Can we address the definition of infringing activities that the bill contains?

My understanding is that it relates directly to products and services and that there is no censorship of content that does not infringe upon copyright law.

If i am wrong, and i may well be, can someone point out to me the parts of the bill that address this?
http://static.arstechnica.net/2011/10/26/SOPA.pdf

Not true. This bill requires that service providers and search engines block websites and domain names that are accused of providing "infringing" material within 5 days of an order. "infringing" material includes hyperlinks to copyrighted material such as a link to a video a user posts on a forum.
It also requires payment providers (such as credit card companies, PayPal, etc) and internet advertisers to stop all transactions with the site and U.S. users within 5 days. Effectively destroying many sites and businesses all without any real due process.

This rings of censorship because all of the content of a site or even a whole domain will be affected and not just the infringing products and services.

This is the same method China uses to censor its citizen's access to the internet. Same methods just different excuse to do it with a very vague definition of "infringing site"!

actually china censors based on content, not an economic standard
the ideas you shared do not seem like censorship to me at all, they seem like an online method of dealing with those sharing stolen property, banning hyperlinks to pirated copyrighted material seems wise to me, again the standard is still economic, not actually content based and fair use doctrine still applies

sites that sell stolen/pirated software are going to be hurt by this, not the nexus, it is really simply for a mod to delete a hyperlink to a stolen file, and it is even easier for member of a forum to not post such material. It really doesn't make the world a better place that we can deprive others of the goods and services they worked so hard to create and sell. That has nothing to do with the freedom of speech and if you read the bill the freedom of speech is left intact, there is nothing about censoring peoples words, ideas or opinions at all, just an approach for dealing with one of the most rampant and despicable problems that the internet has; piracy.

If you think about it, while you can't hyperlink to pirated material via this bill, you can still tell people where to go to find it, you just can't distribute it or direct others to it in an active way. Freedom of speech is protected still.

i think this is a brilliant bill for the net and comparing it to China's censorship is kind of strange, China's censorship is based on information, not goods and services and copyright law.

Why does anyone have to post links to or files of material that is essentially ripped off of others, this is why pirates were also called rippers, and ripping off is just another name for theft. This bill holds people to a standard of practice, it does not limit what they can say or where they can say it, so it is not censorship.

The nexus would not be any worse off without links to pirated works, maybe it would even be better off because the lack of ethics and the dishonesty inherent in piracy would be discouraged, it holds people to a better potential standard of conduct and respect. It is pretty clear they aren't going to hold themselves to it.

You miss understood. Yes, China censors based on content but that isn't the method only the excuse they use to block sites. As you put it the "economic standard" is the excuse this bill uses not the method. The method would be the same, to force ISPs and search engines to block entire websites and cut off funding. The result could easily be the same.

It does not appear that they would have to give websites a chance to delete links. The potential for abuse is too great. They could use a link as an excuse to shut down a site they don't agree with.

The language of the bill is broad. Though explicitly targeting pirated material, it could be used to take down (or block/censor) sites like the DMT-Nexus ( a site "dedicated to infringing activities" ).

From PROTECT-IP / S.698 RS § 3(a):




"Infringing activities" means:



Source: http://www.govtrack.us/c...lltext.xpd?bill=s112-968


Because of the "no other significant use than" part, an overzealous DA fighting the Drug War could use this legislation to blacklist the DMT-Nexus under copyright infringement (https://www.dmt-nexus.me/forum/default.aspx?g=posts&t=1441). Even if this site is not dedicated to sharing copyrighted material, one could reason that the presence of copyrighted material on the Nexus would be grounds for blacklisting under the bill. I highly doubt The Traveler would go to court and fight a take-down notice when the main significant use of this site is Schedule I extractions.

Also, in the following letter dated 11-16-2011, the director of Sandia National Laboratories outlines the problems with implementing these kinds of controls and how it would harm overall security on the Internet for years to come.

actually in the bill itself it does address this very thing and it does give them a chance to remove the infringing content!

NOTICE.—Upon commencing an action
17 under this subsection, the Attorney General shall
18 send a notice of the alleged violation and intent to
19 proceed under this section—

this concept of notice is throughout the bill, there is no wrote banning of content, rather a site in violation is served a notice that addresses the problem and is given time to comply before any actions, such as blocking the site, become legal.

and then there is this:
22
1 (i) any entity served with a copy of an
2 order under this subsection, and any direc-
3 tor, officer, employee, or agent thereof,
4 shall not be liable for any act reasonably
5 designed to comply with this subsection or
6 reasonably arising from such order; and
7 (ii) any—
8 (I) actions taken by customers of
9 such entity to circumvent any restric-
10 tion on access to the foreign infring-
11 ing site, or portion thereof, that is
12 subject to such order, that is insti-
13 tuted pursuant to this subsection, or
14 (II) act, failure, or inability to re-
15 strict access to a foreign infringing
16 site, or portion thereof, that is subject
17 to such order, in spite of good faith
18 efforts to comply with such order by
19 such entity,
20 shall not be used by any person in any
21 claim or cause of action against such enti-
22 ty

this means that the nexus could not be held liable for posted links from members
however if the nexus itself posted such links they could be served a notice to remove them, and then if they did not comply then and only then can action be taken against them.
this is nothing like rote censorship

this means you could post a link here to copyright protected material that has been ripped off and the nexus cannot be held responsible or blocked upon the basis of that content.

if you read this bill, it specifically targets sites dedicated to piracy and involves a careful protocol for the enforcement of this, it is not a bill of censorship at all

and here is my favorite part:
55
1 TITLE II—ADDITIONAL EN-
2 HANCEMENTS TO COMBAT IN-
3 TELLECTUAL PROPERTY
4 THEFT
5 SEC. 201. STREAMING OF COPYRIGHTED WORKS IN VIOLA-
6 TION OF CRIMINAL LAW.
7 (a) TITLE 17 AMENDMENTS.—Section 506(a) of title
8 17, United States Code, is amended to read as follows:
9 ‘‘(a) CRIMINAL INFRINGEMENT.—
10 ‘‘(1) IN GENERAL.—Any person who willfully
11 infringes a copyright shall be punished as provided
12 under section 2319 of title 18, if the infringement
13 was committed—
14 ‘‘(A) for purposes of commercial advantage
15 or private financial gain;
16 ‘‘(B) by the reproduction or distribution,
17 including by electronic means, during any 180-
18 day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords
19 of 1 or more copyrighted works, or by the pub-
20 lic performance by means of digital trans-
21 mission, during any 180-day period, of 1 or
22 more copyrighted works, when the total retail
23 value of the copies or phonorecords, or of the
24 public performances, is more than $1,000; or

1 ‘‘(C) by the distribution or public perform-
2 ance of a work being prepared for commercial
3 dissemination, by making it available on a com-
4 puter network accessible to members of the
5 public, if such person knew or should have
6 known that the work was intended for commer-
7 cial dissemination.

there are also clauses that specify that they are targeting those who sell illegal drugs, those who contract for murder and other aspects like this, there is nothing about the discussion of drugs and the 1st amendment still applies

the nexus would not be affected by this bill at all and it is not designed to go after the kids that shares a mp3 file, it is designed to go after sites and people who are high profile and typically profiting off of piracy

i loath censorship, and if that was what this was about i'd write my senator.

Officially examining packets and suppressing the unacceptable parts IS by definition censorship.

Read it again. This is actually referring to ISPs, search engines, payment network providers and internet advertisers.

This has to do with subsection (c) ACTIONS BASED ON COURT ORDERS
The service provider (ISP) is ordered to block the site. As long as it takes reasonable action to block the infringing site they won't be held liable if it fails. And if one of their customers circumvents the block by say using a foreign DNS they won't be held liable.



Yes, the infringing site will be given notice that its about to be blocked!
It does not say however how much time if any must be given to the infringing site. It does say that service providers will have 5 days to block the site. How much time will there be between the notice and the order to block?
Will the site be able to reasonably defend themselves? How long will it take to get a court case while they're losing money?

Yes, I think I can agree that (A) is piracy but I'm not so sure about (B) and definitely not (C).

Piracy would be profiting from someone else's work without permission.
Sharing is not piracy or theft. Sharing is a natural tendency for Humans. Humans will and have always shared information, art and other media.
Our current technology has allowed us to do this much more efficiently. This has made a certain business model obsolete. Some companies that have relied on this model refuse to acknowledge its obsolescence and evolve. Instead they use their influence over governments to keep their obsolete business model on life support.

Laws like this will only stifle innovation, impede the free flow of information and stand in the way of human progress. Not to mention detrimentally interfere with the workings of the internet.

Published 11-21-2011:

Even the Business Software Alliance now backpedaling on SOPA support




Original blog post:

SOPA Needs Work to Address Innovation Considerations

Published 11-22-2011:

The Definitive Post On Why SOPA And Protect IP Are Bad, Bad Ideas


SOPA opposition goes viral



From yesterday:

How the Internet Evolves to Overcome Censorship



From the 17th:

SOPA Won’t Stop Online Piracy, Would Censor Everyone Else

At what point in the process of having this bill passed are they at right now? What kind of time frame are we looking at of passing or rejecting the bill?

H.R. 3261: Stop Online Piracy Act

S. 968: Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011


The bills have so much opposition from the tech community that I just don't know where it goes from here. It's highly unlikely that SOPA and PROTECT-IP will pass in their current form. Even Microsoft quietly came out in opposition the other day.

So far the Internet freedom people are ahead. I'll report in this thread as things progress. Not much happens over on the hill durring the holidays, anyways.

I believe they are going to be voting on it on Monday or Tuesday. There is another bill floating around too that is basically the same thing but it is disguised as a job bill since there is so much talk in congress about jobs. I'll post more info when I can find the link.


EDIT : More info from an email I got -


The Internet Censorship Bill took a massive beating last week (yeah, you did that!) but drug companies, movie studios and the Chamber of Commerce do *not* go down easy.

Now-- get this-- they're telling Congress it's a "jobs" bill.

This is dangerous. Everyone in Congress is desperate to do something to create jobs. Now the most powerful lobbies in Washington are banging down their doors, saying "this is your (only) chance to pass a jobs bill."

Since Congress is away for the holiday, there's one priority: sign up as many people as possible for a massive call-in day when Congress returns.

Click here to join in, by committing to call your Senator

Since the House's "SOPA" has such a bad name (yes, you did that) lobbyists are moving their weight behind the Senate version, PIPA ("The PROTECT IP Act". The Senate's censorship bill is just as bad; it's only missing a few of SOPA's extra-crazy provisions, like the ones that could send you to jail for singing a pop song on YouTube. The website blocking provisions are all there. Still, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid thinks that with the attention on SOPA, he can sneak PIPA through quickly when Congress returns.

Reid needs to know this bill won't move forward without a fight. That's why we're organizing a call-in day for Tuesday, using the same tools that our heroes at Tumblr used last week. It's kind of perfect. While Congress rests we've got 5 full days to sign up friends, colleagues, Twitter followers-- everybody. Then on Tuesday we'll unleash a storm of phone calls.

Click here to sign up, and then get others signed up too.

This weekend, instead of nobly vegging out on the internet, you can fight for the future of the internet and freedom of speech. Every ounce of time you spend counts.

Signups now, phone calls Tuesday. Start your engines.

Holmes Wilson
Fight for the Future / http://AmericanCensorship.org

P.S. Are you a Tumblr user? We just put up a special section with extra-easy instructions for Tumblr users to add a "Stop Censorship" button to their site: http://americancensorship.org/#tumblr

And on a brighter note :
Wary Of SOPA, Reddit Users Aim To Build A New, Censorship-Free Internet - from Forbes.com

SOPA: Washington vs. The Web

14 December 2011
Huffington Post

WINNING!

(Vovin posted a similar article in another thread - wanted to update here as well.)

GoDaddy Faces boycott over SOPA support
Ars Technica

More winning?


Now The Largest Game Companies In The World Have Dropped Support For A Bill The Internet Hates

Read more: http://www.businessinsid...Silicon+Al#ixzz1i6pOZKpW


Kind regards,

The Traveler

People on reddit have organized to make their impact continue to the elected :

http://abcnews.go.com/Po...id=15262265#.Tv8lD9VCxGl

Within about 36 hours they have organized a whole bunch of stuff and I bet within a week they will have taken down their first SOPA supporter.
http://www.reddit.com/r/operationpullryan

Look there are only 2000-3000 people doing this pull ryan thing It's new so if you guys wanna actually make a diffrence and DO something this is a place where a handful of people can make a real impact. The actions of a couple thousand are already making all over the news headlines. So support them.

Quote:
'What's more, if an internet-wide rally to unseat one congressman works, it could send a huge message about the power of the internet community and its ability to change politics.'