SOPA - the future of the internet is at risk

No it doesn't. This was a major bust by the FBI against a site hosting films etc. by major companies. The FBI will never do the same against any file locker just hosting porn in support of any justifiable claims by adult film companies. SOPA/PIPA at least makes the attempt to give the small producer equal legal status to the major film companies. The proposed legislation may not be perfect, new legislation never is, but at least the legislators are becoming aware of how pernicious piracy is and how much it costs the US in taxes and how much piracy now aids criminal enterprises. I don't know of any cyber/file-locker site that could survive on legitimate traffic. All have commission-paying affiliate programmes in an identical model to MegaUpload. None of them obey DMCA in the manner it was intended. They never remove the illegal content when it is DMCA reported but just delete the published link to it, enabling the thief to obtain a new link to their original upload in seconds. Some even allow direct copying between account holders with one click and so provide an easy way for mass infringement which is almost impossible for the copyright owner to prevent. That is why we need SOPA/PIPA (or similar legislation) to kill the money feeds to these cyberlocker sites.

No, we don't need any legislation thank you. Nothing against spanking video producers but most of the video's produced are of poor quality and without any sensitivity towards the subject, Miss Marchmont, GBS, FirmHand excepted! No one asks you to produce videos, it's something you choose to do and I don't want to see internet freedom curtailed to protect your "intellectual copyright"!! I don't wish to be snobbish but I think you would find more sympathy if you were trying to produce something of artistic merit!!

Well blimp I'll have to take your artistic 'merit' on trust because, although you have designated yourself an 'Author', you don't seem to have shared any of your works on this site with the rest of us other than as 800+ comments. So more a critic than an author I think.

Regardless of your snobbish rant about 'artistic merit' it is the LAW of the UK and other countries that ALL works, written and recorded, have copyright assigned to them automatically and regardless of their content are supposedly protected as such.

I make no allusions to being anything other than a producer and purveyor of well over 100 spanking films that I have made for my site, and probably 300+ others that I have made, in the past, for other sites - some of them market leaders in their time.

No one, especially myself, has asked you to watch or like my films, or even buy them (as many do and enjoy).

Your sour comments above, do illustrate to me that you have chosen the perfect nickname for yourself and furthermore do you little credit in what is supposedly a serious discussion about copyright infringement.

Infringement of copyright of any original works is illegal and the producer is entitled to profits from that work and protection of their business from illegal copying. How that is to be attained in the digital age is why we are discussing it here, not that some works, in your biased opinion, deserve or do not deserve that protection.

My wife is a singer/guitar player who has original songs on Itunes, etc and has produced 2 CD's over the last 4 years. We would not like anyone to pirate those songs, it cost us lots of money to get them recorded, produced and the whole process. We do not want anyone taking those songs for their own pleasure when it is as simple as buying them off Itunes and the others for as little as 99 cents. We may be very small in the recording industry however the feelings are likely the same for any size provider of services on the net.

That said, and remember I am Canadian so SOPA was not directly affecting us, but very much indirectly it did. I read various sites about the proposed legislation and thought it went too far. Everyone in North America is innocent until proven guilty and that legislation sought to throw that concept in the garbage. That is a bad idea, not only for the net but because what happens in one piece of legislation can quickly spread to others. In itself that is a scary concept. One could say it would never happen but if we allow it to happen once, then twice or ten times is not impossible.

The concept is this. One can have a smelly factory move in his neighbourhood and for the first year complain etc. However, if the factory is successful at continuing to operate, soon the neighbourhood gets use to the smell and after a year or so quit complaining. (Sometimes the factory says the smell is not bad because it is the smell of employment, dollars in one's pocket etc. Anything to get away from the original idea that the place stinks.)

I have to agree with Februs on this, there are other ways to control the net without giving taking away basic rights and freedoms from business on the net that are innocent. If one is found guilty, fine, shut down the site and do all sorts of legal stuff, but one has to be proven guilty first.

Kindly explain why the USA should be able to arrest them in New Zealand, unless they are US citizens.
Intermational arrests should be for serious crimes only, not those that should be pursued for damages in a civil court which is how copyright cliams should be dealt with.
Februs also has it exactly right.

If you're referring to his forum status showing as 'author' then I'm afraid it is myself that designated him as such but then that's because he is one as you'd have discovered for yourself if you'd bothered to check the Members List. So basically a critic and author, one who gives of his time to share something with others for free in the spanko community, a concept that might be somewhat unfamiliar to you of course.

And rightly so. Blimp is ONE HELL of an author. We all make comments that in a way critique the authors of certain stories. I myself have been subject to that and most of the time they're right on.

B

Very sorry, I had no idea at all that this was a "serious discussion"!! I should have kept my "biased opinion" to myself had I known. I must have been misled by your earlier comment "Hoorah for Uncle Sam!" Doubtless the guys from Megaupload will have their own "biased opinions" too when they are serving ridiculously long sentences in American jails for "offences" committed in New Zealand. Then that probably wont interest you because it strikes me that you are unable or unwilling to see beyond your video company. It interests me because I am interested in fairness, justice and the freedom of the individual.

PS I see you have the "perfect" nickname too!! Perfect for advertising your no doubt excellent video's !

Here's how SOPA (as envisioned) COULD work. Not that anyone designed it to work this way - but it's a way that it could have worked.

First though, let's look at how it was designed to work:
Step 1: Someone in the US (say in Atlanta, Georgia) contacts the Justice department to say that there is pirated material - or links to pirated material - on a foreign website and submits a legal opinion that the website falls under the law.
They do not have to prove their case at this time.
They do not have to inform the owner of the website.

Step 2: Within five days Paypal, Google, and all other US based sites will have to disassociate themselves from the accused site. Paypal will freeze all accounts. Google will stop showing the sites in their searches, the US based DNS stop translating the URL name to the IP numbers.

Step 3: Owner of the website notices that his numbers are way down and the money he had in his Paypal and Google Ad accounts is gone. Realising what has happened, he now must fight this case where it was filed (Atlanta, Georgia in this case) even though his site isn't American and he doesn't live in the US.

That's the way the law was intended to work. Sony, Warner Brothers, etc informs the Justice Department about movies being shared and the site gets shut down until it can prove that it's legal.

Now here's how it can be twisted:
Step 1: Anti porn crusader sets up a pirated website, goes to an adult website's forum, and links to the pirate site.
Step 2: the law works - see above.
Step 3: the anti porn crusader chalks up another win.

Easier yet:
Step 1: Anti porn crusader finds a patsy who files a false complaint alleging that every video on a website is a pirated one.
Step 2: the law works - see above.
Step 3: the anti porn crusader chalks up another win. If the website fights back the anti porn crusader denies knowing the patsy (who doesn't show up in court).

In short, if my understanding of the original version of the law is correct, there would be nothing stop anti porn crusader from targeting any site (this site, your site) and making it prove that it is legal.
Prove in a US Court.

Do you have a "fight to prove in a US Court that I made the video that I made" item in your budget? Because if a law like SOPA passes and you have to prove that you legal (as opposed to them proving that you are illegal) then you'd need to set aside funds to deal with things like that. Because there are nuts out there who (in a desire to protect others from porn) will try something like that.

Goodgulf