Obama had demonstrated again and again that he is owned by moneyed interests like Wall Street, repeatedly acting in favor of bankers and against people. Would not surprise me at all for Obama to turn out to be owned by Hollywood (MPAA RIAA) as well.
No, that the other bill (PIPA, I think) is still going.
shrug the legislation has to pass the House either way.
It would totally suck if I found out that Mr Obama were completely in the pocket of moneyed interests.
Dang it!
I didn’t vote for another Bush.
He sure as heck better veto this crap or a bunch of people are going to rise up.
Sometimes, I actually understand the Occupy movement. This is one of them.
I think the logic by some is that after SOPA is defeated, everyone will rest on their laurels and think it’s over, allowing PIPA (or some other similar bill) to sneak by under the radar when the Reps feel it’s safe.
Of course, with some major companies watching things like a hawk now, it’s a lot less likely, but still.
I said this earlier, but it bears repeating. The money scales now tip heavily in favor of companies that are anti-SOPA. You cannot fight the combined might of Microsoft, Facebook, and Google. The Internet has spoken.
EDIT: And Apple, though they’re much less vocal about their anti-SOPA stance than the other three.
Curious on your guys’ views:
Apologies if it’s a tired debate, but: Do you support piracy? Is piracy good/bad?
I’m well aware of the “wouldn’t buy it anyway” argument, but I’m still curious what you think. Who does piracy hurt? Help?
I guess that would be a worry if not for our corporate protectors, as it were.
No one can “support” piracy, as by its very definition its theft of intellectual property.
I don’t believe that one download = one lost sale (that’s just lunacy), but piracy is, de facto, a bad thing due to the theft angle.
No, I don’t support piracy.
Much of the opposition to SOPA/PIPA comes from the fact that it won’t actually combat piracy while having potentially devastating consequences for much of the legitimate internet.
As for the more general question of piracy away from SOPA, it’s the same crap with Napster, only taken to the next level. Bringing down Napster did nothing to fight music piracy. Providing a decent website with decent prices (iTunes) did reduce piracy. You can blame all your woes on pirates, if you want, but the simpler explanation (because it’s true) is that the music/movie/content oligopolies simply don’t want to change with the times.
Piracy’s morality depends on what you’re doing, imo. I think it’s at worst light gray pirating property (for PERSONAL USE ONLY) if it’s abandoned and nobody has any current plans to market it, it’s in a foreign language that you can’t understand it and there are no localization plans for your region (though you should still import the original), or if there’s ridiculous DRM involved (i.e. the kind that deprives your of your property if you reformat your computer 5 times, or it harms the OS). Pirating because you’re a cheapskate is pretty bad, however (though sometimes it can be darker gray rather than black).
I think it’s semi-useful as a way to share lost and forgotten things, or boycott companies in a semi-creative way, but I wouldn’t shed too many tears if it got killed. The problem comes in that SOPA/PIPA would fail on that terribly, however.
It’s taken a long time to get through, but I managed to get an email off to my rep and one senator. Still working on the other senator. It does work, eventually.
You sure about that? Have you seen the list of companies supporting SOPA posted a few posts back? There’s some real heavyweights in there…the NFL, Comcast, Direct TV, ESPN, Ford (???), MLB, the NBA, Mastercard, Merck and a bunch more.
We are all screwed.
This what we all feared way back when this network was created.
Corporations are ‘people’ now.
So, this is what happens.
And will happen.
Oh golly, I hope I am wrong.
<dives into hotel room bed and sobs>
Are you reading a different thread from this one?
Discovered the minibar mid-thread, perhaps.
So seriously…why is a company like Ford Motor Co. on that list of pro-SOPA corporations? I get the TV/media/content provider, etc companies on there…but an automaker?
Well, obviously they’re concerned someone might steal from their supply of meaningless car model names. They paid someone good money to come up with “Flex” and by gum, they want their money’s worth !
Chances that anything like the original bill will become law are now zero, in my opinion. Even the senators who were originally in favor of it are now saying they oppose it.
The main risk is that the coin-operated politicians will simply wait until the heat dies down and try again.