BF2S Forums Will SOPA pass?

Last edited by Beduin (2012-01-20 04:42:20)

SAN ANTONIO — Lawmakers on Friday indefinitely postponed anti-piracy legislation that pits Hollywood against Silicon Valley, two days after major Internet companies staged an online protest by blacking out parts of prominent websites.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid postponed a showdown vote in his chamber on the Protect Intellectual Property Act, or PIPA for short, that had been scheduled for January 24.

Lamar Smith, the Republican chairman of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, followed suit, saying his panel would delay action on similar legislation called the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, until there is wider agreement on the legislation.

"I have heard from the critics and I take seriously their concerns regarding proposed legislation to address the problem of online piracy," Smith told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"It is clear that we need to revisit the approach on how best to address the problem of foreign thieves that steal and sell American inventions and products," Smith said in a statement.

The bills are aimed at curbing access to overseas websites that traffic in pirated content and counterfeit products, such as movies and music. But support for the legislation has eroded in recent days because of fears that legitimate websites could end up in legal jeopardy.

The entertainment industry wants legislation to protect its movies and music from counterfeiters, but technology companies are concerned the laws would undermine Internet freedoms, be difficult to enforce and encourage frivolous lawsuits.

On Wednesday protests blanketed the Internet, turning Wikipedia and other popular websites dark for 24 hours. Google, Facebook, Twitter and others protested the proposed legislation but did not shut down.

In a brief statement, Reid said there was no reason why concerns about the legislation cannot be resolved. He offered no new date for the vote.

Reid's action comes a day after a senior Democratic aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the measure lacked the 60 votes needed to clear a procedural hurdle in the 100-member Senate.

A handful of senators who had co-sponsored the legislation dropped their support after Wednesday's protests started.

Reid expressed hope on Friday that Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, who has been shepherding the bill through Congress, could help resolve differences in the legislation.

"I am optimistic that we can reach a compromise in the coming weeks," Reid said.

Leahy said in a statement that he was committed to addressing online piracy and hoped other members of Congress would work with him to get a bill signed into law this year.

"But the day will come when the Senators who forced this move will look back and realize they made a knee-jerk reaction to a monumental problem," he said.

"Criminals who do nothing but peddle in counterfeit products and stolen American content are smugly watching how the United States Senate decided it was not even worth debating how to stop the overseas criminals from draining our economy," Leahy said.

FEOS wrote:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46072484#.Txmj6eSwVqA

Congress withdraws SOPA, PIPA anti-piracy measures

SAN ANTONIO — Lawmakers on Friday indefinitely postponed anti-piracy legislation that pits Hollywood against Silicon Valley, two days after major Internet companies staged an online protest by blacking out parts of prominent websites.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid postponed a showdown vote in his chamber on the Protect Intellectual Property Act, or PIPA for short, that had been scheduled for January 24.

Lamar Smith, the Republican chairman of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, followed suit, saying his panel would delay action on similar legislation called the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, until there is wider agreement on the legislation.

"I have heard from the critics and I take seriously their concerns regarding proposed legislation to address the problem of online piracy," Smith told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"It is clear that we need to revisit the approach on how best to address the problem of foreign thieves that steal and sell American inventions and products," Smith said in a statement.

The bills are aimed at curbing access to overseas websites that traffic in pirated content and counterfeit products, such as movies and music. But support for the legislation has eroded in recent days because of fears that legitimate websites could end up in legal jeopardy.

The entertainment industry wants legislation to protect its movies and music from counterfeiters, but technology companies are concerned the laws would undermine Internet freedoms, be difficult to enforce and encourage frivolous lawsuits.

On Wednesday protests blanketed the Internet, turning Wikipedia and other popular websites dark for 24 hours. Google, Facebook, Twitter and others protested the proposed legislation but did not shut down.

In a brief statement, Reid said there was no reason why concerns about the legislation cannot be resolved. He offered no new date for the vote.

Reid's action comes a day after a senior Democratic aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the measure lacked the 60 votes needed to clear a procedural hurdle in the 100-member Senate.

A handful of senators who had co-sponsored the legislation dropped their support after Wednesday's protests started.

Reid expressed hope on Friday that Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, who has been shepherding the bill through Congress, could help resolve differences in the legislation.

"I am optimistic that we can reach a compromise in the coming weeks," Reid said.

Leahy said in a statement that he was committed to addressing online piracy and hoped other members of Congress would work with him to get a bill signed into law this year.

"But the day will come when the Senators who forced this move will look back and realize they made a knee-jerk reaction to a monumental problem," he said.

"Criminals who do nothing but peddle in counterfeit products and stolen American content are smugly watching how the United States Senate decided it was not even worth debating how to stop the overseas criminals from draining our economy," Leahy said.

Winston_Churchill wrote:

http://gizmodo.com/5877837/senate-leader-harry-reid-postpones-pipa-vote

Counterfeiting and piracy cost the American economy billions of dollars and thousands of jobs each year, with the movie industry alone supporting over 2.2 million jobs.

Macbeth wrote:

"The bill is dead, the issue is not. When I first read about it, I was like "oh good they stopped this!" But then I thought, you know what, my documentary, my comedy documentary Religulous. I remember when that was out and they were pirating it and all the money we lost on that. Somebody has to bring up that there is a moral dimension to this. I don't think this is brought up enough. Now I know that they're saying that apparently this bill, somehow, would infringe on free speech. I haven't read the bill, I don't know, I don't even know if anybody who has read the bill could predict that. But it seems like it might be a red herring because people just want to steal, because they can. I call it Caucasian looting. Just because you are sitting at your computer in your pajama bottoms doesn't mean you're not stealing."

Jay wrote:

They'll be back.

Comcast, Cablevision, Verizon, Time Warner Cable and other Internet service providers (ISPs) in the United States will soon launch new programs to police their networks in an effort to catch digital pirates and stop illegal file-sharing.

Major ISPs announced last summer that they had agreed to take new measures in an effort to prevent subscribers from illegally downloading copyrighted material, but the specifics surrounding the imminent antipiracy measures were not made available. Now, RIAA chief executive Cary Sherman has said that ISPs are ready to begin their efforts to curtail illegal movie, music and software downloads on July 12.

“Each ISP has to develop their infrastructure for automating the system,” Sherman said during a talk at the annual Association of American Publishers meeting, according to CNET. Measures will also be taken to establish databases “so they can keep track of repeat infringers, so they know that this is the first notice or the third notice. Every ISP has to do it differently depending on the architecture of its particular network. Some are nearing completion and others are a little further from completion.”

Customers found to be illegally downloading copyrighted material will first receive one or two notifications from their ISPs, essentially stating that they have been caught. If the illegal downloads continue, subscribers will receive a new notice requesting acknowledgement that the notice has been received. Subsequent offenses can then result in bandwidth throttling and even service suspension.

The news comes shortly after the closure of file-sharing giant Megaupload and increased pressure on other networks thought to be major hubs for the illegal distribution of copyrighted materials. Some studies show that these measures have had no impact on piracy, however, so organizations like the RIAA have been lobbying for ISPs to intervene and develop systems that will allow them to police their networks and directly address subscribers who illegally download copyrighted content.

Cybargs wrote:

NeXuS wrote:

How can an ISP track EXACTLY what you download. I can see a flag being raised when you download "Wall-E.axxo.rip 700mb" But if you just downloaded several small files named "1.rar 50mb" and 2.rar 92mb" so on and so on then how can they track that?

its like how schools track the traffic going through their networks. people get in trouble all the time for torrenting at schools.