Lamar Smith removes DNS blocking from SOPA

@Mrblonde57

Money.

@Mrblonde57

Bags of $ from movie studios, record labels, and media companies... I mean... completely-legal, not-shady-at-all campaign contributions and lobbying.

@Mrblonde57
It's all about control, unfortunately.

@Mrblonde57

I think that's rather simple if you ask me, under the table 'donations' via riaa

@Mrblonde57 Money in his pockets mang, money in his pockets...

@Mrblonde57

It's all about the buck. The color green.

On the contrary, at least it's being revised for the better. Still needs some work.

@Mrblonde57
I'm just here for the food.

@Mrblonde57

You were right the first time calling him a prick. He is trying to censor the Internet all in the name against fighting piracy which it will not stop at all.

He needs to lay off that crack pipe and come down to reality/

@bittermang

Yes! We still got to keep pushing and write/bug our Conrgress men and gaming companies!

It's not over yet.

@bittermang - "SOPA dictates removal of entire sites -- not just content -- first and foremost, with an appeals process after the fact. Literally shooting first and asking questions later."

I understand what the bigger issue is with the bill but, and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong as I very well could be, if the DNS blocking is removed, doesn't that effectively kill all usefulness of the bill?

I realize that the problems you mentioned still exist but if they can't use DNS blocking, how exactly are they going to remove a site now if this bill were to pass?

It seemed to me that the biggest reason to worry about this bill was the DNS blocking, which is now gone. Either way, it is still a victory, just potentially not a large one.

@Mcmax3000 The DNS issue has been generating the most noise, but it's definitely not the root problem.

To call this a victory and rest easy on our laurels distracts us from the fact that these bills are still very real, and pose a very real threat to the way the Internet as you enjoy it currently will continue to work. We cannot call this a victory. We cannot stop pushing back. We must continue to contact our legislators and educate each other about the perils of this legislation.

SOPA and PIPA have not been defeated. Therefore this is not a victory. Not even close.

@Mcmax3000 SOPA and PIPA will change the rules surrounding how the entertainment industry lays claim to their content online and no longer gives website owners protection against lawsuits based off user-generated content.

Let me paint a scenario for you. You're the head of YouTube back in 2004. You're getting pretty big and its come to the attention of the big movie studios that you're sharing somewhat lengthy clips of movie footage. They see this a violation of copyright. Under the DMCA, they can request you pull down the content within a reasonable time period and you must comply if you or your service is in the US (although as The Pirate Bay trials have shown, DMCA CAN be applied internationally, despite how it isn't an international law.) Under PIPA or SOPA, the company can launch full scale litigation against you over a single infringement, no "please would you remove this", no Cease or Desist, they bypass all that red tape and get to what they really want: your service to shut down. For a single infringement. Which you didn't upload.

And this is why SOPA and PIPA are bad news. The DNS blocking was going to create an internet blacklist, something the US government opposes countries like China from having, but are more than happy to set one up to appease big media. Now this has gone, this will alleviate a lot of fears surrounding the future of the US-facing internet and misuse of the blacklist for political gain. However it doesn't get to the core of the matter. Services like YouTube or Google Images wouldn't exist today if it wasn't for provisions in the DMCA which gave them "safe harbour" from big media throwing their legal weight around. But this is exactly what the media industry wants. YouTube has become competition for them and although they can't stop YouTube anymore, they want to nip any potential, future YouTubes in the bud before they become popular. This way the entertainment industry can get back to fully controlling their markets like they did before the mass adoption of the internet. Game companies are along for the ride since it gives the likes of Nintendo the ability to finally pull down ROM-sharing websites, which Nintendo HATES with a passion, but obviously has no legal grounds to actually do anything about them. PIPA/SOPA will empower them to do so, although they wont be able to take the sites offline without winning litigation against the owners first.

I should also note that it's not just ALL about having content actually on a website. Under PIPA/SOPA, LINKING to copyright infringing content is a punishable offence. Who am I kidding, it already is according to the recent extradition of Richard O'Dwyer from the UK to the US. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-16544335) So if you, as a completely innocent bystander of copyright infringement put a link to say, a video clip from newvideosite.com which was found to be in breach of copyright, they could pull litigation on YOU for the same thing. An extreme case, but you could be found guilty and you could spend up to 10 years in prison. (How many years is it for rape or murder again?)

So no, while the DNS provisions and the establishing of an internet blacklist have subsided for the time being, it just means that companies have to jump through an additional hoop to get what they want. This is why SOPA and PIPA need to be defeated.

@NathanDTS Sorry...

@NathanDTS
What is SOPA?
SOPA stands for the Stop Online Piracy Act. It is one of two bills being considered by congress today. ...

They are well-intentioned. They want to prevent piracy and copyright infringement. But they do so in an overly-aggressive, innovation-endangering way. They allow the entertainment industry to censor sites they feel "engage in, enable or facilitate" infringement.

The issues with SOPA:
The Electronic Frontier Foundation describes SOPA as the "blacklist bill" because it would "allow the U.S. government and private corporations to create a blacklist of censored websites, and cut many more off from their ad networks and payment providers."

That means the Attorney General would have the power to cut off select websites from search engines like Google. It could also cut off advertisers and payment processors like Visa from the sites. The Attorney General could essentially kill all of a site's traffic and revenue in a matter of days.

SOPA only allows targeted sites five days to submit an appeal. That doesn't leave much time for them to defend themselves before losing their site and their revenue altogether.

Source:
http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-12-17/tech/30404716_1_sopa-internet-freedom-innovators

For More Information upon SOPA:
http://americancensorship.org/
http://fightforthefuture.org/pipa (video explanation)

@Gaddes goddamn doublepost... my message didn't show up at all before.

@(Unverified) Should have been a reply to EJ A and just to clarify the comment was about PIPA not SOPA.

@AxelSteelBMX: Oh wait, disregarding DNS blocking, can sites still be ordered to be shut down with little to no warning or due process? If so, then forget the whole thing; he's just trimming the bill's language while still going for the desired end result. Eff Lamar Smith.

@Zertoss: Yeah, I read that earlier. The timing IS pretty "coincidental", especially since (if I remember correctly) Comcast is actually a proponent of the bill.

@Echou
We take down the wall too!

@Once known as Shadsy: Oh, I'm sorry that everyone except you actually cares about the integrity of the Internet. Our bad.

@(Unverified)
When reading the url name I thought the end said "merely-delaying-the.shit". I was confused for a second.

@(Unverified) Those are two separate bills. Leahy is in the Senate, and he's responsible for PROTECT-IP. Smith is the one doing SOPA.