The World of Urusei Yatsura's Lum

Forum & Website => Forum News => Topic started by: Lum-chan on January 18, 2012, 02:39:46 PM

Title: Statement regarding SOPA
Post by: Lum-chan on January 18, 2012, 02:39:46 PM
Dear users and guests,

As some, and hopefully most, of you will know, a bill was introduced to the United States House of Representatives which is called Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).
Simple Machines would like to make an official stance on this bill. Whilst you may be used to us being completely neutral on many matters, such as politics, religion and many other aspects, this bill poses such a threat to the entire internet community, including possibly ourselves and yourself as end user of our software, that we figured it was time to raise awareness of the dangers and problems involved with this bill.

While we do wholeheartedly support the primary goal of SOPA, which is to protect innovators and copyright holders from infringement and piracy by malicious persons, the bill in its current form is highly dangerous towards day to day operations throughout the entire internet, even outside of the United States, and may cause innocent people and companies to be prosecuted under the United States law. People and companies may even lose their websites or get cut off from receiving funds from payment processors without due process or any discernible probable cause, as the terms on when such a block can be put in place is very vague.

Let us first tell you a little bit more about SOPA.
The bill was introduced on October 26, 2011 by representative Lamar Smith with 12 initial co-sponsors.
This bill will give the US law enforcement and copyright holders more abilities to block and stop the distribution of copyrighted material and counterfeits. (Note: related acts are PRO-IP and PROTECT IP Act)
However, the way it is handled leaves no room for proper defense.

Some of the main issues with the bill are:
- Threat to online businesses
- Direct threat towards Web hosting companies
- General negative effects to DNSSEC, DNS and internet security in its entirety
- Threat to online freedom of speech, the bill will make censorship very easy
- Destroying of the safe harbors in the current DMCA laws
- Potential criminalization of users uploading content (including jail time!)
- Threat to Open Source software
- Providers can be forced to deploy deep packet inspection to directly target users, which violates user privacy
- Providers can be forced to block internet access completely to individuals
- Search engines will be censored
- Payment providers can be forced to block funding to individuals without a legal process or having to check safe harbors
- DNS systems in the US can be forced to block your access to certain websites, you no longer have the rights to choose what you visit, regardless of whether a site is legal or not!

TL;DR: it will cripple the internet, free speech and free choice throughout the world.

This bill will change the fundamentals of the internet completely. Legal processes that would usually be required to get far reaching measures set in place towards malicious users can effectively be bypassed by SOPA, which means that completely legit users may also be attacked, simply because the SOPA bill has such a broad language inside of it that it can be interpreted in many ways and it leaves no room for payment processors, DNS providers and (hosting) providers to see what is true or false: they have no choice but to oblige. Why? Because when they cooperate voluntarily, they will be immune from persecution. If they do not cooperate because it is unclear: they can be held liable.

You do not have the power to "act in good faith" with SOPA, such as required in the current notice and takedown system of DMCA, primarily due to SOPA's broad language. The bill will allow corporations and the government more power over free speech and provide completely new methods of effectively starting internet censorship for whatever it is they see not fit as being on the internet. (Basically, what a corporation could see as slander, but free speech to the user, could lead to a request for blocks from payment processors and providers by the corporation which will have to be honored within a matter of days.)
Because there are no more safe harbors such as with the current DMCA system, third party and user-generated content providers (such as Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Google, online communities like our own, and even the SMF websites that you create and use!) will be the ones liable and thus undermines the current legal structures that have allowed some internet platforms to evolve.

Again, let me make it clear that the proposed goal, to protect owners of content (copyright holders) against infringement and piracy, is a very good goal. However, SOPA itself contains many errors that will cause major problems to the functioning on the internet, it will threaten internet service providers and it can be a threat to all of you: the end users of the internet.
For example, your website can be shutdown solely for giving a negative opinion on something, as little as ONE user posting a link to copyrighted content or actually uploading it to your website. Next to that, YOU will run in to big trouble.
This is also why giant internet tech companies such as Google, Yahoo, Facebook, AOL, Ebay, Amazon, etc. are taking a hard stand against SOPA and are even threatening to blackout for a extended period of time to show the world what could happen if SOPA passes.

Please consider all of this well and try to understand the major negative impact this bill will have on the entire internet and especially to potentially innocent users and companies whom merely wish to use their right on Free Speech.
Make a stand against SOPA now! Contact your local Congressional representative, or if you are outside the US, sign petitions that request your government to make a firm stand against SOPA. After all, this can negatively effect all business and individuals all over the world.

For more information, please visit the following links:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/10/sopa-hollywood-finally-gets-chance-break-internet
http://americancensorship.org/
http://savehosting.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act#Arguments_against
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PROTECT_IP_Act

To join in, read americancensorship.org and see how you can get involved. You may also wish to 'censor' your website.

Thank you for your due consideration and helping put a halt to the enrollment of this bill!
We sincerely hope that you will do all you can to attempt to stop this bill from ever passing Congress!


Thank you.

Lum-chan
Title: Re: Statement regarding SOPA
Post by: foxhead556 on January 18, 2012, 08:54:11 PM
As a navy vet i vowed to defend America's freedom from any enemy force even if it means fighting our very own congress.  Thankfully i sent in a email of protest to my local rep last night and hopefully our reps will represent us properly.
Title: Re: Statement regarding SOPA
Post by: AtaruLum on January 18, 2012, 10:44:57 PM
some points are remeber me on the "Zensursula" law 2009, who german law want to manipulate DNS entries for domains that would allegedly show child pornography. There was high demonstration with "deletion instead blocking". This law was abolished thereafter.

Or the EU retention for 6 - 12 months, where internet provider logs all activities of the surfer, was 2010 in Germany by the Federal Court declared as unconstitutional.
Title: Re: Statement regarding SOPA
Post by: AtaruLum on January 20, 2012, 10:40:01 AM
Supplement:

In Europe we have the same problem, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Counterfeiting_Trade_Agreement
Title: Re: Statement regarding SOPA
Post by: veehive on January 21, 2012, 06:14:22 AM
I sent e-mails to my Senators and Congressmen expressing my displeasure over SOPA/PIPA. One responded, saying that it looked like SOPA was being withdrawn. Other news sources have it that both bills are dead.

In the meantime, the U.S. Justice department shut down MegaUpload and arrested its owners.
Title: Re: Statement regarding SOPA
Post by: lilwiz on January 23, 2012, 02:15:34 AM
Does Megaupload being shut down have to do with SOPA?
Title: Re: Statement regarding SOPA
Post by: veehive on January 23, 2012, 02:37:07 AM
Not directly, but it's a "related story".

Continuing in that same vein: just heard that Filesonic is now a file-backup-only site and no longer a file-sharing site.

edit: Fileserve has started to delete files and accounts
Uploaded.to decided to just block American IP addresses altogether

(thanks to my friends at KAF for passing the word)