PIPA vs Fair Use. Who Wins?

[JarodRussell]

I'm kinda wondering why there's no active thread about the whole PIPA and SOPA thing. What's your thoughts, folks?

At the moment I see a lot of Internet people going crazy because they think all their illegal download and porn sites might be closed and it's the end of the world for them.

We had a copyright thread not too long ago, and while I was (I still am) advocating a new copyright law where you should be allowed to do anything you want with copyrighted material if you compensate the copyright holder for it, and then keep your own copyright for your work you did (let's say you make a fan film in the Star Wars universe, you should be allowed to sell it, if Lucas gets a let's say 20% share, blablabla, we already went through this)... but I also think that illegal stuff is illegal. Abide the laws, folks, as long as they are in place. If you are not happy with the laws, then do something to change them. So all the guys and gals whining about their filesharing sites getting closed (like Megaupload, which was shut down even without SOPA) should seriously rethink their ideas about legal and illegal.

The problem is, that with the current copyright laws, any site might be shut down with PIPA and SOPA in effect. If you take a screenshot of a TNG episode and put a caption on it, you are violating the law, that's the simple and perhaps discomforting fact.

On the other hand, a site is only shut down if the copyright holder requests it. So there's a big hysteria element to all the panic all over the Interblag. Paramount for example will still allow fan films to be made and released on the Web, SOPA won't change that attitude towards the fans.

The Internet has made it easy to "steal" and "abuse" content. That's the problem. The copyright laws are still trapped in the middle ages with the concepts of physically stealing and copying an item. I'd say that more than two thirds of active Internet users are criminals by now. Everyone has illegally shared images, videos, music. And I do think that in this case the laws should be adjusted to fit the needs of the majority. Either we criminalize almost everyone, or we realize that copyright simply can't have the same meaning in the 21st century than it did before the Internet. It's not the first time that some things have been declared illegal and then legal.

 

[137th Gebirg]

I'm kinda wondering why there's no active thread about the whole PIPA and SOPA thing. What's your thoughts, folks?

At the moment I see a lot of Internet people going crazy because they think all their illegal download and porn sites might be closed and it's the end of the world for them.

We had a copyright thread not too long ago, and while I was (I still am) advocating a new copyright law where you should be allowed to do anything you want with copyrighted material if you compensate the copyright holder for it, and then keep your own copyright for your work you did (let's say you make a fan film in the Star Wars universe, you should be allowed to sell it, if Lucas gets a let's say 20% share, blablabla, we already went through this)... but I also think that illegal stuff is illegal. Abide the laws, folks, as long as they are in place. If you are not happy with the laws, then do something to change them. So all the guys and gals whining about their filesharing sites getting closed (like Megaupload, which was shut down even without SOPA) should seriously rethink their ideas about legal and illegal.

The problem is, that with the current copyright laws, any site might be shut down with PIPA and SOPA in effect. If you take a screenshot of a TNG episode and put a caption on it, you are violating the law, that's the simple and perhaps discomforting fact.

On the other hand, a site is only shut down if the copyright holder requests it. So there's a big hysteria element to all the panic all over the Interblag. Paramount for example will still allow fan films to be made and released on the Web, SOPA won't change that attitude towards the fans.

The Internet has made it easy to "steal" and "abuse" content. That's the problem. The copyright laws are still trapped in the middle ages with the concepts of physically stealing and copying an item. I'd say that more than two thirds of active Internet users are criminals by now. Everyone has illegally shared images, videos, music. And I do think that in this case the laws should be adjusted to fit the needs of the majority. Either we criminalize almost everyone, or we realize that copyright simply can't have the same meaning in the 21st century than it did before the Internet. It's not the first time that some things have been declared illegal and then legal.

Well, PIPA and SOPA, like many other laws, derive their "spirit" from real-world situations from problems that need to be fixed. The theft of intellectual property is a very real and large issue - one with international impact. Many Chinese and other foreign countries specialize in taking consumer electronics, reverse engineering them and re-selling them for pennies on the dollar by using sub-standard components and questionable labor practices. Companies who do things legally and with better equipment can never compete against that in any other manner than challenging copyright and IP theft. I don't think anybody can dispute that. Again, the "spirit" of the law makes a lot of sense and can be easily supported.

However...

It is safe to say, based on historical evidence, that once a law as powerful and far-reaching such as is this becomes ratified, the irresistible desire to abuse the provisos of the law in manners never intended in its "spirit" becomes just as real as the problems it was designed to solve. As mentioned in earlier posts when I started this thread, it comes down to who has the most money and most powerful lawyers. The way the law is written, Paramount ** could ** have a domain seized for the smallest infraction if it felt that its interests were threatened by fan-made productions. The Fair-Use laws came out of many of those debates back in the 90's and it looks as if these new laws stand a very large chance of trampling those freedoms. And many of us remember that Paramount DID enact a scorch-and-burn policy against Trek fan websites back then. It can - and will - happen again if Paramount and other distribution houses feel that it is in their best interest to do so for the sake of a healthy bottom line and I will not ever assume that no personal site is too small to be considered a potential threat. What happens if someone out there comes up with such a great idea for a fan film, finances it with their own personal cash and makes such a viral uproar that it actually makes Paramount look bad? If they start seeing internet headlines or bits on TMZ that say, "Why can't Paramount do THAT?", you can bet they would take steps...

My other big gripe is that Homeland Security now seems to be the private Gestapo for corporations to enforce this new agenda. I thought the DHS charter mandated that it was supposed to look for terrorists, not copyright infringement. Has the war on terror become so innocuous and irrelevant that they have to turn their gaze to other unrelated activities to maintain their over-bloated budget? Or has some well-paid govie lawyer figured out a way to officially label IP theft as a particular brand of economic terrorism? Really? Where does it end? Will they arrest farmers next for owning cows who fart and destroy the ozone and brand it environmental terrorism? Seriously, when will this idiocy end? December 21st if we're lucky.

Someone stop the planet - I want to get off...

 

[Ian Keldon]

At last report, SOPA and PIPA are dead in the water after the huge "blackout" protest.

They'll be back in another form soon I'm sure.

The IP developers have been plotting and scheming for decades now about how to stop people from doing ANYTHING with IP except watch/read it when the rights holders want them to and how the rights holders want them to.

They got smacked on the nose by "fair use" when it came to VHS taping/cassette taping and have been working to claw back their "rights" ever since. They killed DAT. They killed "direct burn" recordable CDs.

Now with the "e reader" movement, cloud computing, downloading/streaming content, etc they're setting up a situation where you won't even have a distinct copy of the work in a protected format they can't take away from you at will.

The end goal is that they want you to pay each and every time you access their IP in any way shape or form.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Although I have no personal experience in the matter, I understand that some "digital copy" discs they include with DVD and BlueRay releases have a limited life span usage of 3 to 5 plays and they're done. Not sure how this works across multiple systems, but I have heard of this happening. The reasoning behind it is that, even though you bought the disc, the distro company still owns it and you're just renting it. The EUL states that you have a limited number of times you can use a disc before it goes dead. If true, it positively sucks ass.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Although I have no personal experience in the matter, I understand that some "digital copy" discs they include with DVD and BlueRay releases have a limited life span usage of 3 to 5 plays and they're done. Not sure how this works across multiple systems, but I have heard of this happening. The reasoning behind it is that, even though you bought the disc, the distro company still owns it and you're just renting it. The EUL states that you have a limited number of times you can use a disc before it goes dead. If true, it positively sucks ass.

Sounds like the old DivX model reborn: wanna keep watching? Better pay up!

 

[SeerSGB]

SOPA world tour: Next Stop Canada

The Behind-the-Scenes Campaign To Bring SOPA To Canada

While SOPA may be dead (for now) in the U.S., lobby groups are likely to intensify their efforts to export SOPA-like rules to other countries. With Bill C-11 back on the legislative agenda at the end of the month, Canada will be a prime target for SOPA style rules. In fact, a close review of the unpublished submissions to the Bill C-32 legislative committee reveals that several groups have laid the groundwork to add SOPA-like rules into Bill C-11, including blocking websites and expanding the "enabler provision"to target a wider range of websites.

 

[Random_Spock]

SOPA world tour: Next Stop Canada

The Behind-the-Scenes Campaign To Bring SOPA To Canada

While SOPA may be dead (for now) in the U.S., lobby groups are likely to intensify their efforts to export SOPA-like rules to other countries. With Bill C-11 back on the legislative agenda at the end of the month, Canada will be a prime target for SOPA style rules. In fact, a close review of the unpublished submissions to the Bill C-32 legislative committee reveals that several groups have laid the groundwork to add SOPA-like rules into Bill C-11, including blocking websites and expanding the "enabler provision"to target a wider range of websites.

Wow, that's just insane. O_O

something more dangerous than SOPA and PIPA -- ACTA -- the Anti-Counterfitting Trade Agreement

I just heard about this one over on serebii.net's forums. Sounds even worse... and it covers things globally.