If the Internet Censorship Bill passes it will forever change the internet and possibly sites such as this would even be in danger!...free speech is eroded enough!!
SOPA!!
crap!!
SOPA blackout: Who’s gone dark to protest anti-piracy bills?
Wednesday, Jan. 18: the day of the SOPA "blackout" protest. As you may have seen from our coverage, major names in the online world such as Google, Wikipedia, Mozilla and Reddit are censoring their own websites with black bars and blacked-out pages in protest of SOPA and PIPA, two online anti-piracy bills currently under consideration on Capitol Hill.
Don't let the Tea Party & the idiots in Washington get a foothold!! Stop the censorship!! The next step would be paying for internet access by the minute..like phone service!
Last edited by jamestkirk on Wed Jan 18, 2012 11:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music".
Have you bothered to read the actual bill? It is only 78 pages and I think that you will have a better understanding of what exactly it does and how you would be affected by it. Explain to me how sites like this would be in danger if it is passed? I don't mean to come off as an asshole but I feel like a lot of people are jumping on this bandwagon of this anti-piracy law as being a censorship bill (i.e china) where in fact it just targets foreign websites that are offering illegal and pirated material. Artists deserve to be making money from this. Google makes about 25% percent of its money from these illegal sites that they refuse to shutdown. 25% of this money comes from websites offering illegal downloads and copyrighted material. Do you think this is fair? The bill has some problems and will surely be modified and changed before it is passed, but it really is important to give artists their money.
Now, I will get a lot of shit for posting this in this forum but I think Jeff Jampol has a good point in this post from his facebook:
First off, I believe in freedom, I believe in art, and I believe in freedom of art. I believe creators of art - authors, painters, musicians, filmmakers, poets, etc., should be free to create whatever art they deem valid, without judgment, control, censorship or any dictates whatsoever.
I also believe that laws all over the world have been created to protect those works, and to insure that the creators of those works are able to copyright them or protect them in other ways, and if they choose to sell them, the artists should be compensated fairly.
However, there are many sites that traffic mainly (or solely) in selling illegally-obtained art or copies of art: be it books, records, films, clothes, poetry, or any other art-form. For instance, there are sites all over Russia that will sell any book or record for 99 cents. They keep 100% of th money, they don't ask permission, and they do not pay any of the creators of the works. Furthermore, they use Visa, Mastercard and other payment processors to collect these funds. SOPA makes it possible to inhibit these sites from trafficking in stolen art or unauthorized (or "pirate") copies of books, photos, songs, films, inventions and other protected IP ("intellectual property"). If there are links to these sites, the links can be disabled. And it can help prohibit Visa, Mastercard and others for collecting or processing funds for these illegal sales. This is already in place for child pornography sites - if one is discovered, it can be inhibited and its links disabled. Further, Visa and Mastercard (and others) can be prohibited from processing a payment if you want to buy naked pictures of four year-old girls. I believe the same ability should be extended to purveyors of stolen photos, music, clothing, inventions or other protected forms of art. That, in a nutshell, is what SOPA calls for. Funny thing, a lot of times politicians will cleverly name a bill or couch it in obscenely misleading terms in order to dupe a gullible or lazy public into supporting something which is egregiously unfair - or, of course, to dissuade the public from supporting something "good," but which may inhibit some businesses' ability to profit from something "bad". The most recent example of this that I can recall is the issue of trying to get US radio to pay performers and singers for the use of their work on radio. All countries all over the world pay performers a royalty when their performance is used on commercial radio, except for four countries: Seychelles, Guam, N. Korea, and....the United States. (Ya think maybe radio has a strong lobby in the USA??) So when we (the musicians unions, reps and singers unions) introduced a bill in Congress to fairly compensate singers and artists for their performances - we wanted a tiny SLIVER of the 12 billion dollars in profit radio made last year - radio was angry. So, they launched a multi-media campaign with the slogan, "Stop the broadcast tax!" Broadcast "TAX"??? There WAS no tax! It wasn't a tax at ALL! But by calling it that, especially unchallenged, in countless radio ads, people had a knee-jerk reaction. "Broadcast tax? Hey, I'm anti-tax. No way!"
Politicians many times count on a generally lazy and/or gullible public who don't research topics or bother to read what it is they're being presented with. Hell, we all do it. Do ou read every bond measure on every ballot? I'd like to say I do, but....I don't always. And in those situations, a catchy/nifty bill title can sway people. "Stop the anti-education bill!" We read THAT, and go, "Hey, hell yeah, I'm FOR education!" But the bill may be for something COMPLETELY different - hell, it could be a bill to cap contractors who build playgrounds to a 15% profit on construction contracts. What a nifty way to protect your profits - just protest the bill in order to protect your playground construction contracts, and call it the "anti-education bill"! Who's gonna bother to READ it and see that it's actually anti-greed and has zilch to do with education at all? So, in the case of SOPA, they just say, "Stop Internet censorship," and, lo & behold - voila! "Hey, I'm anti-censorship, so fuck THAT! Fight SOPA!!
---I SUPPORT SOPA.---
We get it... Jampol's vehemently for SOPA and PIPA and he's comparing stupid peoples ignorance concerning supposed and imaginary legislation regarding something comparatively mundane such as "taxation", something that's WIDELY known throughout the world to TERRIFY US citizens, with something that's incredibly easy to comprehend and profoundly more of a significant and valid threat; namely governmental restriction and interference in one of the last arenas of relative free speech, the Internet.
This is of course NOT about gallantly coming the artists to the "rescue", as Jampol seems to liken it to be. It's about the corporations and their executives seeing their empires crumble and thereby now wanting governmental legislation to bring the hammer down on the "culprits".
I mean... there's nothing wrong with shutting down shops selling actual counterfeit product, but having governments legislate and micromanage on behalf of an industry that's becoming increasingly more desperate, not mainly because of piracy but rather because of their relative reluctancy and hesitance to keep up with modern progress, is principally a place where we should not go.....
As I see it, the internet and its relative level of freedom and "self-governing" is a basic principle that needs to be defended.... Jampol's ridiculous comparison with the irrational and excessive US citizen fear of taxation, on the other hand, is NOT.
On the surface it obviously sounds like a good thing to protect artists & media moguls, but it is just another nail in the coffin of our freedoms in the name of the inane Patriot's Act & idiotic Homeland Security Act...it becomes a slippery slope that we are heading down as more and more of this kind of legislation gets passed--bye bye freedom...!
I'm not a fool, and neither are you--surely you know what these kinds of bills are leading to, step by step...even the recently signed bill signed by Obama that allows anyone to be arrested and imprisoned indefinitely, without due process, for any suspicion of...well, anything the Feds are paranoid about at any given moment.
Just a "lament" of my own...but if I disappear from this site...you'll know what happened to me!
"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music".
This just appeared at MEGAUPLOADS..a major upload/download site for finding rare bootlegs that are no where else to be found, and are not official releases. Did SOPA PIPA pass or is the Man just getting some confidence? Bye bye freedoms...
This is what is there now....instead of d/ls of rare & OOP albums...& so it begins.
Many more blogs/sites to follow I'm sure.
________________________________________________
"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music".
There's a black shadow of intolerance, a psychotic obsession of economy driven minds that is fallin in our world. Many things are changing. Many things we took for granted as ocidental world conquists, inevitably destinated to be expanded to the underdeveloped world, are falling apart.
This internet censorship is a decisive indicator for those who have been distracted in the last three-four years, that things are going to unpredictable scenarios. It's a tremendous and unparallel situation of stealing people some of their most precious sociological, economical and cultural life conditions. We are talking about stealing material things but also stealing dreams.
Today was the first day of Guimaraes (a portuguese city) as one of the 2012 cultural capitals of Europe. Lots of events are planned with lots of music. Yet, those politicians arrive and talked endelessly about... economy. Creating resources and financial conditions for some art to happen. Nothing about Art itself. Just plain economy and our living days of stifling austerity.
Is this world of ours made in these last 30-40 years really an unsustainable construction? Is this path to a world full of black shadows really a inevitable way?
I'm half drunk. I need to drink more.
Fuck.
Thanks, SF...always insightful thoughts from you, my friend.
Does anyone actually believe "they" are trying to protect the "artists"?? Just maybe... they do it for the mega-corporate-moguls, that, having dug their own graves, are looking for the "others" to help them keep their lavish lifestyles!....it's not for love of art OR artists that they do this thing!!
"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music".
jamestkirk wrote:Thanks, SF...always insightful thoughts from you, my friend.
Does anyone actually believe "they" are trying to protect the "artists"?? Just maybe... they do it for the mega-corporate-moguls, that, having dug their own graves, are looking for the "others" to help them keep their lavish lifestyles!....it's not for love of art OR artists that they do this thing!!
It's money. But even that it's stupid. Free information and sharing for sure in the middle or the long term drive people to buy. You cannot like stuff you don't know about.
I don't invest much of my time listening to new bands but there are people that do it constantly exposing themselves to new sounds and tendencies. Internet is an indespensable tool for these people. It's ironic but I fell it's a sign for those who believe to fight in every little attitude and opinion. Sharing and spreading the word using... internet. They will die (their ideas) by the sword of the free internet.
Another part of the big crime with this is that changes in US legislation somehow seem to effect everyone. When the US tightened its passport control we all had to follow suit and now the cost of a passport in the UK has doubled and we need all this extra shit on it, why? because the US said so.
If the capitalist powers get their want in the land of milk and honey the rest of the 'free' west will follow on. Uncle Sam leads us all
'I've seen the future brother, it is murder'...
'whole new strange catacombs of wisdom
'''''We want Cinematheque Cinematheque Cinematheque Cinematheque Cinematheque Cinematheque and we want it now''''
jamestkirk wrote:This just appeared at MEGAUPLOADS..a major upload/download site for finding rare bootlegs that are no where else to be found, and are not official releases. Did SOPA PIPA pass or is the Man just getting some confidence? Bye bye freedoms...
This is what is there now....instead of d/ls of rare & OOP albums...& so it begins.
Many more blogs/sites to follow I'm sure.
________________________________________________
MEGAUPLOADS wasn't even a US based outlet, point proven. The power of corporations is totally anti democratic and the US government is simply becoming an amalgamation of corporations.
'I've seen the future brother, it is murder'...
'whole new strange catacombs of wisdom
'''''We want Cinematheque Cinematheque Cinematheque Cinematheque Cinematheque Cinematheque and we want it now''''
That is what innocent and supposedly "free" citizens of so-called "democratic" EU countries that just attended a "symbolic signing ceremony" for the ACTA agreement will have to look forward to if it actually passes the upcoming EU Parliament vote in June.
This agreement seems to, amongst many other things, grant customs personell not only the authority but also the required responsibility to go through your laptop, phone, Ipod, Ipad etc. etc. looking for copyright infringements at their own whim... essentially a carte blanche to do whatever they wish in search of copyright and/or trademark violations...
And let's get this straight; This is NOT for the little people... the starving artist in the streets, the struggling musician... no, this is all brought upon us by huge corporations that are finally having their way after years and years of lobbying and no doubt bribing politicians all around the world.
I mean... CEOs of some of these companies are STILL making $50-60 million a year.....!
Somewhere in there there's something that just doesn't ring true about this so-called "crisis" they're claiming that their industry is currently up against due to, amongst other things, internet piracy.
There's at the very least a major and very obvious disconnect in there somewhere, that much should be easy enough for ANYONE to see..
Luckily I live in a country that's currently NOT a member of the utter travesty and failure that is called the EU. Our government supposedly still has the opportunity of opting in on this agreement though...
These are the member states of EU that are obviously willing to forcefully implement this type of legislation:
Austria
Belgium
Bulgaria
Czech Republic
Denmark
Finland
France
Greece
Hungary
Ireland
Italy
Latvia
Lithuania
Luxemburg
Malta
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Slovenia
Spain
Sweden
United Kingdom
(Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore and the United States already signed the ACTA agreement back in late 2011)
jamestkirk wrote:This just appeared at MEGAUPLOADS..a major upload/download site for finding rare bootlegs that are no where else to be found, and are not official releases. Did SOPA PIPA pass or is the Man just getting some confidence? Bye bye freedoms...
This is what is there now....instead of d/ls of rare & OOP albums...& so it begins.
Many more blogs/sites to follow I'm sure.
________________________________________________
The megauploads guy is in custody here in NZ, his mansion isn't far away from where I live!
Starting pre production on a sketch show. More soon.
jamestkirk wrote:That's insane, roughie....the long arm of the law is indeed ....VERY LONG.
Yes well apparently they have had this guy under surveillance for 6 months or more, and about that long ago NZ brought in new downloading laws... coincidence?
Starting pre production on a sketch show. More soon.
