this Bill. My bet is, that unless someone is actively stealing copyrights on their own, they'll never see any change at all.

You seem to think everybody is trustworthy and won't abuse the bill. Well I got news for you. It WILL be abused by the government and businesses. They don't give a damn about fair use. That's been proven. And if this bill does replace all other copyright bills then fair use is gone.

At 12/28/11 02:21 PM, wildfire4461 wrote: You seem to think everybody is trustworthy and won't abuse the bill. Well I got news for you. It WILL be abused by the government and businesses. They don't give a damn about fair use. That's been proven. And if this bill does replace all other copyright bills then fair use is gone.

Uh....what?

I don't see anything in the bill that says "This replaces the criteria for fair use with...." or anything similar.

At 12/28/11 01:44 PM, Camarohusky wrote:
Now on Parody, NG is very safe. Parody has never been outright protected, but the fair use cases of the early 1990s (2LiveCrew) put parody in a very safe position in terms of fair use. Parody has a very large leeway in using copyrighted material in terms of parodying it. It's rare that a parody even come close to the line, so NG is well in the clear.

See, there's the problem, right there. That's precedent, not law, and that sort of thing would need to be argued in court in order to be heard, which this bill bypasses completely. Frankly, if the bill didn't bypass the court like it does I wouldn't be nearly as offended by it as I am, at the moment. The bill revokes due process by the way that it's written. You don't have the opportunity to discuss matters like precedent and fair use because due process is revoked by the way the bill's written.

In this regard, it isn't what was written in the bill but what was not included in the bill that has me worried most. Find me the clause where the prosecutor must take the owner of the website to court, or send a fair warning against the owner of the site before enacting the bill. Please, find it, because I missed it completely. If it's an honest mistake then alright, great, I'm a little less worried about it, but I couldn't find it.

Also, holy fuck you don't think file sharing sites being dismantled is a bad thing? Sure, Megaupload and the such should be taken down for their constant and blatant infringement, but I would have a VERY hard time discussing my own musical endeavors (which are LEGAL) without sites like Box and Tindeck. Most any file sharing site can be used heavily for piracy, so all of them would be taken down, yet there are so many other uses for these sites that would be utterly destroyed in the process that it scares me that some people would consider this a good thing.

Uh...how does it revoke due process? If you're talking about the DNS seizure thing...you are aware that only the USAG can do that, right?

The guy that probably won't bother with obscure sites in favour of counterfeiters and very large tormenting sites? Not to mention it has to comply with standards that US sites are already under by, so if Megaupload can get by without a DNS seizure...

Correction: Just remembered that Megaupload's foreign. Replace it with....with....

Ok so I can't come up with anything, but I doubt the USAG's going care about obscure sites anyway.

At 12/28/11 03:26 PM, Gario wrote:

At 12/28/11 01:44 PM, Camarohusky wrote:
Now on Parody, NG is very safe. Parody has never been outright protected, but the fair use cases of the early 1990s (2LiveCrew) put parody in a very safe position in terms of fair use. Parody has a very large leeway in using copyrighted material in terms of parodying it. It's rare that a parody even come close to the line, so NG is well in the clear.

See, there's the problem, right there. That's precedent, not law, and that sort of thing would need to be argued in court in order to be heard, which this bill bypasses completely. Frankly, if the bill didn't bypass the court like it does I wouldn't be nearly as offended by it as I am, at the moment. The bill revokes due process by the way that it's written. You don't have the opportunity to discuss matters like precedent and fair use because due process is revoked by the way the bill's written.

Despite what you may think judges and lawyers are quite knowledgeable about the law including case law (what you call precedent) and they would be well aware that parodies are in fact protected. Furthermore if someone did try to abuse this like Tom believes is possible you can still appeal the decision and sue over lost income if you're unfairly attacked through this bill. For example lets assume Tom is right and some company tries to BS Newgrounds out of business, it wouldn't take long to get the decision overturned and get back advertisers. Furthermore Tom could sue the company or individual that made the false claim to get back all lost income from the site as could all of the advertisers and the sites that upload games onto Newgrounds to spread word about their own website and products. At this point a single lie has made them the target of several lawsuits and failed to take Newgrounds off the internet.

At 12/28/11 03:26 PM, Gario wrote: See, there's the problem, right there.

I get what you're saying here. This is why I think the government should really sharpen the Bivens sword for these cases. Witha very sharp Bivens action against thw official who carries out a shut down, any such shut down that violates the letter of the law and its spirit will allow the official who shut it down to be personally sued for a violation of Constitutional rights.

The bill revokes due process by the way that it's written. You don't have the opportunity to discuss matters like precedent and fair use because due process is revoked by the way the bill's written.

Due Process isn't a Static thing. Due Process is different based on the needs and goals of issue at hand (sometime for the worse). The very nature of online piracy, and why this Bill was even proposed shows that Due Process for this cannot be treated the same as for a search warrant or an arrest. What I would like to see is a 2-3 month window where a TRO can be immediately filed, if there is shown good cause that the shut down was wrong and such issues can be heard in court. Any pre-action notice will just lead to "megaupload.com" disappearing and reappearing in three days as "superupload.com" then "extremeupload.com" and all the way through the infinite combinations of the Roman alphabet.

Also, holy fuck you don't think file sharing sites being dismantled is a bad thing? Sure, Megaupload and the such should be taken down for their constant and blatant infringement, but I would have a VERY hard time discussing my own musical endeavors (which are LEGAL) without sites like Box and Tindeck. Most any file sharing site can be used heavily for piracy, so all of them would be taken down, yet there are so many other uses for these sites that would be utterly destroyed in the process that it scares me that some people would consider this a good thing.

I have nothing wrong with honest file sharing sites, however they don't exist because they are too expensive. I definitely understand your point. There is major value in the free exchange of ideas. However, how siters are run today is akin to a newspaper selling cocaine as its source of income. (not the best anbalogy, but not in a creative mood right now). Just because something serves a good purpose doesn't automatically indemnify it from the criminal acts it must do (or in these case, facilitate) to do that one good act. I would also say that with the explosion of Youtube, this argument you put forth become weaker and weaker. Anybody remember how a certain famous Canadain (possibly lesbian) became popular? Wasn't picked up until AFTER his youtube songs went viral.

At 12/28/11 04:04 PM, Camarohusky wrote:
Due Process isn't a Static thing.

What?

The fifth amendment is a pretty static thing, I'm afraid.

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Due process as defined by an online dictionary (if you find a better place to define it, be my guest)...

A fundamental, constitutional guarantee that all legal proceedings will be fair and that one will be given notice of the proceedings and an opportunity to be heard before the government acts to take away one's life, liberty, or property.

I think that's about as static and non-flexible as you get, and there's a reason for that. People need due process in order to prevent abuse of the law from others, which is precisely what people are worried about, in this case.

I understand the concern that if a website is given warning then it will use it's magic to change servers, domain names, etc., and continue it's piracy elsewhere, and that's a legitimate concern. However, even under the law in it's current state it will not stop this from happening - it'll just take a little more time to do so. Really, the cure is worse than the disease, and in this case it's not even a cure at all, for the sites that really need to be taken down.

I have nothing wrong with honest file sharing sites, however they don't exist because they are too expensive. I definitely understand your point. There is major value in the free exchange of ideas. However, how siters are run today is akin to a newspaper selling cocaine as its source of income. (not the best anbalogy, but not in a creative mood right now). Just because something serves a good purpose doesn't automatically indemnify it from the criminal acts it must do (or in these case, facilitate) to do that one good act. I would also say that with the explosion of Youtube, this argument you put forth become weaker and weaker. Anybody remember how a certain famous Canadain (possibly lesbian) became popular? Wasn't picked up until AFTER his youtube songs went viral.

I'm under the impression that you have no idea what I use file sharing sites for - I share files so I can collaborate with other musicians effectively from around the world. Youtube isn't very good at sharing files, only videos. You're making it sound like I'm talking about a negligible good thing - I'm talking about sharing files for business reasons, project files for collaboration purposes, pictures for personal reasons, videos (and yes, while YT has that covered it has it's limits), powerpoints for businesses, programs and code that an individual or business needs to push forward... these are not negligible good things. These are things that have revolutionized how business is done around the world, and as of yet these things do NOT have a viable alternative. Youtube is fine for videos, but there is so much more that can't be covered by this.

Pirates abuse this good thing by sharing illegal information, but there is a lot more good that comes from these things than bad. This isn't a black or white case where bad things negates all of the good. The result of removing this resource would be catastrophic, economically and socially speaking, so that should factor into what you're thinking, here.

Link to article

It looks like protesters are making a little headway. GoDaddy, after having quite a few of its customers leave and buy domains from its competitors, has decided to stop supporting the SOPA bill. It isn't quite the result that is desired, but it's one step of many that will hopefully result in the downfall of this bill.

Link to article

It looks like protesters are making a little headway. GoDaddy, after having quite a few of its customers leave and buy domains from its competitors, has decided to stop supporting the SOPA bill. It isn't quite the result that is desired, but it's one step of many that will hopefully result in the downfall of this bill.

A boycott on _ALL_ SOPA supporting companies will be difficult to pull off.

But I think it just might be possible.

Oh, and if anyone's interested, I made a SOPA FAQ.

• 

  SOPA Information/FAQ

  by Yomuchan

  A quick information flash for people with questions about SOPA.

  Movie

  7,188 Views

  (Everyone)

Here it is. Lemme know what you people think.

At 12/31/11 12:48 AM, YomToxic wrote: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/58 6999
Here it is. Lemme know what you people think.

I was originally going to call you out for whoring your projects. However this thing was pretty helpful and informative. Thanks!

Called my Senator and Representative about it already.

I'm surprised Tom Fulp isn't mad about this bill; it'll kill parodies on this portal.

At 12/31/11 03:52 AM, igott wrote: Called my Senator and Representative about it already.

I'm surprised Tom Fulp isn't mad about this bill; it'll kill parodies on this portal.

Fulp sounded mad, actually.
http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1286 021

But the silent, seething sort of mad that's actually more effective than screaming profanity mad.

At 12/31/11 03:25 AM, BUTANE wrote:

At 12/31/11 12:48 AM, YomToxic wrote: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/58 6999
Here it is. Lemme know what you people think.

I was originally going to call you out for whoring your projects. However this thing was pretty helpful and informative. Thanks!

You're welcome, and any advice on improving/corrections will be gladly accepted.

At 12/28/11 03:53 PM, djack wrote:

At 12/28/11 03:26 PM, Gario wrote:

At 12/28/11 01:44 PM, Camarohusky wrote:
Now on Parody, NG is very safe. Parody has never been outright protected, but the fair use cases of the early 1990s (2LiveCrew) put parody in a very safe position in terms of fair use. Parody has a very large leeway in using copyrighted material in terms of parodying it. It's rare that a parody even come close to the line, so NG is well in the clear.

See, there's the problem, right there. That's precedent, not law, and that sort of thing would need to be argued in court in order to be heard, which this bill bypasses completely. Frankly, if the bill didn't bypass the court like it does I wouldn't be nearly as offended by it as I am, at the moment. The bill revokes due process by the way that it's written. You don't have the opportunity to discuss matters like precedent and fair use because due process is revoked by the way the bill's written.

Despite what you may think judges and lawyers are quite knowledgeable about the law including case law (what you call precedent) and they would be well aware that parodies are in fact protected. Furthermore if someone did try to abuse this like Tom believes is possible you can still appeal the decision and sue over lost income if you're unfairly attacked through this bill. For example lets assume Tom is right and some company tries to BS Newgrounds out of business, it wouldn't take long to get the decision overturned and get back advertisers. Furthermore Tom could sue the company or individual that made the false claim to get back all lost income from the site as could all of the advertisers and the sites that upload games onto Newgrounds to spread word about their own website and products. At this point a single lie has made them the target of several lawsuits and failed to take Newgrounds off the internet.

Oh derp, forgot to look at this one. Haaahaha, I think you miss the point entirely. The magic words are...

DUE PROCESS

You're assuming that to be the case in your statement, when the bill explicitly makes it clear that this will NOT be the case. Again, if I'm wrong, bring the section that brings due process to the table and I will admit that I am wrong and worry a whole lot less about this bill. In the meantime, though...

Alright, let's take the hypothetical case that someone in a court doesn't know about the rights people normally have on the internet (this is not as unrealistic as you'd like to believe - judges are humans, and humans are prone to mistakes). It would not be very hard for a good lawyer to make a case against sites like Newgrounds that they're infringing on intellectual property by dedicating entire sections on IP that isn't released to the public. Sure, it'd be easy to make an argument that it's parody and should fall under fair use... but no one is there to make that argument, and not all judiciaries are familiar with how internet copyright works. Without due process, only one side of an argument is heard, and it's a lawyer's job to make their case sound very reasonable.

You claim that Tom could make an appeal and claim damages. Tom does not have an option to appeal until the damages have already occurred, since there is no due process. Damages, in this case, is not income, but the loss of information; if the site is shut down for long enough - while DNS removal doesn't rid Tom of the site, the lack of funding could easily starve him of the means to pay the price of his servers if the companies stalled the case long enough - then it's entirely possible that the flash movies + audio + art from this portal will disappear. How would you expect the company at fault to repay that loss? There is no price on free material, so that would simply be a loss on Toms part. No repayment, since there is no price on it. Even if Tom could get money out of the deal, what good does that do most of us? The material is gone - it's not coming back. How could it?

That's assuming Tom isn't in jail and/or paying back companies for copyright infringement. In the bill, not only is the attorney general to act 'in REM' (that is, against the property involved, as stated in Sec. 102) B) 2) ), but also 'in Personam' (that is, against the actual owner of the site, as stated in Sec. 102) A) 1) ). It's kind of hard to appeal when you're in jail, isn't it? Yes, this all happens before you even know what the fuck you're being accused of, because of the lack of due process.

Can Tom sue? Sure, assuming he's not in jail/bankrupt, and he'd be able to get those that attacked him in the first place to pay for the legal fees, even (that's all in the bill, fortunately). That is, if he could afford the retainer for the lawyer in the first place (for a member of my family, a simple divorce case retainer was 5000$, and the case due to stalling has so far soared to over 40k$ without an end in sight... fighting against a larger company with stalling tactics would be astronomically more expensive). See, suing someone is not a financial option for many people, simply because that initial cost is prohibitive - even if they can get the money back if they win (not a guarantee, mind you), most people can't financially last to the end of the legal battle. I can't say for sure, but I don't think Tom is a rich person (if he is, correct me - this is just a guess). You need a lot of money to be able to pull off such a maneuver, and most people will not have the money to do so.

Finally, you make the statement that they would 'fail to remove Newgrounds from the internet'. Tom would not have a chance to respond until after Newgrounds was removed from the internet and actions were taken against him. While he might have a chance to bring Newgrounds back from the blacklist with a lot of work & money after the site was removed, it doesn't change the fact that with a simple, irrefutable claim a company could easily remove Tom's site from the internet. I don't think you understand how powerful a tool the lack of due process is - while everything you say about Tom's site is true, if one foolish judge can be convinced otherwise, and if no one is there to refute the claim, then none of that matters, since no one will hear your side of the argument.

At that point, it doesn't matter who's wrong or right. It doesn't matter what's legal or not. Fuck, it doesn't even matter if the site is pirating anything. Without due process,there is no voice for Tom's site. Due process is a fucking important piece of the court system - without it, there's no voice from opposition, so the law moves forward without silly things like people explaining their position to the courts.

Due process - it's that important. By the way, I would love to be convinced that I'm wrong. Seriously, I would love to see that I'm blowing this out of proportion, as that would make me much, much less worried about this bill. It would be a relief, in fact. Unfortunately, no one has been able to properly address my issues with the bill. People have sidestepped my issues - Camarohusky has mentioned why due process helps pirates do their thing, for example - but failed to actually address them, as of yet. PLEASE give me reason to stop worrying about this, as I would love to be able to stop thinking about this.

At 12/31/11 04:28 AM, YomToxic wrote:

At 12/31/11 03:52 AM, igott wrote: Called my Senator and Representative about it already.

I'm surprised Tom Fulp isn't mad about this bill; it'll kill parodies on this portal.

Fulp sounded mad, actually.
http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1286 021

But the silent, seething sort of mad that's actually more effective than screaming profanity mad.

Now I did not see that. Thanks for the notice. I never seen Tom like this. Usually he's such a cheery guy.

At 12/28/11 07:01 AM, Shaggytheclown17 wrote: I say let them do it

What's this? Shaggy trolling? Who'd have guessed!

Due process is often served after the fact.

At 11/20/11 02:03 AM, Mechwarrior300 wrote: Don't panic. There is literally nothing to worry about unless you're a criminal.

A crime is defined as having a victim AND the initiation of force or fear. This upcoming legislation dealing with the war on piracy/drugs or whatever has nothing to do with punishing actual criminals.

At 1/9/12 10:07 AM, gradenator wrote: A crime is defined as having a victim AND the initiation of force or fear. This upcoming legislation dealing with the war on piracy/drugs or whatever has nothing to do with punishing actual criminals.

Source up that definition.

Second, piracy has a clear victim. The owner of the copyright who loses opportunities for sale, loses strength in the market, faces unfair competition, loses control over their work, and faces changes in their goodwill. Sounds like a victim to me. Stop the melodrama.

Big sites like Google are thinking of having a day of no service as protest, they call it the nuclear option, we are lucky to have big companies on our side too. Otherwise we would be even more fucked against this unfair bill.

Go pirates.

At 1/12/12 03:23 AM, NL-Courage wrote:

And I'm absolutely sure that the creator of the SOPA bill is a retarded shit.

More like rich from all of the money the supporting companies have been stuffing in their pocket.

And maybe retarded too.