"The failure to pass meaningful legislation will result in overseas websites continuing to be a safe haven for criminals stealing and profiting from America," the MPAA said in a blogpost.

Maybe Motion Pictures should look closer. When you go to the movie theater locally, say in NY, the price of a hotdog is 4.50 at the stand in the theaters, and for $.50 more you could get be pushed into getting a largest soda drink, which is already huge, half a gallon. To take 2 other people to the movies it costs me close to $50 USD(tickets and snacks). So I do it once every 3-4 month instead every other week.

Does this mean that UK bloke wont be extradited for linking to pirated movies now?

Boohoo I feel so bad for MPAA and the likes

blend27, if the theatre owner I had a beer with was correct, that's almost exclusively under control of the theatre's and it's also just about the only thing keeping the lights on. The studios get the vast, vast majority of the ticket prices, hence the high cost of refreshments by the theatres.

*Shelved*. Later, "I'm ba-a-ack."

When smoking in theaters was banned, my little dollar opted out. So that little dollar isn't collected. HOWEVER back on topic, SOPA hit a big bump in the road when MPAA and Silicon Valley went head to head... and with the number of Googler's in the administration these days, there was a really big bump. :)

That said, I'd like to find a valid, fair, simple method of protecting copyright on the web. Most jeer at RIAA and MPAA because they think "too much money", but WE as WEBMASTERS have the SAME problem with scrapers (as do book authors, publishers, etc.)

We need something, but what SOPA was offering in previous incarnation would have destroyed the web, fractured DNS and the underlying security... such as it is... The question will not go away, but how it is eventually implemented will be the subject of much debate.

lets vote obama again !

Just because Obama is not in favour of SOPA doesn't mean it will go away completely.

See this article from the BBC:

[bbc.co.uk...]

Considering we're approaching election time, Obama isn't going to do or say anything that's widely unpopular. Once elections have passed I'm sure we'll see this bill again, albeit with a different name and some slight changes.

The following message was cut out to new thread by engine. New thread at: webmaster/4407684.htm [webmasterworld.com]
2:01 pm on Jan 17, 2012 (utc 0)

Most jeer at RIAA and MPAA because they think "too much money", but WE as WEBMASTERS have the SAME problem with scrapers (as do book authors, publishers, etc.)

I disagree. We have a very different problem: plagiarism vs unauthorised replication.

Most of the legal remedies would either not help us at all, or even leave us vulnerable to false claims.

If you look at the supporters of this (and all similar) legislation they are people like Rupert Murdoch who would love to destroy the internet.

Graeme, the safe harbor provision is an absolute disaster for webmasters, those doing SEO, small authors and small publishers. I'm amazed people don't understand that a good chunk of the Panda updates and google's ranking is affected by the rampant piracy of content.

And, so long as larger companies that "publish" stolen content (Google is a good example, but so is every other company doing user gen'ed content, continue to make money from stolen content, and have NO responsibility to compensate content owners, then it chills content production in every media pirated.

Point: Someone published a self-published book and used my name as the co-author. Amazon has NO responsibility to compensate me or even remove the title. And they didn't.
Point: One of my books published by McGraw-Hill is on ScribD in it's entirety. So, it's always up to ME to spend my time with DMCA's? ScribD makes money from ads on their pages. They deserve to be accountable legally.

I don't know either if SOPA is the right solution, but I guarantee you that if a company like Google was legally obligated to pay 5-10 grand for each copyright infringement they make money off of, you see all the crap on blogger disappear. And the same on amazon.

Perhaps you weren't aware that there's a move to steal book content, and republish it via amazon, and organized crime is getting in to it. Amazon has NO obligation to me if that happens, beyond DMCA's and the faked books are replaced so quickly that if it happens to you, you'd be spending half your time doing takedown notices.

Believe it or not, it's the small people who author the majority of web content, some pro writers, some not, but if we cannot protect our content from "publishers" profiting from it, then you aren't going to get content from experts.
The Internet will become even worse in terms of the quality of content.

Destroy the Internet? Hey, I stopped producing free web content 9 months ago. You want it? You pay for it.

If you look at the supporters of this (and all similar) legislation they are people like Rupert Murdoch who would love to destroy the internet.

He would love to destroy the internet in its current form. I'm sure he'd love the internet if he had control over his content and it couldn't be so easily replicated on thousands of other sites. However, instead of whining he should find ways to make the internet work for him instead of against him.

We have a very different problem: plagiarism vs unauthorised replication.

Sorry... it's the same thing. Particularly when no effort is made to "spin it" a bit.

It's all about copyright.

Analysis I am going to propose something that may sound radical, but really isn't. Legislation like SOPA ideally isn't necessary in an ideal world, and this idea comes about through voluntary agreeement. The Stop Online Piracy Act was proposed because of a tragic impasse, a lack of agreement between two powerful and deeply entrenched sides. Although one side has moral force on its side, being 'right' doesn't mean it's going to 'win'. Like a classic game theory tragedy, both sides are losing.

Commentary from El Reg... [theregister.co.uk...]

The RIAA and MPAA has had it day in the sun. Technology has changed, and they have become the new buggy whip industry.

This is how I see the future unfolding.

The role of the RIAA and MPAA will eventually be restricted to the 90-180 day period when a song or movie is popular. Tough penalties will be enacted for illegal distribution during this timeframe, to protect the industry.

After this period, a mechanism will develop so the author can be paid the few cents, for every download, and via a global distribution clearing house (hopefully by a not for profit organization).

The RIAA and MPAA is so despised by the masses, thay they have no hope in being involved in the new economy of "the long tail" of entertainment IP.

Legislation like SOPA if passed, will result in the creation of a VPN network, composed of every teenager with a computer.

I think most people would be willing to pay the extra money to see a new movie in a theater. They just don't want to pay 99 cents for a 20 year old song, in which the author gets a couple cents, and the record label gets a huge profit.

Sorry... it's the same thing.

It's not, in fact. Plagiarism is an attempt to pass someone else's content off as your own. It's a form of lying. Copyright infringement is any unauthorized replication, with or without correct attribution. The sets intersect but are not congruent.

This will not go away, you should see the dross thats available where original work is not protected,

Or where news is of the same standard as finding out about the economy at a train station listening to commuters

Any purveyors of news here book trip to nice quiet London to cover the Olympics for 2 weeks and report first hand to their eager readers ?
How about a ticket to Bagram, Afganistan, no ?


Of course after we've all Enjoyed Watching "Shelock Holmes 2" whether we paid for it or not an moan about how imperfect the script was in places, we'll be putting up the $millions required to pay that little army of camera techs, graphic artists, goffers, drivers, truckers, canteen attendants, artists, actors, writers who need to be paid so we can make a movie

Who knows, perhaps some Big Block busters are on their way from those parts of the world famous for their enforcement of copywrite or lack thereoff

Oh yes, I finally saw one of the Famous mash ups so beloved of www posters recently.

Fab site, TBPR 6, verifiable traffic going up like a rocket increasing with each PANDA iteration, an absolutely all its content from guess where , nice

I think most people would be willing to pay the extra money to see a new movie in a theater. They just don't want to pay 99 cents for a 20 year old song, in which the author gets a couple cents, and the record label gets a huge profit.

I don't think it's just that...I think that when people can have something free vs. 99 cents, they will almost always take free. It's the same mindset that will have people driving miles out of their way for slightly cheaper gas prices. Anything to save a buck.