Aaron

@AxelSteelBMX Do you mean in the original SOPA text or the Manager's Amendment which fixed those ambiguities? Or in internet-speak: SOPA 1.0 or 2.0 ?

The author of this post has no clue what he is talking about, for two reasons: (1) SOPA makes EXISTING U.S. law applicable to foreign websites, so it changes NOTHING about anyone in America's rights, and (2) the First Amendment doesn't guarantee unlimited free speech. This case is about whether you can find copyright infringement in the mere depiction of a protected design. There is absolutely no way that SOPA-style legislation would have ANY bearing on this case at all. Unless... the court found EA to be in violation of the Textron IP and EA, who could no longer sell the game as-is, decided not to alter the game and instead sell it online, but in order to avoid U.S. law decided to put the servers in Uzbekistan where U.S. law couldn't touch the servers. In that case SOPA would help Textron by letting them stop EA from using Paypal, Visa, Mastercard, etc to sell the game online, and would stop them from hosting ads on their website. EVERYONE (even internet companies) agree to those provisions of the Bill. The controversial (?) part would be if Textron had the U.S. government seize the domain name of the EA server hosting the illegal game in Uzbekistan. Why is this so hard to understand?

@gordogg24p SOPA only deals with foreign websites. We already have laws to deal with trademark and copyright theft in the United States and they are suing under it. It has nothing to do with the first amendment.

This must be the magical experience described by Steve Jobs in his keynotes...

If it was a flaming cat-helmet I would sooooo be on board. Avatar? meh.

Brian,

I don't agree that you are "buying" content when you buy it in a CD, DVD, etc. You are buying a license to use the content on the format you purchase. So, technically you only own the plastic which holds the media, not the content. That's the difference between physical and intellectual property. The owner of the property is only giving you a limited license on use.

That said, I totally agree with you - and I believe it was my rather opaque point above - that once you buy a permanent license (i.e. buy the CD, DVD, game, etc) you should be able to access the content in whatever equivalent form you choose. The company may still want to discriminate pricing for standard and high def, but if you buy a movie it should play everywhere, and you should be able to use it on ALL of your devices. And you shouldn't have to rip/burn/transcode/snuffalufagus anything. The content should be available, online, for any equivalent format you want and be included in your license. There's no need to make consumers rip and decode and backup dvds, just make the licenses permit that. Or, hell, make replacement CDs and DVDs available for manufacturing cost plus shipping to anyone with a beat-up disc. They DID pay for the content, and they should be catered to as a content licensee.

We have just gotten so used to a self-service model and the content owners have gotten so combative that there's not much outside the box thinking going on. People need to pay for their content, but companies need to ensure they can use it as they want on their own devices. As you point out, Brian, convenience for the user is key, and the digital distribution and delivery of products needs to reflect this. The more legitimate paths there are, the less excuse those who just want to illegally take have.

Yours,

Aaron (Lars)

I think this case may be different than anything you would do with copyrighted material, because, it's still infringement to copy the work, even if you "own" the media.

Although I have no tolerance for bit-torrenters and file "sharers," I do believe the content industries (music, software, movies, et al) do need to create a proper way to license their material across platforms. The fact that people spend $20-$40 on a plastic disc which costs 5 cents to make gives them an inflated sense of ownership consistent with that inflated price. It would make more sense to pay for a license with varying degrees of quality and usage rights.

For example, a single machine portable version low-def with a week usage period could be $3, whereas a high-def version with rights for public performance (i.e. using clips on youtube, etc) could cost $100. Blue-ray quality could be $20 with a an option to burn for playback on cross-licensed DRM machines.

The Ultraviolet DRM scheme looks like it could accomplish this. I think the more possibilities the content owners give for users to come into the legal realm, the less excuse there is for thieves to use inflexibility as an excuse to steal.

Let's hope they give the data to the proper authorities so that legitimate users of torrents can finally get their bandwidth back from the pirates! I hope the big offenders get some tasty fines and prison time!

You report this crackdown like it is a bad thing... I hardly think that you or your bosses would be happy if someone spoofed your parent company AOL's servers and started hosting an ad-free version of DownloadSquad. If download squad is happy to dump its advertisers and stop paying its writers I'd like to see how long it will last.

Don't be a hypocrite. You like stealing movies because you think free is better, and you don't see who it is hurting. The answer is that it hurts our whole economy and exploits one of the few things America is still great in... our creative and artistic abilities. We have invested a lot of time, education and money to create our artistic community and your discounting of it is a shame.

As to why the Federal Government is involved; violations of IP law are a federal crime. Expect higher enforcement and higher prosecution of theft. If you really like seeing movies cheaply get a netflix subscription. It's only like $10 a month. And, as for songs, buy them for less than a dollar from Amazon, iTunes, whatever... but honestly, if you can't afford $1, maybe you should go and listen to the songs at the library for free until you get a job.

Stop whining about anti-piracy efforts, stop pirating, and support your country and the creative people around you who work hard to make content that improves your life.

The better question is, how does he know what Jazz is? The other two could just be translations of a concept from Cybertronian into English, but Jazz is a uniquely American art form.