If the site is shut down by virtue of a single person’s accusation until the site counters the charges the TOS won’t matter until the matter is brought up. For that matter, the TOS will not matter at all where SOPA is concerned – as long as the claim exists the entire site is liable to be shut down, even if other bits of the site are legal. (You IP maximists are insistent that because one bit of the site facilitates infringement, the rest of the site doesn’t matter jack squat.) Getting a site shut down needs little more than a faith-based claim that the site’s staff did not sufficiently discourage or remove alleged infringement. (Other sites already have clauses against infringement in their TOSes; doesn’t stop people attempting to bypass existing measures.)

Of course you would still think it’s alright because Wikipedia would fight back, but it still doesn’t answer the problem: the claim is “crazy ass”, but SOPA only needs to go by the faith of a single individual or group. You’re not answering the issue of the potential shutdown, which sidesteps whatever TOS or due process exists.

At least scum still has a place in the world, to feed scum-sucking bottom feeders like you. Conversely you contribute nothing to the debate but blithely disregard all risks, waiting for the day that the law passes so you can tell us, “BA HA HA HA, DOWN W/ UR INTERNETS. IT’S ALL LAW NOW SO GO POUND SAND.” Nice try, but still fail.

I think that when you’re reduced to name-calling instead of providing factual evidence that he’s wrong, your argument doesn’t really look like much of an argument.

The RIAA, MPAA, and other major media conglomerates own copyright law. They’ve had it written, rewritted, redefined, and restructured to protect their corporate interests for as long as I’ve been alive — and a hell of a lot longer before that. The Internet presents the largest challenge to the very notion of copyright to date, and the Big Media companies want that genie back in the bottle serving them instead of out of the bottle serving the general public.

SOPA and PIPA are an attempt to force the genie back in the bottle and transform the Internet from a global communications network that has changed the way people live to just another content delivery platform.

Do you like Tumblr? There’s plenty of Tumblogs dedicated to things that could be considered copyright infringement. The same goes for Blogger, WordPress, and other popular blogging platforms. One call from the Attorney General, and all of Tumblr could be blocked in the entirety of the United States — and numerous legitimate, non-infringing blogs would be blocked as a result. That is censorship, and that is something that SOPA would allow the AG to do were it to become law.

Do you like Twitter? There’s plenty of users who tweet links of all kinds, and God knows how many of those links are infringing on somebody’s copyrights. Under SOPA, the AG makes a call, and all of Twitter is blocked in the US. SOPA allows this, and if you don’t believe me, ask every law scholar, tech expert, and Internet engineer about it.

Would you like the see social networks evolve and change over time? Would you like to see new creative platforms spring up that enable new experiences and new opportunities for Internet users to express themselves? If you do, then that’s a shame, because SOPA would place so much liability on service providers that new services will never see the light of day and existing services will be stifled into oblivion. This is a fact, and everyone who has researched SOPA knows it.

There is no debate on the effects SOPA would have upon the Internet and American society. SOPA representes corporate greed, censorship, and the desire to control the populace through the control of how said populace creates, publishes, and consumes content and information. SOPA is a direct attack on the fundamental backbone of the Internet, the First Amendment, and the American people — and it must be stopped now.

If you can provide a compelling argument backed by facts (with legitimate sources) as to why SOPA won’t do any of those things, then feel free to put the argument forth. Don’t rely on the “but…but…piracy!” argument, though — everyone sees right through it, and it will do you no favors on this site. If your argument is strong enough, you can make it without resorting to insults, paper-thin reasoning, or the bogeyman that is “Teh Evil Pirates”.

If you want to “win” this debate, then man up and bring a rational argument to the table.