Should Answerbag participate in the anti-SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) blackout on January 18th, 2012? Why or why not?

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• This bill is definately too far reaching, but, Hollywood is losing a lot of money so I don't blame them if they want to do something about it. Money that it really isn't fair for them to lose. How would you like to have a business where all your products are stolen and given away for free?

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  by KDP on January 17th, 2012

• Is someone stealing DVD's and giving them away? Then there's an issue.
  
  But here, nothing is being stolen.
  
  If you buy a DVD, are you buying the disc, or leasing the content?
  If you are buying the disc, then clearly you should be able to do whatever you wish with that disc.
  
  If, instead, the content is merely licenced to you, then if *you* break the terms of that licensing agreement (say, by copying and giving it away), then that is on *you*. I emphasize the *you* because the agreement was between the purchaser and the company, not between any third party. Should I happen to obtain the content through other channels, then I am not subject to any licensing agreements. I have never agreed to not copy this content.
  
  I am all for prosecuting someone who has broken their agreement to not copy or distribute the material. However, it is not up to the taxpayer to go an extend that agreement to the rest of the population for the benefit of the record/movie company.
  
  Hollywood, of course, wants it all:
  -They want you to purchase the disc, if the disc is damaged then you need to purchase another (So then they are selling the disc, not the content, right?)
  -They want to limit what you can do with the content.. (So they sold you the content, not the disc, right? That means they should allow you to redownload it if your disc is damaged.)
  -They want the govt to keep their "have it all" mentality going by further forcing everyone to be a party to an agreement that should only be between themselves and a purchaser.
  
  As for money being lost - that is hard to know. If I watch something for free, it doesn't mean they lost money. I would simply have not watched it if there was a fee. They lost $0.
  
  While hollywood hasn't bothered to experiment, software and book publishers have, as well as a comedian, only to discover that profits go up when you don't try to prevent piracy and instead appeal to the consumer to pay if they felt it was worth it.
  
  Hollywood's model is broken, and seems especially stupid at a time when we are protesting the govt bailouts of the 1%. It's bad for them to tax our tax dollars to bail out a bank so the rich executives can stay rich, but it's ok to take our tax dollars to enforce a movie studio's copyright while the actors get 30 million?

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  by TheGrimReefer on January 17th, 2012

• Well, I don't think they should prosecute people who download things. But, for people who upload, they are breaking that agreement of copying and/or distributing the material.
  Well, maybe sometimes people wouldn't have watched something if there was a fee, but, other times they would have.
  Well, it's still an unusual and risky way to do business. To have people pay only if they think it was worth it. And profits go up how much though? Only from what they've already been trimmed at due to piracy.
  I don't think tax dollars should be taken from people. Whatever bill eventually passes should be a bill that doesn't effect anyone except the guilty parties.
  It does take a lot of money to make a movie (and not every movie does well) so...

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  by KDP on January 17th, 2012

• Ah but the only people breaking any agreement, are the original purchasers who are uploading! I'm fine with any efforts to prosecute them. Perhaps they could be shown to have caused lots of $$ in lost sales, who knows. Anyone after the original purchasers, made no agreement to not upload the content.
  
  An entire industry shouldn't be based on taxpayers paying to prosecute themselves for viewing or sharing content. They have to find a new business model.

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  by TheGrimReefer on January 17th, 2012

• I talked about something like this with my Dad and he said it's pretty much the same argument as "Should drug dealers or drug users be prosecuted?" To him, if anyone is, it's the "dealers" (the people uploading the content in the first place) who should be because they are the ones distributing it in the first place.
  
  Personally, I use the library. If a book is good enough that I want to read more than once, I may consider buying it. If I have no desire to read it more than once, well, why should I make myself broke? I read plenty of books. If I bought every book I read, I would have no money in my bank account at all. I did buy a book recently that I haven't even read yet, but it's a gift for a friend... so it's different. It has high reviews and it seems to be something he'd be interested in. I'm still going to read it just to be sure, even though I'm already pretty sure.

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  by A on January 17th, 2012

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• Wikipedia and Reddit are pretty huge sites. It might do something. It might not do something if Answerbag does it, but at least it will let us know where they stand. It may also inform people who might not already know about it. There was a site that was boycotted because it originally supported SOPA (GoDaddy). I read that they changed their position after a movement of people from their site left in protest. Anyway, I've read hints about this January 18th date coming up, but I didn't know what it was about until I saw Fluther's blog post about it. If this thing passes, I will seriously view the U.S. Congress as a complete joke. I hope you are right and that it never does.
  
  This article (as well as the article you provided) make me feel very hopeful:
  
  http://bostinno.com/2012/01/16/sopa-bill-delayed-indefinitely-wikipedia-reddit-still-to-go-dark-in-protest/
  
  That being said, I still support the websites that are blacking out on January 18th, 2012. I believe more awareness to this issue is very important and Wikipedia and Reddit blacking out may bring exactly that: more awareness.

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  by A on January 16th, 2012

• I guess awareness is a good reason.

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  by KDP on January 17th, 2012

• Well, it could cause more people to pay more attention to potential laws that could affect them. I mean, the SOPA bill looks innocent because of what it is called, doesn't it? The title is very, very misleading, though.

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  by A on January 17th, 2012

• Well, I make a point on Grim Reefer's answer. But, this bill is definately too much, too far reaching. However, something probably should be done. I agree with Obama about how that something shouldn't intrude on innocent users of the internet at all though.

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  by KDP on January 17th, 2012

• Do you really think Obama would veto it? He just signed the indefinite detention bill. What makes you think he cares about our country?

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  by Don Gorgeous George on January 19th, 2012

• Oh, I don't want to go into all this. But, yes, I think he cares.

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  by KDP on January 19th, 2012

• You do at least acknowledge that he signed the bill, right?

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  by Don Gorgeous George on January 20th, 2012

• He signed the bill that included that part which you refer to.

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  by KDP on January 20th, 2012

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