sopa is delicious

oh, not much. whats sopa wit you?

fuuuuuu too big. sorry

no apolgies its sopa kay

sopa king?


doesn't work

so, pa, where's ma

this is a seriousish issue

im emailing myself right now

turns out i've blocked all emails from shirtflirt

i'm calling the operator

*listens to an instrumental version of a justin bieber tune*

SOPA!

*breaks dish*

So what's all this talk about pa, ma kettle was the real star of that duo.

she's ALWAYS overlooked

i like sopa con pan

ceci n'est pas une pipa

It's how my parents say "sofa".

25 people who thought the protest was about soup

Seriously though if they stop this bill from passing my faith in democracy will be fully restored.

just read an article on SLATE trying to convince people on why illegal downloading is good.

stubbs, you're much more aware and well versed on this subject, give me a worst case scenario of where this slippery slope can end up.

Ok, first of all we've already made some key victories in destroying these bills.

Originally the bill called for internet service providers to use a technique called DNS blocking (DNS is like the phone book of the internet) to make websites disappear from the internet its a process already used in China and Iran to put down freedom of speech.

Thats off the table for both the bills and Comcast actually upgraded its network that makes the technique impossible (which is ironic because comcast supports sopa).

Even if their not using that technique the bills being proposed mean that people only have to suggest copyrighted content is being hosted on that site and it'll get shut down.

A chilling example happened a few days ago when universal music took megaupload to court declaring it a pirate site and got it shut down, the scary bit happened later when artists such as Kanye West, Mary J. Blige, will.i.am created a music video in support of mega upload and put it on youtube.

Universal music got angry and demanded it be taken down which google/youtube was forced to comply with despite the fact it contained absolutely no copyrighted material.

Basically there are two things that could happen.

One it will be used to squash freedom of speech, say for example I'm the Fur industry and I want to shut down PETA's website, all I have to do is prove that PETA's website has copyrighted material on it and thats it their websites down.

They'll probably be a long drawn out legal battle and they could easily use the same technique about me but for the time being I've got them off the internet.

2 (and this is more likely to happen)

It'll create a two tiered internet where those companies that can afford to pay the legal fee's to keep their website online will be able to do it and everyone else will get shut down because their users uploaded a photo of justin beiber that Mercury Records decides it doesnt want you using.

In short it pushes power straight back into the corporate giants hands.

lmao

i spent like a minute waiting for the main image on the threadless page to load *forehead slap

thanks stubby!

google is putting out a petition to congress to get the bills shut down

No problem, also its interesting to point out that according to the law google is a piracy website (giving links to information about how to illegally download content is strictly banned in the bills) and would have to be shut down, considering the fact google is a $2.73bn company thats a massive impact on the global economy.

I'm against SOPA but I'm also against rampant piracy (i feel that if everything is free, then who pays for quality content?). I'm sure everyone knows at least one person who routinely acquires full HD movies without the creators getting a cent. The easier this is, the less money goes to the film, industry, and all its constituent employees.

It's important to be aware of conflicts of interest (money) on both sides of this debate. One side is the bulk of the internet. It's not just about "freedom" and censorship, it's also about economic costs and benefits to both parties.

As I've written in every e-mail to my congresspeople, fight SOPA due to its unintended consequences, and demand something better (e.g. OPEN)

i found it interesting reading the link about 25 people who didn't know sopa wasn't soup. i get the joke. but what wasn't really funny was a few posts about how the "government is going to take away all free movies, free music, youtube..it's bullshit."

this idea of entitlement is so fucking ridiculous it makes me look at certain groups of younger people as if they're from a distant planet.

I hear you Shirt. "Everything should be free! Freedom should be free! What, YouTube has ads?! Bogus!!!!"

I can't wait until WiFi is added to the Bill of Rights.

Alan I think there might be a bit of a generation gap going on here, plus the fact that you work in the industry certainly doesn't when it comes to your feelings on the matter.

My thoughts on the issue are far from fully formed, whilst I dont believe its a fundamental right for us to have movies and music for free when people have invested considerable time and money into the production of those products I'm not really against it either.

I think a big part of the reason why piracy has taken off is two fold.

1. Its not stealing.
2. legal copies are too expensive.
3. there not worth it.

1. to clarify, when I say not stealing I mean in the sense that if my friend has a copy of mission impossible 4 and I take that file, he doesnt stop having mission impossible 4, we both have it.

Its more like the transference of an idea.

2. If albums, dvds and music were actually priced at an affordable price point people wouldn't have been as quick to jump on piracy in the way that they did. Its interesting to note that dvds have crashed in value, films that came out only a year ago now cost £3 to £5 where as before it was more like £15.

3. If I'm paying a lot of money for my content I want it to have lots and lots of features and maybe even stuff that cant be replicated online (e.g posters, stickers other cool stuff).

I think the reason people find it difficult to feel sorry for them is because were largely talking about mega corporations who make massive profits and that's made even harder when the statistics tell an extremely different story.

For example from 1995 through to 2012 Total profit almost doubled from $5.29 billion dollars to $10.40 billion dollars despite the fact that ticket sales are down to around their 1996 level (2012 is estimated but its only January and its already at $455,780,223).



the numbers.com.

That's an amazing statistic, one it does show that going to the cinema is less popular than it was in terms of the amount of people going out BUT if you take into account that the average ticket price has doubled from $4.35 (1995) to $7.96 (2012) its more popular than ever.

No matter way you cut it cinema certainly isn't dieing.

Similarly according to this guardian article the other creative industries arent exactly doing all that bad themselves either:



In fact if you look at the graph above, you'll see that games spend has risen dramatically - from £1.18bn in 1999 to £4.03bn in 2008.

Meanwhile music spending (allowing for that * of adjustment in 2004 onwards) has gone from £1.94bn to £1.31bn.

DVD sales and rentals, meanwhile, have nearly doubled, from a total of £1.286bn in 1999 to £2.56bn in 2008.

The only industries that have experienced a drop are the music industry and the dvd rental industry and the bottom line is the DVD rental industry is finished because it served a purpose in a pre digital world.



I find it really, extremely difficult to feel sorry for them when they pull crap like this because by all accounts their businesses are still doing extremely well.

i guess it's because i remember pre internet days. and then it was like, wow, some great minds have created something pretty cool. then it was like, wow, i can get some free shit now. VIVA LA INTERNET!

information SHARING will always be available in some form or another...until we give away that freedom, but stealing will always be wrong.

imagine that there's a device that clones automobiles. like, you plug something into a computer and a device literally clones a vehicle. so if i borrow your car and clone it, i'm not stealing from you but I AM STEALING FROM THE PRODUCERS OF THE VEHICLES.

it's not up to us to determine how much an industry makes. if we don't like it, we don't give them our money we don't resort to criminal activity. unless it's monsanto, in my opinion but that's an entirely different argument.

and who's to say dvds and cds aren't paid accordingly? do you know how many people it takes to make most music albums? how many people it takes to make a feature length film? the cost is not simply for the replication of the disc but for the royalties that all above the line people get.
secondfold, you have to pay writers and creative types MORE because it allows them TIME OFF to CREATE more CONTENT. it's impossible for a writer to write a show and create something new simultaneously over and over. it may happen once in awhile but that's not a realistic work model.

"2. legal copies are too expensive. "

either make more money, or you learn to live without certain things. i feel that convertible bmw's are too expensive....

Unh, who dropped the sopa!?

hahahaah, extra toes

OK I get what your saying which is why I do have mixed feelings but I still dont see it as stealing.

First of its really interesting that you discussed the idea of a device that you plug into a computer and it literally clones physical objects (made of atoms not bits) because those devices exist, their in the early stages but their called 3D printers or rapid prototype machines.

Basically how they work it you put in a lump of plastic, download a design and then the printer cuts away at it until you have the product in question.

Anyway one of the things I'm really interested in is the open source hardware industry:

wired article on it

What does this have to do with illegal downloads? Well I kind of see the industry evolving in a similar fashion, people can either download an illegal copy e.g if their broke (and the company will make money off of advertising revenue) or they can buy a legal copy knowing its going to be higher quality and have more content packed in it.

Purchasing content hasn't disappeared because its out there on the net for free, people seem to be turning into legal citizens when their able to and thats sped up when prices are lowered.

As for the argument about how much it costs to produce movies or albums I know very well its not cheap (I've done the research more than once for papers I've written) but I dont think piracy is actually undermining that, I mean the stats speak for themselves, the industry as a whole is doing better than ever.

Its just the little guys where things are different.

p.s its 1:22am so that wasnt exactly my best response and my feelings might be different in the morning.

Like I said I'm kind of confused about the whole thing.

yeah i saw a video a month or so ago about the 3d printers. i can't wait to see what kind of copyright infringements those will create once they're viable.

so what is stealing, to you stubby?
i always thought it was taking something that wasn't mine or something that i didn't pay for that wasn't meant to be free, like a cup of tap water.

haha, no sweat stubby. thanks for sharing.

Mo wins! lol

mo money
mo money

See I didn't actually say what I wanted to say cause I'm tired.

I didn't say they weren't stealing from the designer because they are but what I kind of meant to say was, in the open source hardware industry some of the creators sell their designs, so they make their money on the purchase of the design rather than the product.

Then I was going to try and come up with some clever comprasion to the film, tv and music industry but my thoughts are really jumbled right now and I need sleep.

get some rest...this isn't going away overnight

give me a worst case scenario of where this slippery slope can end up.

threadless is taken down because one user posts a link to copyrighted material. this is what sopa is. it won't stop piracy but it will ruin the internet.

hmmm. well, if it's copyrighted...then...i dunno dude. i like sharing things and i like lolcats and i like stuff...

i also like sharing information and coordinating things with groups of people...

imho it just needs better defining of terms.

some smart guy needs to figure out how copyrighted material earns revenue for its creators/owners accordingly and shut down the modes of piracy/sharing which would hinder this revenue stream.

some smart guy needs to figure out how copyrighted material earns revenue for its creators/owners accordingly and shut down the modes of piracy/sharing which would hinder this revenue stream.

wrong. you can't put the shaving cream back in the can. when you bulldoze a crack house, the crackheads just go somewhere else. it's the same thing here.

instead, some smart guy needs to figure out how to make people want to get their copyrighted material from the source instead of for free somewhere else. extreme example: paramount starts streaming their movies for free in HD and makes money from selling ads.

i'm not saying that's the most profitable solution, i'm saying people need to start thinking along those lines. you can't turn internet piracy into the next drug war and start putting kids in prison because they don't feel like paying for iron man 3.

so hinder the pirates then and empower the content creators

people just gotta learn that content creators should be paid for what they do

I just want to know if the rest of the world have a say in this?!
How can U.S. senate decide and bring a law for the whole world?!

Oh wait, nevermind, that's how it usually works anyway!

people just gotta learn that content creators should be paid for what they do

"After several years in which American diplomats have inveighed against Internet censorship in China, the proposals have inspired a bit of snickering. “The Great Firewall turns out to be a visionary product; the American government is trying to copy us,” one commentator wrote. A Chinese message making the rounds on Thursday said: “At last, the planet is becoming unified: We are ahead of the whole world, and the ‘American imperialists’ are racing to catch up.”