(a) Definition- For purposes of this section, a foreign Internet site or portion thereof is a `foreign infringing site' if--
(1) the Internet site or portion thereof is a U.S.-directed site and is used by users in the United States;
(2) the owner or operator of such Internet site is committing or facilitating the commission of criminal violations punishable under section 2318, 2319, 2319A, 2319B, or 2320, or chapter 90, of title 18, United States Code;
For starters, and the part you quoted from "either" onwards that states any site that has avoided "confirming a high probability of the use of the U.S.-directed site to carry out acts that constitute a violation of section 501 or 1201 of title 17, United States Code".
I should also note the part you quote only applies to the private action that can be taken by presumed copyright holders, not to any others, taken from section 103.
Who said anything about the servers being legal? Once again, SOPA doesn't give a shit about where the servers are, only where the domain names are. Nor does SOPA immunise a site with both a US domain name and a foreign one, meaning so long as a site has registered a foreign domain name, SOPA would seem to apply.
(5) DOMESTIC INTERNET SITE- The term `domestic Internet site' means an Internet site for which the corresponding domain name or, if there is no domain name, the corresponding Internet Protocol address, is a domestic domain name or domestic Internet Protocol address.
[...]
(8) FOREIGN INTERNET SITE- The term `foreign Internet site' means an Internet site that is not a domestic Internet site.
Considering the definition of foreign vs domestic is based solely on where the domain name is registered, there's nothing in SOPA that would protect Wikipedia simply because they have a US domain name, so long as they also have foreign domains registered, with no language in the bill that immunises those who own a multitude of domain names that would belong to various countries.
Domestic vs Foreign
The concept of 'domestic' versus 'foreign' on the internet is complex. For example, reddit's primary servers are located in Virginia, however we have domain names through foreign registrars (redd.it, reddit.co.uk). The site is hosted via a third-party content-delivery network (Akamai). This means that if you connect to reddit from a foreign country, you are likely connecting to an Akamai server not located in the U.S. This legislation naively ignores this complexity, and simply labels a site 'foreign' or 'domestic' based solely on the domain name.
The legislators sponsoring these bills have indicated that they are only targeted at truly foreign sites. However, the language is so loose and ignorant of what is truly a foreign site that there is a huge amount of room to argue what is actually "foreign".
Facilitation of criminal violations
The potential for abuse in this language is painfully obvious. "Facilitation" can often be argued as simply teaching or demonstrating how to do something. Under this definition, a site could be targeted for something as simple as describing how to rip a Blu-Ray. This language also makes it clear that the legislation is not solely targeting sites "dedicated to theft". http://blog.reddit.com/2012/01/technical-examination-of-sopa-and.html
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In that case, fair use is just as much an act of theft, as fair use leaves you without control of your "property" for many purposes. Control over any copyright to the point that it can be legitimately called property in the same way as property over a house does not and has never existed.
Your "property" exists in the certain combination of words of your choosing. In which case, providing your 'for sale' work for free is again just as much an act of theft if I bought a copy of the book and gave it way under your logic. After all, sharing your "property" (your particular combination of words to express a thought) is a loss of control of that property regardless of whether I share a legitimately bought book or an unauthorised PDF file.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Hey, it is almost like a discussion now
However if you personally collect revenue for making and distributing copies of an idea that you don't own, you have in effect, taken that idea from its owner and used it as if it were your own.
You have, "in effect, taken that idea from its owner and used as if it were your own" much the same if you only used something for personal use, not least of which becase once you are in possession of any idea, it has just as much become your own as it was the musicians or writers. It is the fundamental principle that you appear unable to distinguish between, that an idea shared does nothing to limit the utility of your copy, that an idea shared does nothing to limit your ability make use of the idea.
If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation.
Theft leaves me without something, something that may take further time and money to get back or recreate. Copying leaves me no worse off than I was yesterday, and comes at the expense of the person doing the copying. The only issue is that this act of copying may lead me to be able to compete with you with the same or similar good you are trying to sell, but this in turn assumes that a buyer only cares about price, a one dimensional, somewhat insulting view of the consumer that fails to account for such values like authenticity that also come into consideration.
By way of contrast abstract disembodied ideas have no value. Borges makes this point clear in his short story The Library of Babel. "When it was proclaimed that the Library contained all books, the first impression was one of extravagant happiness." But of course it is the embodied copies of ideas that have economic value, not their abstract existence, so "As was natural, this inordinate hope was followed by an excessive depression. The certitude that some shelf in some hexagon held precious books and that these precious books were inaccessible, seemed almost intolerable." The law of gravity as an abstract idea has no value because it is inaccessible. It is the concrete embodiment that is accessible and so has value. So my working knowledge of the law of gravity or the law of gravity as explained in a physics textbook has economic value, while the abstract idea has no value.
Once we recognize that the relevant economic entities are copies of ideas, our perspective on "intellectual property" changes. When you convey your idea to me, it is an act of production - a new good - my copy of your idea - is created. Once you have conveyed your idea to me, I can use this idea without interfering with your use of you original copy of your idea. Confusing abstract with embodied ideas, some economists and lawyers would say that this means that ideas are "nonrivalrous" or a "public good." But, as we have seen, this is not true of embodied ideas, which are the only ones to have economic value. Your copy of your idea and my copy of your idea are distinct economic entities. They are not public goods.
To put this in perspective, it is true that my drinking from my cup of coffee does not affect your use of your cup of coffee. No one would go on to suggest from this fact that coffee is "nonrivalrous" or a "public good" and that special laws and subsidies are needed in the coffee market. It is true that there is legal protection for cups of coffee - if you drink my cup of coffee without my permission, this would be an act of theft, and you would be subject to various civil and criminal penalties. Economists regard these "property rights" in the manner suggested by Eugene Volokh as securing the fruits of labor, and providing incentive to care for property. But notice that less legal protection is needed for your copy of your idea than is needed for your cup of coffee - while it may be relatively easy for me to steal your cup of coffee by threat or when you are not looking, it is fairly difficult for me to learn your idea without your active assistance. Indeed, it would seem that the legal protection needed would be no more than the legal right not to be subject of physical torture or coercion - a right that we enjoy regardless of the state of copyright and patent law. Be this as it may, there is no serious challenge to intellectual property in the sense of your right to determine to whom, under what circumstances and at what price you will transfer copies of your idea.
For a start, this is a form of logic that suggests because an act by itself may not be considered particularly useful culturally or economically, it is just as worthy of punishment, along with the already addressed assumption (yet again) that copyright infringement is akin or has the same consequences as theft. More importantly it's an attempt to gloss over a number of grey areas where copyright can no doubt inhibit legitimate forms of speech, of which appropriation, reuse and remixing is no less so, particularly when you are actually mindful of the history of each medium, rather than assuming the classic creation in a vacuum theory.
There are plenty of provisions for what is called "fair use" when protected content can be used for free (with attribution) for commentary, academic and even some commercial artistic purposes.
All of them undermined by already existing laws like the DMCA that diminish the ability of individuals to practice those rights, and SOPA/PIPA that go even further.
Moral rights apply to attribution and in some cases for your work to not be treated in a "derogatory" way. It has no relevance here AFAIK - I haven't heard of copyright itself being considered a moral right.
The harm caused by such schemes is in the form of what doesn’t happen, and therefore the harm is easily overlooked and underestimated. When an artist, such as myself, sells a painting for $10,000, I pay $4,000 to the costs of sales and marketing (through my representative agent) and retain $6,000 as income. In the case of $10,000 resale, I would receive $500 (according to the Australian scheme with its flat 5% rate). If buyer nervousness about the resale royalty, was to cause me to lose just one $10,000 first sale (on the primary market), I would need the royalty owed on $120,000 of future resales to recoup the lost income of that one primary market sale. These are very unattractive odds.
The only clear beneficiary of the DACS model of the resale royalty scheme is the management of this piece of transaction fee velocity. The correct term for schemes such as this, and their advocates, is ‘rent-seeking’. The largest single payment will always be to the costs of running the scheme. In the current financial situation, the last thing needed is the imposition of further transaction costs on any market.
The compulsory scheme advocated by DACS and Viscopy is a monopoly restriction of the terms of trade of artists. It is anti-market, anti-competitive and economically illiterate. It imposes significant opportunity costs upon artists as well as significant and unnecessary transaction costs upon the market in which artists make their living. For many artists, maximising first sale prices is a much better bet than gambling on payments when you are old or dead.
The only argument for extending the scheme to long-dead artists is to further increase payments to management. The proposed extension of the UK scheme is rent-seeking par excellence. The principles of a free, civil society are far more important than the secondary, instrumentalist goals of efficiency and convenience for managements.
If this only applies to artists who are "already super successful," and if you admit that this "only helps already super successful artists," then you have just admitted that this will help the very artists it applies to.
This sentence gave me a headache.
And what's truly amazing is how you pretend that your policy preference is really an economic reality.
Until you can cite anything even remotely approaching a study of economics that disproves Mikes "policy preference" as not being grounded in research and reality, it's difficult to take the complaints of someone who is promoting his own policy preference solely based on faith and personal attacks against those who disagree seriously. Particularly when you then turn around and say:
Support it? I've never heard of it until a few moments ago. And I don't support it--as I said, sounds stupid to me but I'd have to learn more about it first to form an actual position on the matter.
Which completely undermines your entire rant as being nothing but a knee jerk reaction for the sake of a stupid personal vendetta.
I'm not sure that this is really an accurate explanation of the DMCA issue, seeing as the users uploaded the content... that's the same thing with YouTube and Veoh, both of which have been declared legal under the DMCA. As long as they followed the safe harbor provisions, the fact that users upload shouldn't have an impact. There very likely may have been issues of secondary liability if the site encouraged people to infringe -- but that's a separate issue, and one that again should have been an issue for civil copyright law, rather than criminal.
I think you misinterpreted what was written. He's saying that Ninjavideo itself had uploaders putting up the content for them - not simply users with little or no association with them as with Youtube or Veoh.
The only reason you'd add the acting in good faith part is to override the earlier references to requiring a court order. It refers to taking actions described in x section likely for the sake of saving ink, whilst clarifying that this sections refers to site acting in good faith, as compared to one acting on a court order - this is the clearest and most logical reason for having a description like that. "Only" doesn't change this, it's merely a limitation to what actions can come under 105.
Also, from the linked analysis:
The first interpretation—allowing all entities to gain immunity for exercising any section 102 or 103 power, even in the absence of a court order—seems to be the clearest interpretation of section 105, as all other interpretations would render the inclusion of domain name registries, registrars, and depository institutions in section 105 nonsensical.
But if the purpose of section 105 is to grant immunity to all listed providers for engaging in any of the actions described in sections 102 and 103, then why does SOPA list these different providers separately in earlier sections? There is a clear principle underlying the decision to include certain providers in section 102 but not in section 103. Section 103, after all, is potentially broader in scope: it requires certain providers to cut off access not just to primary foreign infringers but also to secondary inducers of such infringement and those who have taken steps to foster infringement. As a result, section 103 has been cabined to include only payment network providers and Internet advertising services. This limitation of section 103 to a narrower range of payment and advertising providers is consistent with the “follow the money” approach towards which SOPA has been evolving.
Yet if section 105 immunizes non-financial providers—ISPs such as Comcast, search engines such as Yahoo, registrars such as Go Daddy, and others—from liability for blocking websites that may (or may not, given the loose evidentiary standard) be secondarily or tertiarily responsible for infringement, then section 105 effectively disregards the “follow the money” approach in favor of a kitchen-sink approach where numerous entities are encouraged to act as uncoordinated private enforcement officers.
What is it with people like you who assume these things are mutually exclusive?
As a publisher, it used to make sense to have a hand in the creation of content because publishing was expensive, and you as a venture wanting to make a profit want to maximise your chances of that happening, so you select which content you'd prefer to distribute (or actively bid for certain content that you thing will do well). Nowadays, Youtube and its ilk shows how those 2 aspects have now completely separated - there is little need to be selective about what you'll publish or directly influence it for the best chances of commercial success as the likes of WB, Paramount & co do.
Die Hard has been out for years. The content hasn't changed significantly, so why would I not be happy with a VHS version? Because the container changed and improved. Selling me convenience and quality is just as much of part of their business as content is, if not more so (considering most publishing businesses are typically pitched to by others who have already made the show/film/music/etc).
I'm sure the rest of the normal world, those that simply like their service, has nothing to do with it.
And these people are mutually exclusive of being pirates because...?
P.S. Before you make snide "reality called" remarks, you should look up, y'know, the real world where evidence exists. It's called Media Piracy in Emerging Economies.
In contrast, distributors of Bollywood films have sharply reduced prices of their products over the years. New players like Moser Baer have negotiated rights to popular Indian films on terms that permit much lower pricing—as low as Rs.40 ($0.85 cents) for VCDs and Rs.99 ($2.12) for DVDs. Some blockbuster films have been kept out of the price war, such as Ghajini, which costs Rs.199 ($4.24) on VCD and Rs.399 ($8.50) on DVD. But most traditional home- video distribution companies, such as Shemaroo and Eagle, have been forced to reduce their prices to stay competitive. In 2008, T-Series dropped the average price of its VCD releases of new films to Rs.38 in a bid to compete.
As a result, the difference in cost between a pirated and an original copy of a Bollywood film is far less than for a Hollywood title—often a factor of two rather than ten or more. This difference has proved small enough to produce dramatic increases in legal DVD sales. Sales of over a million discs for major releases have become relatively common. The Moser Baer DVD of the hit Jab We Met sold over six million discs when it was released on home video, five weeks after it hit theatres in 2008.
“The officers told me even they thought this was a waste of time, and that they could use their day better than driving around the whole day to pick up 50 movies and a computer,” Halfdan told us.
“I’m very surprised that the police went in on the case at all, but it does say quite a bit that they waited 3 months [after the initial complaint] to move, and that it’ll take at least 6 months before they start investigating my computer. This has a very, very low priority for them.”
You tried hard, but failed. That only happens when you use the word censorship. So sorry, you fail.
And if it wasn't obvious already, we now know for sure that you're an outright liar. It happens when you get the government involved, it happens when you use the word censorship, and it happens when you tell them there's a chance of legitimate content being blocked. That you deliberately ignore and even outright lie about this clear finding, quoted already about 3 times, is quite funny.
Censorship was not part of the question bringing up that possibility. You even referenced the chart that clearly shows this - censorship was it's own question, separate from bringing up government involvement and separate from mentioning that legal content may be blocked.
In fact, here's the full image taken from the PDF - they even highlight the questions that imply blocking is easy and the ones that imply blocking is messy, the entire reason for colouring the graph green and blue:
The question you point to invokes "the government", which immediately tilts the answers.
And? This is news because? Nice work by the way, defying your own assertions that this has no relevance to SOPA. Like you said, people don't want the government involved in blocking or filtering content.
Clearly, a majority support blocking.
Ignoring of course that they don't when there's a chance of legitimate content being blocked.
So basically, unless you use the word censor, or reference "government", the public is generally supportive of blocking pirate sites.
Evidently not:
Results are much more volatile for commercial intermediaries such as ISPs, social media sites, and search engines. A majority of American Internet users supports requirements that ISPs and search engines “block” infringing material (58% for ISPs; 53% for search engines). This support runs as high as 61% for a soft requirement that user-content-driven sites like Facebook “try to screen all material and reject pirated copies of music and videos.” But that majority disappears when blocking by ISPs is characterized as censorship (46% support) and falls further when associated with the blocking of legal content or
activity (36% support).
The favorable (61%) response to whether social media and cloud storage sites should “try to screen” and remove infringing content is counterbalanced by the 69% opposed to monitoring for the purpose of preventing copyright infringement. Since screening requires monitoring in such contexts, these responses can be read as reflecting a low information / high information divide.
tl;dr - People only support blocking if they're kept ignorant of what blocking involves.
So nice work there. You undermined your own argument by saying people don't want the government blocking or filtering content, showed how you rely on ignorance to convince people things like SOPA are a good idea and generally misrepresented data as saying what it doesn't.
Also, I should add the 30-49 group you love so much emphatically do not want their internet activity monitored. As noted, you can't reconcile that with active searching and blocking of material. One entails the other.
On the post: Lamar Smith & MPAA Brush Off Wikipedia Blackout As Just A Publicity Stunt
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For starters, and the part you quoted from "either" onwards that states any site that has avoided "confirming a high probability of the use of the U.S.-directed site to carry out acts that constitute a violation of section 501 or 1201 of title 17, United States Code".
I should also note the part you quote only applies to the private action that can be taken by presumed copyright holders, not to any others, taken from section 103.
On the post: Lamar Smith & MPAA Brush Off Wikipedia Blackout As Just A Publicity Stunt
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On the post: Lamar Smith & MPAA Brush Off Wikipedia Blackout As Just A Publicity Stunt
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On the post: White House Comes Out Against The Approach In SOPA/PIPA In Response To Online Petition
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Hey, it is almost like a discussion now
Your "property" exists in the certain combination of words of your choosing. In which case, providing your 'for sale' work for free is again just as much an act of theft if I bought a copy of the book and gave it way under your logic. After all, sharing your "property" (your particular combination of words to express a thought) is a loss of control of that property regardless of whether I share a legitimately bought book or an unauthorised PDF file.
On the post: White House Comes Out Against The Approach In SOPA/PIPA In Response To Online Petition
Re: Re: Re: Re: Hey, it is almost like a discussion now
You have, "in effect, taken that idea from its owner and used as if it were your own" much the same if you only used something for personal use, not least of which becase once you are in possession of any idea, it has just as much become your own as it was the musicians or writers. It is the fundamental principle that you appear unable to distinguish between, that an idea shared does nothing to limit the utility of your copy, that an idea shared does nothing to limit your ability make use of the idea.
Theft leaves me without something, something that may take further time and money to get back or recreate. Copying leaves me no worse off than I was yesterday, and comes at the expense of the person doing the copying. The only issue is that this act of copying may lead me to be able to compete with you with the same or similar good you are trying to sell, but this in turn assumes that a buyer only cares about price, a one dimensional, somewhat insulting view of the consumer that fails to account for such values like authenticity that also come into consideration.
On the post: White House Comes Out Against The Approach In SOPA/PIPA In Response To Online Petition
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Positive development, but...
All of them undermined by already existing laws like the DMCA that diminish the ability of individuals to practice those rights, and SOPA/PIPA that go even further.
On the post: Libraries Are The Best Counter To Piracy... So Of Course Publishers Are Trying To Limit Them
Re: Re: Re: Just who is innovating here?
On the post: Insane Entitlement: EMI Sues Irish Gov't For Not Passing SOPA-Like Censorship Law
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On the post: Lawmakers Propose Resale Right For US Artwork To Harm Young Artist & Help Already Successful Ones
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Joe, stop pretending to be an economist, please.
On the post: Lawmakers Propose Resale Right For US Artwork To Harm Young Artist & Help Already Successful Ones
Re:
This sentence gave me a headache.
Until you can cite anything even remotely approaching a study of economics that disproves Mikes "policy preference" as not being grounded in research and reality, it's difficult to take the complaints of someone who is promoting his own policy preference solely based on faith and personal attacks against those who disagree seriously. Particularly when you then turn around and say:
Which completely undermines your entire rant as being nothing but a knee jerk reaction for the sake of a stupid personal vendetta.
On the post: Brazil's Copyright Reform Draft Bill: The Good, The Bad And The Confused
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On the post: ICE Admits That It Just Wants To 'Put People In Jail' With Operation In Our Sites
I think you misinterpreted what was written. He's saying that Ninjavideo itself had uploaders putting up the content for them - not simply users with little or no association with them as with Youtube or Veoh.
On the post: Top Photographer On Why He Doesn't Care If His Stuff Is Pirated
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http://piracy.ssrc.org/
On the post: How SOPA 2.0 Sneaks In A Really Dangerous Private Ability To Kill Any Website
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Kinda funny...
Also, from the linked analysis:
On the post: Morality, Non-Zero Sum Games, Externalities & Why Someone Profiting Off Of Your Work Isn't A Bad Thing
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As a publisher, it used to make sense to have a hand in the creation of content because publishing was expensive, and you as a venture wanting to make a profit want to maximise your chances of that happening, so you select which content you'd prefer to distribute (or actively bid for certain content that you thing will do well). Nowadays, Youtube and its ilk shows how those 2 aspects have now completely separated - there is little need to be selective about what you'll publish or directly influence it for the best chances of commercial success as the likes of WB, Paramount & co do.
Die Hard has been out for years. The content hasn't changed significantly, so why would I not be happy with a VHS version? Because the container changed and improved. Selling me convenience and quality is just as much of part of their business as content is, if not more so (considering most publishing businesses are typically pitched to by others who have already made the show/film/music/etc).
On the post: The Definitive Post On Why SOPA And Protect IP Are Bad, Bad Ideas
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http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111122/04254316872/definitive-post-why-sopa-protect-ip- are-bad-bad-ideas.shtml#c1371
You guys really try hard to ignore evidence that directly contradicts what you say don't you?
On the post: The Definitive Post On Why SOPA And Protect IP Are Bad, Bad Ideas
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And these people are mutually exclusive of being pirates because...?
P.S. Before you make snide "reality called" remarks, you should look up, y'know, the real world where evidence exists. It's called Media Piracy in Emerging Economies.
http://piracy.ssrc.org/
On the post: The Definitive Post On Why SOPA And Protect IP Are Bad, Bad Ideas
Re: Re: Re: Why it's right!
http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-blogger-law-student-raided-by-police-for-file-sharing-articl es-111121/
Either way, your post makes no sense.
On the post: New Study Shows Majority Of Americans Against SOPA; Believe Extreme Copyright Enforcement Is Unreasonable
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And if it wasn't obvious already, we now know for sure that you're an outright liar. It happens when you get the government involved, it happens when you use the word censorship, and it happens when you tell them there's a chance of legitimate content being blocked. That you deliberately ignore and even outright lie about this clear finding, quoted already about 3 times, is quite funny.
Censorship was not part of the question bringing up that possibility. You even referenced the chart that clearly shows this - censorship was it's own question, separate from bringing up government involvement and separate from mentioning that legal content may be blocked.
In fact, here's the full image taken from the PDF - they even highlight the questions that imply blocking is easy and the ones that imply blocking is messy, the entire reason for colouring the graph green and blue:
http://i.imgur.com/b6J0Q.png
Which evidently no one did outside of that one question.
Fifth time?
On the post: New Study Shows Majority Of Americans Against SOPA; Believe Extreme Copyright Enforcement Is Unreasonable
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And? This is news because? Nice work by the way, defying your own assertions that this has no relevance to SOPA. Like you said, people don't want the government involved in blocking or filtering content.
Ignoring of course that they don't when there's a chance of legitimate content being blocked.
Evidently not:
tl;dr - People only support blocking if they're kept ignorant of what blocking involves.
So nice work there. You undermined your own argument by saying people don't want the government blocking or filtering content, showed how you rely on ignorance to convince people things like SOPA are a good idea and generally misrepresented data as saying what it doesn't.
Also, I should add the 30-49 group you love so much emphatically do not want their internet activity monitored. As noted, you can't reconcile that with active searching and blocking of material. One entails the other.
Fourth time's the charm?