ATAR Notes: Forum

General Discussion => General Discussion Boards => Rants and Debate => Topic started by: Camo on January 22, 2012, 11:03:45 pm

Title: Stop SOPA, free the internet!
Post by: Camo on January 22, 2012, 11:03:45 pm
So to me lately this has become a big issue, and for one I'm very concerned that the appropriate authorities could use this bill to negatively influence the expansion of the internet and the users ability to express free speech, one of our most sacred rights. However, I do believe that the bill does has some reasoning to it, I know if I was a massive music industry star, losing my income would be a concern. Whats your take on the matter?
Title: Re: Stop SOPA, free the internet!
Post by: iamtom on January 22, 2012, 11:11:33 pm
My take on the matter is that SOPA was shelved indefinitely the other day.
Title: Re: Stop SOPA, free the internet!
Post by: Twenty11 on January 22, 2012, 11:18:17 pm
Music stars make too much money anyway.
Title: Re: Stop SOPA, free the internet!
Post by: yabbaboo on January 23, 2012, 11:35:44 pm
come on people in hollywood earns MILLIONS!
Title: Re: Stop SOPA, free the internet!
Post by: Russ on January 24, 2012, 02:29:33 pm
SOPA was a poorly written bill but attempts to eradicate piracy and filesharing are pretty fucking important. The amount of money people in Hollywood make is completely irrelevant and is an intellectual cop out of an argument.
Title: Re: Stop SOPA, free the internet!
Post by: History_buff on January 24, 2012, 02:35:17 pm
From what I've heard, the SOPA bill won't be passed indefinitely (as someone else said it's been shelved indefinitely) because apparently Obama is opposed, what with comparisons to the Chinese censorship of the internet and what not
Title: Re: Stop SOPA, free the internet!
Post by: Stick on January 24, 2012, 03:21:42 pm
SOPA was a poorly written bill but attempts to eradicate piracy and filesharing are pretty fucking important. The amount of money people in Hollywood make is completely irrelevant and is an intellectual cop out of an argument.

+1 (if possible)
Title: Re: Stop SOPA, free the internet!
Post by: iamtom on January 24, 2012, 04:38:34 pm
From what I've heard, the SOPA bill won't be passed indefinitely (as someone else said it's been shelved indefinitely) because apparently Obama is opposed, what with comparisons to the Chinese censorship of the internet and what not

what
no
Obama opposing something means nothing. NDAA anyone? No, it simply didn't pass because no-one wanted it to. Whole websites blacked out for a day in protest.
Title: Re: Stop SOPA, free the internet!
Post by: Stick on January 24, 2012, 05:29:12 pm
There are also A LOT of piracy websites which help fund terrorist organisations (through ads). This is why my family always purchase multimedia through iTunes.
Title: Re: Stop SOPA, free the internet!
Post by: nacho on January 24, 2012, 05:57:01 pm
There are also A LOT of piracy websites which help fund terrorist organisations (through ads). This is why my family always purchase multimedia through iTunes.
i just jizzed my pants rofling
Title: Re: Stop SOPA, free the internet!
Post by: Thu Thu Train on January 24, 2012, 06:20:21 pm
There are also A LOT of piracy websites which help fund terrorist organisations (through ads). This is why my family always purchase multimedia through iTunes.
Not sure if serious?
Title: Re: Stop SOPA, free the internet!
Post by: DlP on January 24, 2012, 06:39:51 pm
There are also A LOT of piracy websites which help fund terrorist organisations (through ads). This is why my family always purchase multimedia through iTunes.
I'm interested to see where you learnt that.
Title: Re: Stop SOPA, free the internet!
Post by: Stick on January 24, 2012, 09:05:03 pm
It was on 60 Minutes or something... :S

But I'm pretty sure it's true and it doesn't really surprise me. (Why are people laughing at me? :()
Title: Re: Stop SOPA, free the internet!
Post by: ash.123.117 on January 24, 2012, 09:09:24 pm
ahh 60 minutes... that seems legit
Title: Re: Stop SOPA, free the internet!
Post by: Stick on January 24, 2012, 09:11:27 pm
Fine, don't listen to me:

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/21/1047749921225.html
http://www.smh.com.au/national/movie-pirates-funding-terrorists-20090627-d0gm.html
Title: Re: Stop SOPA, free the internet!
Post by: Hodgeyhodgey on January 24, 2012, 09:15:44 pm
Quote
"The Department of Justice made the claims before a United States congressional hearing earlier this month but could not provide evidence."


"Malcolm could not cite an actual case where software piracy was linked to terrorism, but said, "it would surprise me greatly if the number were not large". "

Those are just from skimming the article. I'm sorry, but I don't see what you're so worried about Stick.
Title: Re: Stop SOPA, free the internet!
Post by: Stick on January 24, 2012, 09:18:30 pm
Quote
"The Department of Justice made the claims before a United States congressional hearing earlier this month but could not provide evidence."


"Malcolm could not cite an actual case where software piracy was linked to terrorism, but said, "it would surprise me greatly if the number were not large". "

Those are just from skimming the article. I'm sorry, but I don't see what you're so worried about Stick.

Personally, I don't think the US would release information about terrorist links to the public.

So maybe my terrorism argument didn't work. But these artists are still entitled to making money for their products. I just don't support piracy at all.
Title: Re: Stop SOPA, free the internet!
Post by: pi on January 24, 2012, 09:20:29 pm
But these artists are still entitled to making money for their products. I just don't support piracy at all.

That's a better reason :) Fair enough then :)
Title: Re: Stop SOPA, free the internet!
Post by: Stick on January 24, 2012, 09:32:59 pm
Not really. I believe my second link still holds water:

http://www.smh.com.au/national/movie-pirates-funding-terrorists-20090627-d0gm.html

Quote
Mr Gane said movie piracy, which costs the industry $8 billion a year globally, was increasingly run by organised crime syndicates, some of which funded terrorist groups. A pirated DVD can be made for as little as 25 cents and sold for 20 times that amount.

"Movie piracy is a low-risk, high-profit crime," Mr Gane said. "It is a reliable source of income for organised crime syndicates. It has been recognised by governments … that there is a link between movie piracy and terrorist funding.

"As state-sponsored terrorism dries up, terrorist organisations look for different revenue streams and one … is organised crime. As we know, movie piracy plays a big part in organised crime."

An international study, partly funded by the Motion Picture Association of America, into the link between copyright theft and terrorism identified three cases where it supported terrorist groups.

The report's lead author, Greg Treverton, director of the Centre for Global Risk and Security at RAND Corporation, a non-profit research organisation, said terrorist groups in Ireland, India and South America had benefited from piracy funds: "If you buy pirated DVDs, there is a good chance that at least part of the money will go to organised crime."

Philippine actor Eduardo Manzano, who is running a campaign against piracy in the Philippines, said profits from illegal films ended up in the hands of terrorists.

"The bigger picture is that this money is being funnelled in different directions to aid and support different criminal activities," he said. "In this country, we have the triad, and we have terrorist organisations which are being suspected now of using profits derived from DVDs for possible terrorist activities. The one name that particularly seems to come out in reports is Jemaah Islamiah."
Title: Re: Stop SOPA, free the internet!
Post by: lexitu on January 24, 2012, 09:44:50 pm
Not really. I believe my second link still holds water:

http://www.smh.com.au/national/movie-pirates-funding-terrorists-20090627-d0gm.html

Quote
Mr Gane said movie piracy, which costs the industry $8 billion a year globally, was increasingly run by organised crime syndicates, some of which funded terrorist groups. A pirated DVD can be made for as little as 25 cents and sold for 20 times that amount.

"Movie piracy is a low-risk, high-profit crime," Mr Gane said. "It is a reliable source of income for organised crime syndicates. It has been recognised by governments … that there is a link between movie piracy and terrorist funding.

"As state-sponsored terrorism dries up, terrorist organisations look for different revenue streams and one … is organised crime. As we know, movie piracy plays a big part in organised crime."

An international study, partly funded by the Motion Picture Association of America, into the link between copyright theft and terrorism identified three cases where it supported terrorist groups.

The report's lead author, Greg Treverton, director of the Centre for Global Risk and Security at RAND Corporation, a non-profit research organisation, said terrorist groups in Ireland, India and South America had benefited from piracy funds: "If you buy pirated DVDs, there is a good chance that at least part of the money will go to organised crime."

Philippine actor Eduardo Manzano, who is running a campaign against piracy in the Philippines, said profits from illegal films ended up in the hands of terrorists.

"The bigger picture is that this money is being funnelled in different directions to aid and support different criminal activities," he said. "In this country, we have the triad, and we have terrorist organisations which are being suspected now of using profits derived from DVDs for possible terrorist activities. The one name that particularly seems to come out in reports is Jemaah Islamiah."

Always a link to terrorism and then the arguments end. I think it's important to note that Hezbollah (one of the organisations listed) is not an internationally (by weight of majority of countries) recognised terrorist organisation.

I'm not sure why this matters heavily anyway - we, I think, agree for the most (even if reluctantly and hypocritically) that piracy is immoral so don't see this as an issue.

The issues are the costs of fighting against piracy to the reasonably open and universal nature of the internet and the risks of putting too much power in the hands of government.
Title: Re: Stop SOPA, free the internet!
Post by: Stick on January 24, 2012, 10:13:41 pm
Fair enough. Just wanted to share what I heard. :)
Title: Re: Stop SOPA, free the internet!
Post by: lexitu on January 24, 2012, 10:21:11 pm
Fair enough. Just wanted to share what I heard. :)

Yeah all good :) On that anyway, a lot of piracy-dedicated or often-used-for-piracy sites have pretty sucky ads anyway and often dodgy practices (e.g. click anywhere on page to trigger popup).

---

Who has some alternative ideas for how to stop piracy?

Interestingly, there's been quite an aggressive push from the US Govt. lately which has resulted in the curtailing of sharing practices on many sites, a closure, and some internal crackdowns on copyrighted material.

Title: Re: Stop SOPA, free the internet!
Post by: Russ on January 25, 2012, 11:17:50 am
Who has some alternative ideas for how to stop piracy?


I quite like the current "if you pay people to share copyrighted material via your servers we will shut you down" model...
Title: Re: Stop SOPA, free the internet!
Post by: Hutchoo on January 25, 2012, 12:34:29 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzqMoOk9NWc

If the almighty Khan is against it, so am I.
Title: Re: Stop SOPA, free the internet!
Post by: JellyDonut on January 25, 2012, 01:05:32 pm
Who has some alternative ideas for how to stop piracy?

Today, a mate over the forum pointed out about a hip-hop label which has taken up a $10 per month subscription to the label which enables you to download all of their new and old material. Similarly, I just came back from JB and included in my purchases was a flyer, which had the same idea. 6 bucks a month and you get unlimited downloads of their catalog (which is undoubtedly shit but interesting nonetheless). This is the way things seem to be progressing. Paying pittance for online download works: I don't pirate app store or steam products because they charge so little for it anyway.

Another example is done by Louis CK where he put up a show online, $5 for 5 direct downloads or stream. He made a million bucks from that and counting.
Title: Re: Stop SOPA, free the internet!
Post by: Mech on January 27, 2012, 10:37:00 pm
There are also A LOT of piracy websites which help fund terrorist organisations (through ads). This is why my family always purchase multimedia through iTunes.

Yeah, just support the organization that puts people in industrial cordons and pays them negligible amounts of money to put together Apple products. Seriously, I think just about every investment or purchase could been linked back to some barbarous activity; capitalism feeds off of others and their unfortunate position.

Title: Re: Stop SOPA, free the internet!
Post by: acinod on January 28, 2012, 12:05:57 am
I know someone that actually bought a lifetime membership from Megaupload just a few days before it got closed down.

Poor guy...
Title: Re: Stop SOPA, free the internet!
Post by: Mech on January 28, 2012, 12:09:19 am
I know someone that actually bought a lifetime membership from Megaupload just a few days before it got closed down.

Poor guy...

Lol, poor bastard.