SOPA Act

[quote=”smekuly”]I thought this is important enough to share on this since this will affect all of us in some way or another[b]http://wordpress.org/news/2012/01/help-stop-sopa-pipa/[/b]this will NOT stop in the U.S. as this will happen here also[/quote]

The video stops and starts every few seconds. It is impossible to listen to properly. I don’t like wordpress. I have not been able to figure out how it works.

The video played OK for me. But it is higher resolution than it needed to be for smooth streaming on most connections.

The entertainment industry does not get it. Video rentals, which they fought SAVED Hollywood and has made many films profitable that were not in theaters. The industry now make billions on rentals and direct sales.

Currently many television content producers are forcing folks to pay a CABLE company for access to their on-line content but do not provide an alternative. IF I could pay a small fee to watch favorite TV shows I would probably do it. But we do not have cable or satellite television and DO NOT want it. Cable companies have created a system that forces people to pay for services they DO NOT WANT (in my case a dozen sports channels topped by another dozen Soap Operas and a handful of religious channels). I DO NOT want a package that “may change without notice” full of stuff I do not want. Give people the choice as they do on the Internet and charge reasonable fees.

There is plenty of money to be made with Internet content but the Entertainment industry has not figured it out. Dump the cable companies. Give folks a choice and go direct and they will not need new laws. .

guilty…it has something to do with all the Flor de Cana that comes in a bottle.

[quote=”costaricabill”]It is possible to cosume Flor de Cana without Coke (I have done it for 15+ years) try tonic or fresca or ginger ale – – – – but that is not the subject of this post.
The subject[/quote]

OOOPs, I failed to finish (and unfortunately at my age that is not th first time and I must readily admit it, before my wonderful wife of 42 years does it for me) but the real subject is ….. I forgot! Quote Guilda Radner – “Nevermind.”

[quote=”maravilla”]the vid did stop and start annoyingly, but i suffered through it. wordpress is very easy, actually. i keep a blog on there and i am the biggest computer dunderhead there is.[/quote]

I tried Worpress, could not get things to work for me, stuck with my account at Blogger and Bravenet

[quote=”DavidCMurray”]Sadly, making you pay for sonething you may not want is the very face of American merchandising. If you don’t believe me, just try to buy a single six ounce Coke or even a six-pack of them. Sorry, but if you want a drink of Coke, you’ll have to buy half a liter and maybe not just one. Who among us consumers decided that we want all that Coke?[/quote]

what a doctor I used to know called the American Diet…he had a Coke bottle from the 50’s side-side with average big plastic bottle today and had a sign in his office “this is the problem”….his counseling was big on diet as many of his clients were poor and had obesity and diabetes, HTN,etc…

Said MD was very pro-Hispanic and married a Columbian lady, lives part time in USA, part in central Columbia…..he was the one that noted to me how refershing it was to travel abroad, esp latin countries and how different it was to return to USA, noted it was very bland here in USA and consumed with consumerism,etc….yikes, their I go again “haterizing”……:lol::shock::D

In general it is a bad law obviously written by the industry and not tempered in the slightest by the submitter.

But there IS a significant copyright issue than needs to be addressed. As I noted above, I think the industry brings a lot of it upon themselves. But on the other hand, many of the protesters are making money off copyright infringement. Reddit does, so does Google/YouTube, eBay. .

I’ve had content stolen (original articles and illustrations WITH copyright notices) and posted on sites maintained by Yahoo, Google, eBay and others and tried to get it removed. . . It is nearly impossible.

I run a web site much like this one (about blacksmithing) with both public and privately submitted content. Nothing on my site infringes on anyone’s copyright, as nothing HERE does that I have ever noticed. I often reject articles that are submitted with images that are taken from other sources with no attribution or permission to use. That is part of the business.

What google/youtube wants is to not be responsible for user supplied content that infringes on copyright. BUT they DO want to make money from that content AND they want THEIR copyrights maintained. . . They want rights they refuse to me (will not remove MY stolen content).

The entertainment industry wants to be able to stop their content from being hosted overseas OR on google/youtube and others profiting from it. It is their property rights.

Where it gets complicated is that any web site can have a page with advertising and plug in content (a film), OR have a user plug in content in the middle of the page without the site hosting it. It can be hosted in Russia, China, Vietnam, Korea. . . a home PC. That content (property) is generating advertising revenue for the web operator who does not own the content. Should the web site operator be responsible for the copyright infringement of an anonymous public user?

YES they should. They are making income off a criminal act. Google makes millions every day off others illegal acts. It is a small but significant portion of their income. For others, doing the same more blatantly it may be 100% of their income.

But what these sites claim is that they are only “linking” to the content. The gray area is the difference between a link and an embedded content. But link farms and directories make money off simple links (or Google would not exist).

If you are in the business of buying and selling stolen goods (known as fencing) you are just as responsible as the thief. If you make money off stolen content it is no different. So, what is your legal standing if you are only the referral to the fence (or thousands of fences) and profiting from it?

So a law IS coming. Hopefully not this one. But new laws ARE coming.

Meanwhile, the only people this law would hurt (financially) are Google, yahoo and blatent pirate sites. Small HONEST operators such as Scott and myself or big providers such as Hulu (who PAYS for all their content), would not be effected in any way. The public? Less “free” stolen content and fewer choices for hiding stolen content.