SOPA And PIPA

Eorzea Time
 
 
 
言語: JP EN FR DE
日本語版のFFXIVPRO利用したい場合は、上記の"JP"を設定して、又はjp.ffxivpro.comを直接に利用してもいいです
users online
フォーラム » FFXIAH.com » News » SOPA and PIPA
SOPA and PIPA
First Page 2 ... 8 9 10
 Lakshmi.Jaerik
Administrator
Offline
サーバ: Lakshmi
Game: FFXI
user: Jaerik
Posts: 3834
By Lakshmi.Jaerik 2012-01-18 13:44:20  
You may have noticed a number of sites around the internet either going offline, or blacking themselves out today, in protest of two bills in the US Congress that were recently set to pass with nearly unanimous consent of both Republicans and Democrats. An enormous opposition movement has popped up among tech, game, and internet companies, and the bills are now stalled pending further review, but the Democratic (Senate) and Republican (House) leaders are still set on moving forward with them at some point, so it's still important to mention.

Here's a description of what these bills do in a nutshell, and why our users should be concerned.

---------------------------

Probably the most important provision of online copyright law is something called the DMCA Safe Harbor Provision. This legal provision says that someone who hosts a site that allows user content (example: Google, which links to other sites, FFXI, which allows user chat, or even our site, which allows forum posts) is a legally separate entity from their users, as far as copyright violations are concerned.

In plain English, this means that if one of you decides to make a forum post linking to or re-posting copyrighted content, you are legally responsible. You can be sued. But as long as we make a good faith effort to remove the content as soon as we're notified, we (meaning Scragg, Cliff, and I) cannot be held personally responsible, nor directly sued for violation of copyright ourselves.

Similarly, Safe Harbor means that we cannot be held responsible for sites that we link to, should those sites violate copyright. In other words, if gamerescape, or wikia, or any of the sites linked in our item pages violate copyright somewhere on their own pages, that's their problem -- not ours.

The only way for a copyright holder to take legal action against FFXIAH.com is if they take us to court, and prove beyond a reasonable doubt that we purposely and actively engaged in the violation of copyright ourselves. Which is a pretty high bar to reach.

---------------------------

SOPA and PIPA essentially remove the Safe Harbor provision. In other words, if one of you decides to link to copyrighted content on our forum, we are now directly and personally responsible, and can theoretically be sued for copyright violation as though we were the ones doing it ourselves. Similarly, if a site we link to (like wikia) decides to violate copyright, we can also be held responsible just for linking to them.

Worse, the bills remove the requirement to even take us to court. Copyright holders themselves (private entities) can now go straight to the internet's DNS authorities (the master address listing for all sites on the web) and file a complaint. This will immediately knock FFXIAH.com offline without so much as a court ruling. It's then incumbent upon us to fight back in court and earn the right to bring the site back.

Copyright holders argue this is necessary because they lose money for every second a site is allowed to link to, or feature, copyrighted content. They argue they need ultimate power to knock sites off the internet immediately, and only deal with the burden of proof later.

They promise to only use their new powers "sparingly" and "responsibly." I'm sure you can all guess how that one will end.

---------------------------

This makes the internet a very dangerous place to operate. Google could be held responsible for returning links to any sites that could even possibly feature copyrighted content. (Which is most of them.) We could be forced to pre-censor all forum and user content for copyright violations before we could even put them online. Arguably, MMO's couldn't even allow users to speak freely in chat, as they might mention something copyrighted, which would make the MMO companies themselves legally responsible, and capable of being knocked offline without trial at the first complaint. Sites like Wikipedia, which are based entirely on user content, probably couldn't operate at all due to the inherent dangers. The effects would be widespread and very chilling to how the internet operates.

---------------------------

Having worked in the games industry for 15 years, I'm acutely aware of the financial damage done by online piracy. This thread is not the place to argue the virtues or moral pitfalls of pirated content.

That being said, these bills are deeply flawed. They were written by major copyright holders (the recording and movie industries) to give them carte blanche ultimate authority over the internet. They comprise a massive overreach, and our elected representatives (who are too old to even understand how VCRs work, let alone the web) are too clueless to realize what's actually in them.

If you have a second, please sign one of the (many) online petitions in protest of SOPA and PIPA, and/or contact your representative or senator and urge them to oppose the bills. This is not a Democrat or Republican thing -- both parties have been equally supportive of the bills and both parties are responsible.

The massive outpouring of opposition from tech companies has caused many people in Congress to change their minds, and the White House has also now expressed reservations about signing the bills in their current form. But the battle isn't done yet. The bills still live, and will still be brought up in the next Congressional session.

---------------------------

Thanks for taking the time to read this.
[+]
 Ramuh.Haseyo
Offline
サーバ: Ramuh
Game: FFXI
user: Haseyo
Posts: 22442
By Ramuh.Haseyo 2012-01-18 13:46:41  
Thank you for this. People have been throwing around big words and legal terms that just went way over my head.
[+]
 Bismarck.Rinomaru
Offline
サーバ: Bismarck
Game: FFXI
Posts: 2056
By Bismarck.Rinomaru 2012-01-18 13:49:08  
That would destroy the Pics that make you LOL!
And Destroy MEMES
AND DESTROY OUR LIVES
[+]
 Siren.Kalilla
VIP
Offline
サーバ: Siren
Game: FFXI
user: Kalila
Posts: 14552
By Siren.Kalilla 2012-01-18 13:49:36  
Thank you Jaerik
[+]
 Odin.Ladyyuanji
Offline
サーバ: Odin
Game: FFXI
Posts: 13
By Odin.Ladyyuanji 2012-01-18 13:51:18  
That sounds absolutely ridiculous, thanks for clearing it up.
[+]
 Bahamut.Serj
Offline
サーバ: Bahamut
Game: FFXI
user: Serj
Posts: 6179
By Bahamut.Serj 2012-01-18 13:52:33  
Jaerik for president!

Thanks for this, hopefully will clear things up with some people.
[+]
 Ragnarok.Yathatguy
Offline
サーバ: Ragnarok
Game: FFXI
user: Rathan
Posts: 181
By Ragnarok.Yathatguy 2012-01-18 13:54:22  
A major rewrite is in order. I seriously doubt this bill will pass in it's current state. Good examples of links...for those in Arkansas and Kentucky...it wuud be like goen ta gell for sumtin ur cuzin ovahurd sumone doin'.
[+]
 Lakshmi.Jaerik
Administrator
Offline
サーバ: Lakshmi
Game: FFXI
user: Jaerik
Posts: 3834
By Lakshmi.Jaerik 2012-01-18 13:56:34  
Also, sorry for those who have PMd me in the last few weeks and haven't gotten a response. Work has been crazy busy and I've been traveling extensively. This is the first time I've been able to log in for quite awhile. I'll try and get through all the PM's in the next few days.
 Shiva.Schatzie
Offline
サーバ: Shiva
Game: FFXI
user: itemset
Posts: 298
By Shiva.Schatzie 2012-01-18 14:03:03  
Bismarck.Rinomaru said: »
That would destroy the Pics that make you LOL!
And Destroy MEMES
AND DESTROY OUR LIVES
if it destroyed umad? i wouldnt be bothered in the slightest, but fight the good fight and lets get this crap vetoed!

let's just hope it doesnt go through like ishihara's anime/manga ban...
 Odin.Ketsuu
Offline
サーバ: Odin
Game: FFXI
Posts: 129
By Odin.Ketsuu 2012-01-18 14:04:07  
I appreciate you posting this, now i understand why the site is "Blacked Out", those bills are absolutely ridiculous. Now I have to find the link to this petition.
Offline
Posts: 991
By Drjones 2012-01-18 14:06:14  
Odin.Ketsuu said: »
I appreciate you posting this, now i understand why the site is "Blacked Out", those bills are absolutely ridiculous. Now I have to find the link to this petition.
There's a decent collection of links over on xkcd.com
[+]
Offline
Posts: 7516
By Eugene 2012-01-18 14:10:05  
Odin.Ketsuu said: »
I appreciate you posting this, now i understand why the site is "Blacked Out", those bills are absolutely ridiculous. Now I have to find the link to this petition.
All the sites generally link you to a form that emails your representative/senators. There is a link on the left at the top of the sidebar that brings you to Google's page.
 Caitsith.Heimdall
Offline
サーバ: Caitsith
Game: FFXI
user: Heimdall
Posts: 1318
By Caitsith.Heimdall 2012-01-18 14:11:00  
so basically it would cost internet companys lot money just to prove they not breaking any law to restart business to make money and lot money and man hours just to prevent breaking any laws in first place that in end wouldnt even matter since just the accusation is all thats needed...
 Lakshmi.Jaerik
Administrator
Offline
サーバ: Lakshmi
Game: FFXI
user: Jaerik
Posts: 3834
By Lakshmi.Jaerik 2012-01-18 14:22:00  
Caitsith.Heimdall said: »
so basically it would cost internet companys lot money just to prove they not breaking any law to restart business to make money and lot money and man hours just to prevent breaking any laws in first place that in end wouldnt even matter since just the accusation is all thats needed...
Right. Any private copyright holder could basically get FFXIAH.com knocked offline just by accusing us of violating copyright. It would then be up to us to prove that we're not.

Well, we can't afford that. Nor can most small online sites/companies. I don't know about you guys, but it's not worth it to Scragg and I to willingly open ourselves up to hundreds of thousands of dollars in potential personal lawsuits just to keep this site up.

So while the bill doesn't force anyone to censor content, the sheer logistics mean we would have to pre-screen all of your submissions just to avoid even the chance of a complaint. It's the only way to really be safe. Same for any site -- hence people bringing up the "censorship" issue.

The problem with the bill isn't the meta-argument of whether or not online piracy is a problem, or should be addressed. Like I said, if you want to argue that point, please take it to another thread.

The problem is that it tries to fix the problem in likely the worst way possible: by giving ultimate control of the entire internet to the private copyright holders themselves, and removing the burden of proof from accusations of copyright infringement. The secondary effects of this decision would be catastrophic for how the internet operates, simply due to the pressures it would put on sites, games, and services to ensure there is simply no way their users could be violating copyright. The only real way to ensure this is to pre-censor everything.
 Leviathan.Chaosx
Offline
サーバ: Leviathan
Game: FFXI
user: ChaosX128
Posts: 20284
By Leviathan.Chaosx 2012-01-18 14:23:40  
Holy ***! I had to do a triple take at this to make sure it was recent. Jaerik is posting, you know it's serious business.
 Leviathan.Phenomena
Offline
サーバ: Leviathan
Game: FFXI
user: Gawdless
Posts: 1922
By Leviathan.Phenomena 2012-01-18 14:25:14  
also how would emails work? would they have to go through some middleman to screen them and make sure they dont have any copyrighted material? and instant messaging would be dead right?

oh and facebook would..just shut down?
[+]
 Cerberus.Tidis
MSPaint Winner
Offline
サーバ: Cerberus
Game: FFXI
user: tidis
Posts: 3927
By Cerberus.Tidis 2012-01-18 14:25:24  
What's horrible is that I only found out today the ESA supports SOPA and PIPA.
 Valefor.Mithano
Offline
サーバ: Valefor
Game: FFXI
user: mithano
Posts: 541
By Valefor.Mithano 2012-01-18 14:25:36  
Thank you for blacking it out - I appreciate it and I fully support the campaign. I do feel like for the first time in history, the internet really is playing a role in getting real change to occur (Arab Spring, blackouts like this, wikileaks, etc.) Go world!
 Siren.Kalilla
VIP
Offline
サーバ: Siren
Game: FFXI
user: Kalila
Posts: 14552
By Siren.Kalilla 2012-01-18 14:25:48  
Leviathan.Phenomena said: »
also how would emails work? would they have to go through some middleman to screen them and make sure they dont have any copyrighted material? and instant messaging would be dead right?

oh and facebook would..just shut down?
Very good question, I would like to know this as well.
[+]
 Leviathan.Chaosx
Offline
サーバ: Leviathan
Game: FFXI
user: ChaosX128
Posts: 20284
By Leviathan.Chaosx 2012-01-18 14:26:22  
Lakshmi.Jaerik said: »
Any private copyright holder could basically get FFXIAH.com knocked offline just by accusing us of violating copyright. It would then be up to us to prove that we're not.
Someone asked this in a similar thread, and I wasn't sure about it.
I thought as much.

But is just accusing the site is really enough under these proposed laws to get the site taken down? Or would they require that you prove your innocence first?
[+]
 Lakshmi.Jaerik
Administrator
Offline
サーバ: Lakshmi
Game: FFXI
user: Jaerik
Posts: 3834
By Lakshmi.Jaerik 2012-01-18 14:29:19  
Leviathan.Chaosx said: »
Lakshmi.Jaerik said: »
Any private copyright holder could basically get FFXIAH.com knocked offline just by accusing us of violating copyright. It would then be up to us to prove that we're not.
Someone asked this in a similar thread, and I wasn't sure about it.
I thought as much.

But is just accusing the site is really enough under these proposed laws to get the site taken down? Or would they require that you prove your innocence first?
It's really enough. Basically, it allows the private copyright holder to go to the DNS authorities and search engines, and force them to yank the IP entries for both the site, and delist them from the search results.

This essentially knocks the site offline. Copyright holders argue that the time needed to actually prove the copyright infringement, or allow the site to defend itself, is money being lost while the violation is allowed to remain. Every second counts. So the law lets them shoot first, and then ask questions later.

Siren.Kalilla said: »
Leviathan.Phenomena said: »
also how would emails work? would they have to go through some middleman to screen them and make sure they dont have any copyrighted material? and instant messaging would be dead right?

oh and facebook would..just shut down?
Very good question, I would like to know this as well.
Nobody knows. That's the problem. The internet has been built on the Safe Harbor provision, and nobody really knows what will happen if it's changed.

Hence why sites that rely utterly on user content, like Google (who's whole business is linking elsewhere), to Wikipedia (which is entirely based on user content), to Facebook are all opposed.

The copyright holders are claiming they will act responsibly with their new powers, and these companies have nothing to fear. They only intend to go after the most egregious violators. Trust them. But laws based on "trusting" private copyright holders not to abuse their new powers are pretty flawed, when these same people have a history of slapping random people with $800,000 lawsuits for pirating 20 seconds worth of music.
 Ragnarok.Yokyumosheemo
Offline
サーバ: Ragnarok
Game: FFXI
user: shimey
Posts: 138
By Ragnarok.Yokyumosheemo 2012-01-18 14:30:43  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7-BE5JHMhE


Share this with your friends, video game reviews, publishers or whoever.. Can't believe ESA is in support of SOPA
 Asura.Bluespoons
Offline
サーバ: Asura
Game: FFXI
Posts: 5701
By Asura.Bluespoons 2012-01-18 14:31:41  
██ ████████ ██████ ██████████ ██ ████ ██ ████ ██████████ ██. ███ ███ This post has been found in violation of H.R. 3261, S.O.P.A and has been removed.
[+]
 Valefor.Vandell
Offline
サーバ: Valefor
Game: FFXI
user: Vandell
Posts: 67
By Valefor.Vandell 2012-01-18 14:31:48  
It's funny how everyone is all like "OMG not meh internets!"

Where was everyone when they passed the Patriot Act and now the NDAA?

That's right,we don't need civil liberties,just moar free music and movies.
[+]
 Leviathan.Chaosx
Offline
サーバ: Leviathan
Game: FFXI
user: ChaosX128
Posts: 20284
By Leviathan.Chaosx 2012-01-18 14:36:17  
Lakshmi.Jaerik said: »
Leviathan.Chaosx said: »
Lakshmi.Jaerik said: »
Any private copyright holder could basically get FFXIAH.com knocked offline just by accusing us of violating copyright. It would then be up to us to prove that we're not.
Someone asked this in a similar thread, and I wasn't sure about it.
I thought as much.

But is just accusing the site is really enough under these proposed laws to get the site taken down? Or would they require that you prove your innocence first?
It's really enough. Basically, it allows the private copyright holder to go to the DNS authorities and search engines, and have them yank the IP entries for both the site, and delist them from the search results.

This essentially knocks the site offline. Copyright holders argue that the time needed to actually prove the copyright infringement, or allow the site to defend itself, is money being lost while the violation is allowed to remain. Every second counts. So the law lets them shoot first, and then ask questions later.
Forget the fact that proving yourself innocent goes against the constitution, the shoot first and ask questions later approach, to me anyway, seems totally out of line.
Offline
By zahrah 2012-01-18 14:37:53  
Leviathan.Chaosx said: »
Lakshmi.Jaerik said: »
Any private copyright holder could basically get FFXIAH.com knocked offline just by accusing us of violating copyright. It would then be up to us to prove that we're not.
Someone asked this in a similar thread, and I wasn't sure about it.
I thought as much.

But is just accusing the site is really enough under these proposed laws to get the site taken down? Or would they require that you prove your innocence first?

Oh great! Internet McCarthyism?!?
 Ragnarok.Yokyumosheemo
Offline
サーバ: Ragnarok
Game: FFXI
user: shimey
Posts: 138
By Ragnarok.Yokyumosheemo 2012-01-18 14:38:43  
Dont get me started on the Patriot act... People thought that was a god sin.. when that took away so many liberties.

Another one that I stood against was Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), this piece of crap was never voted on it was just tossed into a bill at last minute. And when the bill was passed this went with it. UGH!
 Asura.Draginhikari
Offline
サーバ: Asura
Game: FFXI
Posts: 32
By Asura.Draginhikari 2012-01-18 14:39:53  
Problem is the law is so vague that it doesn't really seem to address issues like that.
 Caitsith.Heimdall
Offline
サーバ: Caitsith
Game: FFXI
user: Heimdall
Posts: 1318
By Caitsith.Heimdall 2012-01-18 14:39:57  
Leviathan.Phenomena said: »
also how would emails work? would they have to go through some middleman to screen them and make sure they dont have any copyrighted material? and instant messaging would be dead right?

oh and facebook would..just shut down?

basically google would have shut down since theres no way for them to monitor every site on the search engine that could be brought up.
 Leviathan.Phenomena
Offline
サーバ: Leviathan
Game: FFXI
user: Gawdless
Posts: 1922
By Leviathan.Phenomena 2012-01-18 14:40:08  
also youtube will be screwed...
First Page 2 ... 8 9 10