I woudn't call these guys enemies. They have a valid position. If you had a load of stuff, and were watching people just walking up and taking it, even if you got that stuff for free, you'd be pissed off. At which point they have panicked, and struck out with lawyers. That's how they know to respond, it's what they do against all their other opponents. They aren't exactly smart people in media, just look at George Lucas.

We will of course see this again, because piracy is still rampant (it is. I won't bother responding to a challenge to that). They need a solution, they just chose a bad one. As did CDPR recently.

My own personal attribution of blame lies with the attitude that to stop something you must legislate against it. I am personally on the side of very light legislation, and focusing on improving the community, rather than fighting it. One reason why I like GOG's attitude, and was until recently appalled at CDPR's.

They are most certainly enemies. And it isn't stopping piracy that's driving them, it's the desire for control. Note that most actual creators were opposed to this legislation. The ones pushing for it were the middlemen- the bloodsucking leeches whose existence depends upon positioning themselves as the gatekeepers between content creators and customers and collecting their pound of flesh from everyone they can. Legislation like SOPA/PIPA would be pretty much useless for stopping piracy (there might be a small initial drop, then new methods would be developed and it would be business as usual), but it would give the current middlemen a tremendous weapon to use against new methods of distribution that are slowly making them obsolete.

No, they'll defang it a bit, give it another push. Then give a 3rd while everyone's distracted during something else. Then they'll attach it as a rider to a bill that's political suicide if you vote against it.

Whatever passes may not be called SOPA or PIPA, but rest assured it'll pass (probably minus the DNS provisions, those are probably gone for good).

OrcishGamer you are correct. Sorry if this posts twice.

SOPA/PIPA is about control, destroying the Bill of Rights. The control of information, what you can see or hear. Words have POWER and it threatens the ones controlling Congress and Obama and anyone under their influence. It's part of a bigger plan. And DO keep in mind CBS/Viacom are the ones that created and distributed the software that taught users how to strip DRM and copy media. Not forgetting CNET and Disney purposely let people download copyrighted .MP3s from their website. And their partners, AOL. Where do you think Kazaa came from? Anyway that's only part of a bigger plan.

Read all 926 pages of bill S.1867 passed by 112th Congress on December 3rd, 2011.

[url=http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:S.1867]http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:S.1867[/url]:

Read it carefully and ponder. Read bills S.3081 and H.R.4892.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-3081
[url=http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:HR04892]http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:HR04892[/url]:

Read about RFID technology created in 2005 and plans for it next year.

Be scared, scared is good. It will keep you vigilant.

I regret voting for the Patriot Act.

You can damn well bet other countries have similar intentions. America is the guinea pig.

SOPA/PIPA went down because some politicians decided Americans were clueless enough to just ignore them while they did whatever they wished. They were understandably shocked when those who spotted the bills spread the information through the internet, and the 'net community reacted with shock and anger. Will they try it again? Sure. But the same thing will happen - as long as the internet exists in its current state, it protects itself by word of mouth campaigns and the subculture it has built for itself.

I do know a bit about OPEN, while it's way better than SOPA/PIPA I'm still not convinced we need it. The US is trying to extradite a Dutch citizen from New Zealand over his Hong Kong company's activities. That pretty much says the existing enforcement is plenty, if not too much already.

OPEN tries to "balance" things by asking questions before shooting and putting things in the hands of a body that already does a sorta similar thing for physical goods, the US ITC (they handle taking care of imports of fake Gucci bags and shit like that, among other things). While this isn't a monumentally horrible idea, again, the question isn't being answered, "Do we need it?"

And that's the real problem with OPEN, not that it's being totally unreasonable on the whole, simply that it hasn't justified its own existence.

It won't pass, it's far too unpopular. The public rarely has any impact whatsoever on legislation in the west, but I doubt they will stand for this.

They have plenty of ways to get unpopular bills passed and signed by the President, they will use them here. It might not be called SOPA/PIPA, but we'll be getting SOPA/PIPA style legislation within the next 18 months, mark my words. I don't think they'll get the DNS provisions in, the rest of it will be law soon, though.

Yeah, sadly. If we can make economic waves we can probably get people to back down, though. http://maddox.xmission.com/ is trying to get an organized boycott together.

There is a curious undertone to this conversation that I find disturbing. There appears to be a resignation to the fact that 'they' will try again, and that 'they' will eventually win in some form or another.

The general consensus appears to be that these acts are intended to gain more general control, and to obtain power over 'the people'. Personally I prefer to perceive this as a case of Hanlons Razor, where in fact it's a load of people panicking over a force they can't control. Anyway, the disturbing thing: You're putting up with it! If you really believed that there were 'them' out there trying to control you to this extent, I do not believe you'd do so little to prevent it as just posting messages on a forum.

If I really thought that there were people in Britain with an agenda that was to effectively make me their bitch, and that they were likely to suceed. I'd blow the fuckers up. Luckily, I don't believe there are, and I think there are controls against it in this country.

So I'm calling your bluff on all this. I don't think you actually, really, believe the stuff that you're saying.

I don't know where you see resignation or even any hint of an indication that "they" will eventually win. Actually, nobody here has ever said that. What people _are_ saying is that the fight isn't over. It would be utterly naive to think that the corporations which lobbied for SOPA/PIPA will now simply fold their hands and do nothing. So, people here are being quite sensible by saying "Stay wary, they will try again."

I don't know if you were building a strawman or genuinely misunderstood the whole discussion, but in any case your "interpretation" of what is going on here is quite far from reality, imho.

Yeah, I wouldn't use that guy as figurehead, he comes off as a complete dick. That kind of thing will alienate the people he's trying to motivate, not a terribly good strategy.

I don't think your opinion is humble. In fact it sounds resolutely proud. That's not a bad thing, but given you were correcting my interpretation, it would be wise to be accurate.

Anyway, resignation:

Quote from Orcish "Whatever passes may not be called SOPA or PIPA, but rest assured it'll pass".

<removed>

anjohl followed up with "but I doubt they will stand for this." That doesn't sound like resignation.

true, I retract that.