[lavieenrose]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drusilla_ Does that include all the images from any edition of Vogue, including the international ones too? But wow, whatever Conde Nast is charging for had better be AMAZING for that much money.

I think it's just the US, but it's the entire 120 year run. It costs $1,575/year.

[YoninahAliza]

That some people are backing this act is appalling. SOPA would totally destroy the internet. So much of the internet is about sharing; sharing website links, youtube videos, wikipedia, and other content. It's this ability to share content which has made the world a better place because people are able to access information which previously they could not and because we are able to connect with one another, even when in different countries. This is what I think makes websites like TFS great, we live all around the world, but we can connect over shared interests. If this wasn't available I don't know what I would do. Like for instance, none of my friends care about fashion, so if SOPA was passed and we couldn't share links or editorials from Vogue, who would I talk to about this?

Also, has anyone mentioned the economic side-effect of passing SOPA? Online stores would loose a lot of traffic. So many websites depend on word of mouth success and the sharing of links. But if we can't share a link on Facebook then how can we ever inform anyone about our new favorite store?

And finally, the passing of SOPA wouldn't end up to well. So people many share links, download videos/songs, do "illegal" things on the internet that I'd think that half the US would be arrested. Seriously, everyone does something "illegal" on the internet. And if they say they don't, they are a liar.

[TREVOFASHIONISTO]

I signed this immediately when the black tape popped up on google. This bill is absolutely ridiculous, and I can't think of how many sites (especially blogs and forums) will get shut down. Youtube could even have the possibility of getting shut down as well. I see how this may benefit the economy and get everyone to start purchasing again, but still

[Squizree]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RaisinBoy I'm asking why is the USA fighting for the freedom of other countries when it's putting its own population into shackles with every new law that has passed over the last two years.

Nations fight for their gains first, and use 'freedom' as their cause. Don't get mixed up.

I actually have mixed feelings about this. Corporations have every right to claim money for their copyrighted work, but why do they need to go as far as to ban websites just for having one of their pictures or one of their songs playing in the background? It makes no sense and it will create them harm as much as it does good.

And if they think that this will stop people from doing piracy, they are SO wrong. People will always adapt and find a way, no matter how 'on top' the government and these huge corporations think they are.

[tigerrouge]

Companies need to get over their fear of the internet, for their own sake. They don't have to entirely abandon old business models, but they do need to be flexible enough to examine the new ways that their customers want things, and get busy by going with the flow, trying to influence it, offering something that's more attractive. If companies don't have enough commercial imagination to study people's behaviour and then adapt their approach to take advantage of what they see, then they deserve to have their money wasted by handing it over to lawyers.

You have a universe of people out there, wanting your product. Trying to deny them your product because your corporate mentality hasn't caught up with what 2012 has to offer, is to spend time wallpapering over deficiencies when all that energy could be going towards making the most of the opportunities that are out there.
Posted via Mobile Device

[Eterna]

^But that takes work and money, and is much easier for them to oblige us to do things the way they want. If we adapt to their needs, they don’t have to adapt to ours.
It is a combination of arrogance and laziness, qualities as immoral as piracy, which they say they are fighting.

The consequences of these laws will affect many more than the pirates, and I don’t consider a 12 yo girl with unemployed parents who download the last Justin Bieber album because she doesn’t want to be a social outcast a pirate, if she can afford it she’ll pay it. And probably the pirates, who earn lot money with their acts, will be the least affected, they're usually smart people.

Probably if they accept that the Internet exists, that doesn’t have to be harmful, but beneficial, they could earn more money (which is all that matters).

For my education can be a part of the solution, teach children to respect the work of others. But if you educate people, they can become cultured and could realize that the work of many singers, actors, writers... has no quality, and they would not spend their money on them and their products.
And develop quality products is always more expensive (at first) than any crappy song or movie heavily publicized until people think that without spending money on that product their lives would be worse.

[Blodeuwedd]

I think it boils down to lawmakers not understanding technology. I read a lot of news-tech related sites and here's one example.

I think also it's important to look at the pockets of those lawmakers - "follow the money" as it is said. If you look at Lamar S. Smith (Rep. Texas), who wrote the bill, at his financial contributors you will see that it is largely the movie and music industry backing it up. It has been shown that people will pay for content if delivered correctly - look at iTunes and Netflix. However there are also setbacks when restrictions are set in place to avoid copyright problems - look at the mess that DRM is creating on ebooks, for example- when you buy an ebook you don't own it, you're licensing it. Pretty ridiculous IMO.

Protecting copyrighted materials is one thing, but it's like having a nasty toe infection that's spreading and having both legs amputated to "fix" it. I'm sure TFS would change greatly. Sourcing where the images were taking wouldn't be enough to salvage it, as the content isn't property of the site or of those hosting the images.

Heck, even places that host information will be lost. Photobucket, Tumblr? Gone. The US has made clear that even providing links to things are enough to warrant the shutdown and the conviction of the website/person in question. Look at here at the extradition of a British citizen. I'm sure many frown at websites as such, but many forums here have posted links to shows for others (I know I have, for Project Runway). Where a lot of the shows can be found on the channel's website/hulu, but it blocks it from everyone not in the USA. So we open technology, but limit it and that is that?

[tangerine]

Another thing that Hollywood and the music industry, and to some extent magazine publishers fail to recognize is that availability of material on the internet can also increase sales.

I have bought movies, music and magazines simply because I saw or heard clips or images on the internet and I wanted to own them in their official format.

I take intellectual property seriously; I have to in my job (video distribution). I will not duplicate material without proof of copyright. The content producers should be paid. But as tigerrouge pointed out, the content producers need to adapt to the realities of the world; they can't try to stifle progress just because it is inconvenient for them.

[Squizree]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eterna ^But that takes work and money, and is much easier for them to oblige us to do things the way they want. If we adapt to their needs, they don’t have to adapt to ours. It is a combination of arrogance and laziness, qualities as immoral as piracy, which they say they are fighting. The consequences of these laws will affect many more than the pirates, and I don’t consider a 12 yo girl with unemployed parents who download the last Justin Bieber album because she doesn’t want to be a social outcast a pirate, if she can afford it she’ll pay it. And probably the pirates, who earn lot money with their acts, will be the least affected, they're usually smart people. Probably if they accept that the Internet exists, that doesn’t have to be harmful, but beneficial, they could earn more money (which is all that matters). For my education can be a part of the solution, teach children to respect the work of others. But if you educate people, they can become cultured and could realize that the work of many singers, actors, writers... has no quality, and they would not spend their money on them and their products. And develop quality products is always more expensive (at first) than any crappy song or movie heavily publicized until people think that without spending money on that product their lives would be worse.

Exactly! That's what I was saying before. The people this will affect the least are the pirates. They're the ones who are doing the piracy and they're the ones who will keep doing it, no matter how many obstacles are put in their way. But I don't think corporations really care, if they're gonna get something out of this then why not just play along?

Oy...it just cements our corrupt human nature even more. People are selfish, the more they get, the more they want.

[Blodeuwedd]

This interesting blog talks about how publishers are against libraries in general and this quote stood out for me:

Quote:

As has been noted many times, by many people, we’ve juiced up the entirely artificial copyright laws of the world to the point that if libraries weren’t already a centuries-old cultural institution, there’s no chance they’d ever be able to come into existence today

Also, the Feds have shut down Megavideo.

[Squizree]

omg, really? Megaupload is huge, I can't believe it's over. That's rather understandable really.

But I'm more amused that the founders were arrested about an hour away from me

[Blodeuwedd]

I've been reading the comments on reddit and MU actually has DMCA rules for the content uploaded on their servers, like Youtube. Unlike YT, they don't have the lawyers to back them up. Tv shows and movies are also on youtube, but don't get reported as often or flagged as often.

[tangerine]

There is a pretty big difference between what Megaupload was doing and what YouTube does, here's part of an article that talks about some of the differences (I bolded some text):

Quote:

Going after Megaupload, one of the most popular sites in the world, might seem a strange choice. (As an example of its scale, Megaupload controlled 525 servers in Virginia alone and had another 630 in the Netherlands—and many more around the world.) For years, the site has claimed to take down unauthorized content when notified by rightsholders. It has registered a DMCA agent with the US government. It has created an “abuse tool” and given rightsholders access. It has negotiated with companies like Universal Music Group about licensing content. And CEO Kim Dotcom sent this curious e-mail to PayPal in late 2011: Our legal team in the US is currently preparing to sue some of our competitors and expose their criminal activity. We like to give you a heads up and advice [sic] you not to work with sites that are known to pay up loaders for pirated content. They are damaging the image and the existence of the file hosting industry (see what's happening with the Protect IP Act). Look at Fileserve.com, Videobb.com, Filesonic.com, Wupload.com, Uploadstation.com. These sites pay everyone (no matter if the files are pirated or not) and have NO repeat infringer policy. And they are using PayPal to pay infringers. But the government asserts that Megaupload merely wanted the veneer of legitimacy, while its employees knew full well that the site's main use was to distribute infringing content. Indeed, the government points to numerous internal e-mails and chat logs from employees showing that they were aware of copyrighted material on the site and even shared it with each other. Because of this, the government says that the site does not qualify for a “safe harbor” of the kind that protected YouTube from Viacom's $1 billion lawsuit. For instance, the “abuse tool” allegedly does not remove the actual file being complained about by a rightsholder. Instead, it only removes a specific Web address linked to that file—but there might be hundreds of such addresses for popular content. In addition, the government contends that everything about the site has been doctored to make it look more legitimate than it is. The “Top 100” download list does not “actually portray the most popular downloads,” say prosecutors, and they claim that Megaupload purposely offers no site-wide search engine as a way of concealing what people are storing and sharing through the site. Megaupload employees apparently knew how the site was being used. When making payments through its “uploader rewards” program, employees sometimes looked through the material in those accounts first. "10+ Full popular DVD rips (split files), a few small porn movies, some software with keygenerators (warez)," said one of these notes. (The DMCA does not provide a "safe harbor" to sites who have actual knowledge of infringing material and do nothing about it.) In a 2008 chat, one employee noted that "we have a funny business... modern days [sic] pirates ," to which the reply was, "we're not pirates, we're just providing shipping servies [sic] to pirates ." Employees send each other e-mails saying things like, “can u pls get me some links to the series called ‘Seinfeld’ from MU [Megaupload]," since some employees did have access to a private internal search engine. Employees even allegedly uploaded content themselves, such as a BBC Earth episode uploaded in 2008. Other messages appear to indicate that employees knew how important copyrighted content was to their business. Content owners had a specific number of takedown requests they could make each day; in 2009, for instance, Time Warner was allowed to use the abuse tool to remove 2,500 links per day. When the company requested an increase, one employee suggested that "we can afford to be cooperative at current growth levels"— implying that if growth had not been so robust, takedowns should be limited. Kim Dotcom approved an increase to 5,000 takedowns a day. Employees also had access to analytics. One report showed that a specific linking site had “produce[d] 164,214 visits to Megaupload for a download of the copyrighted CD/DVD burning software package Nero Suite 10. The software package had the suggested retail price of $99.” The government's conclusion: Megaupload knew what was happening and did little to stop it.

arstechnica.com

[Squizree]

^ Yeah, that's why I can understand shutting down Megaupload. They were fully aware of copyright offenses, yet did very little. I'm not sure if anyone knows or remembers but a member here was actually fined about 5000 Euros for uploading copyrighted fashion shows. So they did punish certain times.

[wild roses]

Youtube is also owned by Google which makes a difference too. (Google opposes the strict interpretation of online copyright. It believes in copyright laws, but that information should be available and accessible to everyone, so their lawyers will put a fight.)