The most boring and unusual time of the U.S goverment ever.

HA! I kid, Martial law and the Military would take over.

Ah, and there is Exhibit A of American citizens thinking their vote matters. "IF WE DON'T VOTE, MARTIAL LAW AND THE MILITARY WILL RUN THIS COUNTRY!" +1 to American government for successful fear-mongering.

Can we please keep this as apolitical as possible?

Why?

No, that was a joke. But feel free to go crazy and not grasp how a goverment works.

Because when a thread descends into a politics argument, it is always very quickly locked.

wait what? Who went crazy? Now I'm lost.

Oh, well that's lame.

Nevermind then, continue on with your discussions of something that is 100% motivated by politics without discussing politics. That should be a doozy.

I believe they are, due to the importance and IT nature of these acts, allowing politics so far as they are directly relevant to the topic of this thread, with wider discussions limited. They are making an exception to the rules so we can talk about moves to censor/control the internet, not so we can air all political opinions and beliefs.

Il tell you one thing Bethesda supports this SOPA bill.

Microsoft 's success can partly be attributed to copied DOS, Windows 3.1, MS word and Excel as it would never have caught on. Apple would have reigned supreme and Commodore, Atari and Radio Shack and Sinclair would still be around.

Very few could actually afford the 600 - 1200 dollars that MS software cost and one bought copy was all most offices and schools could afford so at first it was pirated. Then the office workers and students would make copies for home. This got everyone into using MS software and Microsoft became the giant it did.

In 1988 I knew a computer store owner who would carefully open (and reseal) boxes of software, copy them and sell the copies to a distributor in Taiwan, who in turn made and sold thousands of copies and became rich because of it..

Obviously all that pirating did was spread the software into millions of homes and businesses. Microsoft was forced to bring down it's prices, buy out the competition and make computer manufacturers pay for it if they wanted to sell their computers and as it got richer it's lawyers were quick to sue as many as they could and eventually everything leveled out.

Authors, artists and software developers are having to deal with this legacy of piracy plus the common attitude that if it's out there and I can get it for free I will.

Last year in Vancouver, Canada, a group of hockey fans trashed downtown and hundreds of ordinary people, mostly young teens and twenties, went into the wrecked stores and stole as much as they could carry same happened in Britain.

This shows how people will take what they want whenever the opportunity arises.

It's obvious that there will always be thieves around and I can certainly see why these draconian anti-piracy laws are needed and WILL be passed and enforced.

In the old days if you could not afford to buy it you went without.

I don't agree that we need to give anyone a "auto-kill website" button, due process should be involved. if you find someone has your lawnmower in their garage you shouldn't be able to burn it down to get it back without discussing it first

Draconian anti-piracy enforcement would be a-ok with me if it weren't for the fact that this legislation targets servers hosted in other countries, and last I checked, these countries have their own laws not to be superseded in this fashion.

This is why I think ultimately other types of internet/web systems will develop as a response, and as a detriment to the US's fight against copyright infringement because it won't be able to autonomously shut down foreign websites then.

Even Wikipedia ditched neutrality to take a stance on it.

I don't think any of the mods or admins here took a stand, they just relaxed the No Politics rule a bit so we could discuss the issue.

That's because in the old days software (and the ability to pirate it) were subject to scarcity. That's not the case nowadays. Companies are trying to make that the case again. The problem is that software and gaming companies work at odds with themselves -- they both want to spread their information as much as possible (sales) and want to limit who gets access to it as much as possible (IP law, price), in order to make as much money off of it as possible.

The only reason games cost $60 is because companies have decided this is the price which results in the best profits. That's a dubious assessment, but whatever.

Point is, because there is no scarcity, piracy isn't quite thievery. Depending on how many people buy the game, companies often still make back their investment and then some. They just want to make more of a return on investment in order to appease shareholders.

Fundamentally, a select few people want to force the majority of people to give them more money. That's all that SOPA, PIPA, whatever, is about. (Of course, such legislation doesn't work, but that doesn't matter. Companies will just push more and more laws. Which still won't work. Then we'll all be living in Big Brother states and there will still be piracy.)

Now, whether piracy is right or wrong is neither here nor there. The pertinent consideration is that companies just don't make products that people are willing to spend money on. They've LCDd and Sigma 6d themselves into unprofitable positions, and now they're trying to figure out how to extort more money from others.

I've made exactly 5 game, 19 DVD, 1 TV series, 10 book, and 11 music purchases in the past 4 years. I always try out entertainment before I buy it, either through friends, demos or at stores, so I can make an informed decision. I've only bought 5 games because those are the only games I've considered worth my time. Most of the stuff on the market is total crap. (And that goes for movies, TV, books and music, too.)

That's the problem, and that's the problem that none of the big entertainment/software companies want to deal with.

I'm wondering more about why American policy should effect people outside of America.

Because the majority of websites are hosted in the US. If it was a website operating in Canada, it couldn't get shutdown by the US government. However, as I have mentioned, because a majority of websites people frequent are in America, it can get shut down, and blocks everyone.

Move out of this god-forsaken country. Not before marching on washington though.

On a different topic, I saw The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo last night. Great movie, but after I saw it I immediately regretted giving money to the MPAA.

You're missing the point of the bills.
The real purpose is to have the laws and technology in place to shut down, any and all, websites that are contrary to what the USA wants it's citizens to see.
It's wants to be able to block out jihadist type websites, wikileaks and whistle blower websites. The copyright issue is the way to get everything in place and get the laws passed by congress and accepted by the general public.
A side line is that a lot more money can be svcked from the taxpayer to maintain the bureaucracy to operate it.
Example; the DEA costs $1,716.77 that is spent by our government each and every second of every day. - about 24billion last year alone.
That's big bucks and pays a lot of high ups huge salaries and pensions.
So these bills are a very important move that the USA considers essential to good government an a secure America.

Then Europen/Asian countries will just open up thier own, and your government can do whatever the hell it wants, while the rest of us ignore its stupidity.

Doesnt work like that lol. Its funny that in a world where every person is just a click away from interacting with any other person in the world, some still hold the assumption that one countries policy ( especially one with such an impact on policy worldwide) will not effect them.

There is this little thing called extradition, and most countries co-operate under [or according to] the process.

There is also speculation among some that because the world is a little smaller now, that issues similar to what we're talking about would usher in a one world government where these inconveniences could be solved....not in our lifetime is my opinion. It may never be realized...who knows?
I am not an advocate. I respect others sense of Xenophobia...to a degree....and I am not immune to it with certain things. Such is life, like it or not.

you forget your rights and i forget your name, if anyone is in favor of this i abandon them to the hell they deserve

I was just watching American Idol, yeah... go ahead flame away, and a thought crossed my mind.

How can contestants sing these songs without approval from their respective copyright holders?

Not exactly covered by SOPA and clones, but still somewhat topical.

There's a thingy set up so that radios and suchlike can play music without getting permission from every single artist (imagine the headache!); instead, they pay a single fee which then gets split between the relevant parties.