…and we’re back. Like so many other sites on the web, OSNews joined the worldwide protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act and the PROTECT-IP Act, which threaten to end free speech, economic innovation, privacy, and the free exchange of information on the web. I don’t wish to waste too many words on our participation, so consider this item as a sort of comment lightening rod to make sure that when the next story is posted, we can focus fully on its topic. Update: DC seems to be getting the message the internet sent today.
Before we go, we would like to thank zachstronaut.com for their excellent protest page. I’m so happy we (still) have a web where we can freely share things like this.
We did not announce our participation in the protests, for the simple reason that we felt the impact would be greater if OSNews went dark without any prior notice – because that’s exactly what would happen to websites all over the web if SOPA/PIPA are passed. It would give the content industry and the US government extraordinary control over the web without any form of due process. In other words: censorship.
Usually, we use articles as our means of choice to convey our position, but this issue is so important we felt the need to do a full-on blackout, with no way to get to OSNews itself. We decided to do so a few weeks ago, and even when it looked like SOPA was going to be shelved, we decided to press on. The ‘unshelving‘ of SOPA only strengthened our resolve.
OSNews is but a relatively small website and community, and this is really all we can do. The American members of our team can express their concerns in the voting booth, but as an Old Worlder, all I can do is shake my fist in articles. This was an extreme measure, and there’s no intention to make a habit out of stuff like this.
Thank you for your understanding (zero complaint emails!), and thank you for being part of the OSNews community. We <3 you.
The US government has been parading on it’s high-horse for way too long, neglecting even to listen to it’s own people. I hope these online protests have an impact.
Good concise review of SOPA’s practical problems:
http://www.khanacademy.org/video/sopa-and-pipa?playlist=American+Ci…
Looks like IE9 didn’t like the spot light efect:
http://imagebin.org/194365
Well, it looks like the 3% of our readers using IE9 (actual statistic) could still read the message
.
That effect also broke in Opera 11.60, in the same way.
And, no links were clickable.
(This is at least based on other sites using that protest page – I was going to use it until I saw the problems with it in Opera.)
Same with Opera. But yes, the text was visible
EDIT: Guess someone said it before me, nm.
Edited 2012-01-19 11:00 UTC
Apparently everyone’s email providers were taking part in the protest.
All I could do was shake my fist! 🙂
Don’t get me wrong, but how many pornographic sites can be accessed by children just by typing the correct keyword on google? I for one think that I wouldn’t want my techie children accessing that so easy. Thousands of free sex videos. And today it’s all free and worldwidely accessible. There must be rules to contents like this. It’s a strong industry and of course, their voice against internet controlling isn’t thinking about kids.
I think internet does need control. Not the kind of normal new censoring. But the use of internet has become equally good and evil. That’s the reality. And anarchy does not fit in here.
As for copyright infringement, well, you wouldn’t want a piece of software that makes off your living laying around torrents and p2p applications. Rules need to be set, but towards the right target and right abusers.
Edited 2012-01-19 01:40 UTC
Not the government’s job to block porn.
It’s yours. If you don’t trust your child, install a client-side tool.
Well f*cking said. I’ll grab my free, every-day fresh porn from the Web, thank you very much.
In normal world your statement would be a truism but to my (and may others) despair it is not.
Maybe there is a need for another blackout – this time for moron league *).
*) moron league – growing group of people who want to move all responsibility for every aspect of their lives to others and the same time keep independence and freedom.
The government might develop an optional program for parents, which they can use for the measures you mentioned. If they did this, I’d support them.
(And as far as I know, they already have such systems implemented for public schools).
However the important keyword is optional, otherwise it becomes outright censorship.
Either install a porn filter, or keep internet access limited to communal places, such a the living room. Each of those cost nothing while allowing you full control without imposing your will on other consenting adults.
The thing is, the Internet was designed to be relatively anarchic – and there’s both good and bad that comes with it. Those that participated in the design of the modern Internet accepted that.
Would you let your kid out unsupervised in a bad part of town? Probably not.
Well, the Internet has some elements of that bad part of town. So, don’t let your kid out unsupervised (at least not without a restrictive whitelist filter). The Internet as a whole is for adults, or supervised or sufficiently mature children.
Oh, and seeing a naked woman or man probably won’t scar your kid, especially if what they saw is put in proper context. (I’m not saying to show your kid some porn, I’m saying that if your kid sees some porn, it’s no big deal, and it’ll happen eventually whether you like it or not.) It is only natural, after all.
You mean kids might run into a pair of titties while doing a Google search? The HORROR!!!! Kids these days have it easy… I had to resort to softcore R-rated movies on Cinemax in the middle of the night while my parents were asleep
Edited 2012-01-19 02:11 UTC
Bah, you young folks. We barely had movies, we had to make do with magazines of varying quality and wear (and…uhm..staining..).
Now that I think about it, I remember porn magazines being quite prominently on display in pretty much any store when I grew up (Sweden, 70’s-80’s). I guess it’s a small miracle that I am not a raving,cross-dressing serial rapist who hides bodies in my backyard. Someone call the Pope.
Edited 2012-01-19 06:07 UTC
That’s what they all say, I’m on to you sicko!!
You seem to be suggesting something about the Pope?
(well, he did have few awkward moments in the past, also as a Cardinal / lack of interventions…)
BTW, my time was 90s and much different (mostly “just” the place …a short hop across the Baltic; and already more into “tradition” & empty appearances of morality)
But, curious thing: I know quite well few people decade+ younger, young women among them – according to which, the incidence of sexual molestation in schools (groping, etc.) decreased dramatically in comparison to what I remember from the 90s – when, coincidentally, access to porn was much scarcer, hmm… (who knows how related / to bad we’ll probably never get a conclusive research about the “harm” (or not) of pornography – right now it seems it’s about 50/50, some research suggests one way, some another – too loaded topic)
…well, and there seems to be also more voluntary activities now / the youth isn’t repressed nearly like we were a short decade+ earlier (must be more healthy, too)
You had it easy! I had to bribe my buddy to sneak in to his big-brothers room to pick up one of his crappy quality (and I mean CRAPPY) vhs porn tapes and bring it over to our house and then I had to watch it with him hovering (very uncomfortable situation) as he was shit-scared that his brother would find out and just wanted to return ASAP, I still recall the title of the movie: ‘Flesh Gordon’ which was some softcore spoof of (yeah, you’ll figure it out).
Curiosity concerning sex is part of human nature, and during a certain period of our young lives it’s pretty much the only thing occupying our brains, kids will find ways to expose themselves to sex and I can think of several ways infinitely worse than through the relatively safe venue of watching internet porn.
Of course we had it tough. We had to get up at five in the morning, two hours before we went to bed, to walk to the local porno mag reseller. The store was situated in a shoebox in a septic tank in a lake in the middle of a motorway. We bought the rolled-up porno mags for a hand of freezing cold poison and brought them home to Dad, and when we got home Dad would beat us to death with his belt and slash us in half with a bread knife. Try to tell that to the young lads of today, and they won’t believe you.
I’d love to give you a +1’s for reminding me of the wonderful ‘four yorkshiremen’ by monty python, sadly I can’t mod you up since I’ve commented in this thread.
I’ll settle for a youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo
With SOPA in effect this posted link could bring OSNews down as they would be aiding in copyright infringement by hosting my comment.
Which is the irony of it all, as you (and osnews.com) are not copying anything by having the link!
This isn’t an Internet problem, it is a parenting problem. If you have young children with Internet access, you supervise them. As they get older you teach them of possible dangers, and at some point you’re just going to have to trust that you’ve raised them right.
Most schools and libraries with Internet access do filter for such things. It is entirely possible to set up such systems in one’s own home. In fact, both Windows (Vista and newer) and Mac OS X (since forever?) include the tools you need to do just that. If you’re adept enough to install and maintain non-mainstream alternatives, this whole situation should be even less of a problem.
This is not the porn industry’s problem, anymore than it is Clorox’s problem if your kids decide to drink bleach.
Anthropomorphizing the Internet does not make it capable of good or evil. That’s the reality.
If one’s source of income is so fragile as to require over-reaching laws be put into place just to make them viable, you’ve got bigger problems than file-sharing IMHO.
Edited 2012-01-19 02:15 UTC
Deciding what content should and should not appear on websites is not the job of the United States government. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_C… . As the siblings mentioned, client-side tools exist for filtering internet content. They aren’t perfect. Realistically, if you do not want your children to have unrestricted access to information, then don’t let them have internet access without supervision. No remotely reasonable law nor technical measure will change that.
The DMCA already provides a way for copyright owners to get cooperating sites to take down infringing content. Pirates aren’t going to follow the law. If Congress manages to draft a law that actually forbids American ISPs from routing packets to/from The Pirate Bay, then BitTorrent software developers will probably just finally get around to developing/agreeing on a protocol for DHT search, so they don’t need a website. Legal measures may force intentional copyright infringement to switch protocols (and possibly prevent anyone from profiting off of it via ad money) but they won’t stop copyright infringement. Sorry.
Trolling comment has trolled…
Parents have the responsibility to police their children, not the Government.
But the goverment has the responsability to make the work of the parents easier and not harder. So your excuse is lame.
Edited 2012-01-19 04:13 UTC
In Australia for a number of years the Government sponsored a program where they offered Internet filtering software to any parents who asked for it, for free.
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Australian_government_to_provide_Intern…
“Thursday, June 22, 2006
Australian Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts Senator Helen Coonan announced on Wednesday that the federal government would be spending AUD$116.6 million on a package of measures to protect Australians from inappropriate material on the Internet. Dubbed “Protecting Families Online”, the package includes free filtering software for all families.”
Hardly anyone took up this offer. The government couldn’t give it away.
It turns out, strangely enough, that people don’t want to censor themselves … all they really want is to be able to stop other people from having access to stuff.
Funny, that.
Anyway, it was only after the dismal failure of voluntary Internet Filtering in Australia that the government proposed mandatory Internet Filtering. That proposal met with such fierce public disapproval that the government was forced to drop it.
Edited 2012-01-19 04:48 UTC
And if because it “failed” in Australia it will fail in the rest of the world.
WTF?
I don’t want the government helping me raise my kids WHATSOEVER… keep them out of it!
Edited 2012-01-19 05:14 UTC
The goverment is already helping you to rise your kids dummy, all those public schools, all those laws, you know whay are there for? So, make some valid arguments.
You assume I actually use public schools (admittedly, I do, but I didn’t always – we have tried home schooling, private schooling, and charter schools before we finally gave in – and even then, we had them transferred to a specific district).
I really don’t want the government deciding *what* my kids are allowed to learn, however. So we spend a lot of time un-teaching what they do learn at school, which is quite obnoxious. The brainwashing is pretty bad sometimes.
Oh man, and you are the main influence of your child? poor critter.
That’s right, it takes a village to raise children… damn, i hate that mentality.
That’s right, it takes a village to raise children
And just one person to destroy it.
Just you (and the government) stay out of my business, and there won’t be any issues.
Out of curiosiry, what are those things you have make your child to unlearn?
For example, we teach our kids to stick up for an defend themselves if they’re being bullied – not to run away and find an adult.
We teach them that there are alternatives to many things that they learn in school (we don’t ascribe to organized religion, but we do explain that there are alternative theories to many things which are neither proven or unproven).
We teach our kids about alternative lifestyles.
There have been several occasions where the kids are subjected to playback of recorded political speeches at school, which prompt us to present the opposition theories and arguments when our kids get home and tell us what they saw/heard. (this is probably the most distrubing – one-sided arguments being fed to kids before they understand the issues involved).
The school sends home loads of “No Bullying” propaganda, which I never had when I was a kid – it’s clear that they’re trying to prevent any sort of conflict between people, which I think is an unhealthy way to grow up. These kids are going to be pussies who run to authority figures whenever they get their feelings hurt. It’s ridiculous.
Edit: Ah, and my kids learn how to to use and respect guns.
Edited 2012-01-20 02:30 UTC
Good luck with all that.
He has some point, in general. I mean – everything a gov does should be, optimally, to make your life easier, overall. Raising offspring being kinda big part of a typical life… (ultimately, it essentially boils down to it)
And most of their (diverse*) activities do help you raise your children (*say, from paraded “national security” – also the perks it brings, energy or resource security for example – to safety brought by environmental control and such; or diverse life-easing regulation: car-related of various kinds, building codes, food safety, no child labor, medical)
Nearby in the sub-thread you write:
Oh but you always did. Just by living in any half-decent place (and/or reaping the opportunities it gives) you use public schooling – that’s what prevents any place to be filled to a too high degree by total morons, that’s what makes for a reasonably decent & functional modern society. Virtually all (if not simply all; would be tedious to make sure / rare outliers wouldn’t change anything) livable societies had set up public educational systems in the process – that’s not a coincidence.
And sure, you might think that in some areas you have somewhat better ideas about how to best make use of the limited time to guide the next generation (and you might be even correct!).
But then… most people seem to think that – even if, in reality, they are quite neglecting or even harmful towards their kids (that is the level at which educational systems aim, societal dynamics; not the very few kids under relatively rare parent who genuinely cares)
Edited 2012-01-26 23:17 UTC
They government are not making it harder though. To do that the government would have to proactively create legislation making it easier to download porn.
In fact, I’d argue that inaction is actually more beneficial as SOPA (et al) wouldn’t prevent your kids from getting porn online – it would just push such sites further underground where it’s harder to monitor. One of the benefits of having everything in the open is that everything can also be monitored and thus better controlled against the few case scenarios that warrant censoring (ie your kids from porn)
Oh my, why don’t someone think about the *children*???
One small problem with your argument: SOPA and IPA is not about protecting children from porn. In fact, the people behind this will gladly have your children watch porn as long as it’s their porn and it wasn’t pirated.
Yeah well, the Internet is global and does not obey to america (or any country).
And who should control it? The US? the Netherlands? Russia? The UAE?
And unfortunately SOPA/PIPA does not do that.
the (sic) Netherlands
Not to toot our own horn, but we have always been very practical and we are pretty freedom loving and tolerant. If a controlling party had to be apppointed, going with The Netherlands would probably be the least bad choice in your list of options.
Then again, I’d like the Internet to become less centralized, not more.
Duh, China of course – with all the resolve they demonstrated so far… ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Firewall_of_China search “porn” – but it’s more, also “superstitious, […] violence-related, gambling and other harmful information.” what could be better for the children?)
“Won’t somebody please think of the children?”
I think internet does need control. Not the kind of normal new censoring. But the use of internet has become equally good and evil. That’s the reality.
Congratulations, you have just discovered that the world isn’t just filled with Care Bears, candy cotton and rainbows. And it’s not just the Internet either.
I squarely reject your notion of the need for a nanny state, Jason Bourne. If you can’t be bothered to raise your kids under your own supervision, why should someone else care? We are not going to break the Internet, just so you can abscond your own responsibilities.
I don’t know how old your kids are, but if they feel the need to actively go looking for porn, they are probably in the stages of discovering their sexuality. In that case, a good, open and honest talk about human sexuality is in order. Don’t let your kids “learn” about sex from porn (be it internet or dirty magazines). If you don’t give them the info, someone or something else will.
No need for (largely) ineffective filters, just so you can live in the oblivious delusion that your kids won’t see some smut somewhere on tha Intarwebs. Which, if they really are techie, they will see online if they really want to. Even if they can’t, there are still magazines…
What a full decayed world. Mankind is utterly lost. Comments from cold-hearted IT parents. Well, let’s just wait when your daughter loses her virginity at 12, I want to see your faces… and then you come here, to support some kind of control over something you couldn’t control yourself from a wider aspect point of view. You can keep your home PCs protected, but you don’t know your neighbors’ parental control situation, do you? And I bet they are totally morons who have no clue what a ten year old child is able to access on the internet and pass it on.
SOPA may not have anything to do with this, but it helps to start the talk about this.
I’m not american, but who HERE are to defy the most powerful & influential nation in the world at present time?
Nevertheless, these rules need to be done collective between nations. 80% of downloadable porn is hosted in the USA. We should think better. There are major society problems we need to deal with instead of going on about liberty.
Edited 2012-01-19 13:22 UTC
So when a 12 year old girl loses her virginity it is because there is internet porn? What a wonderfully simple world you must live in.
Depends, It may be a reason.
It’s funny. OSNews is restricted to a small circle of readers. We need to get the better picture here. The world is just not this small group of people who are able to setup parental restrictions on a computer. And even if they were, there are no guarantees that the next door won’t have that available.
I don’t get what the moaning is about. OSNews itself “censors” many commenters. Thom himself used of censorship in my comments (last time “hitting the mod hammer” bringing it to -24 or something). What is this moaning about? You can do whatever you want in your site, but you want the internet totally free as in beer… I think you’re kind of getting all wrong.
Some of you may live in wealthy countries, but the majority of countries have huge problems in society concerning children education, narcotics and violence, and technology is playing a part on this. Want it or not. Something major playing out there and geeks come here to cry out for their liberty. Purposely I get modded down by who knows who just because I “violated” the reasoning of democracy.
I don’t care about democracy as far as technology is helping to construct a demented sick society full of unbalanced people.
Let’s pay attention to South Africa which wins as the highest rank in raping all over the world. BBC documentaries showing entire societies in which 6 in 10 women have been raped, not only raped but this caused by a relative. Don’t you think that the porn industry and free access to it plays a part in this world, from your comfortable chair and wealthy PC. What is this attitude that “now that we’re grown up, let’s not give a f**k!”
We better have the internet controlled by a major league of nations enrolled into the single purpose of bringing sanity to the internet.
Edited 2012-01-19 17:39 UTC
Wikipedia claims that As of 2011, more than 2.1 billion people – nearly a third of Earth’s population – use the services of the Internet. How many of them are restricted from reading OSnews if they really cared to?
The “moaning” is about a corrupt government pushing for over-reaching laws that do away with anything resembling due-process written and payed for by an exceedingly small fraction of the World’s population hell bent on doing anything against the public interest to maintain their empires, who will not stop at only turning the US into a police state, but the rest of the world as well.
If you’ve been modded down so much, you’ve probably not merely said something that people don’t agree with, but something really obnoxious.
If the Internet were not free and open, just how many of the services it enables do you really think we would have today? There are just too many things for me to know where to start. The ability to share and collaborate across the world in basically real-time is now responsible for generating far more value to the Human race than whatever money is “lost” to “pirates.”
Only if you can afford it. Imaginary Property laws of all sorts don’t cater to those who cannot pay, and the continued encroachment of censorship prevents people from getting enough information to try to go it on their own.
Funny thing about freedom is that if you’re not willing to fight for it, other people have a habit of taking it away. Some people are jerks like that.
Just a quick look at your recent comments seem to indicate that you’ve been modded down for derailing threads (like this one) with completely off-topic non-sense or otherwise utter crap.
Wow. Just. Wow.
And your wish to have the Internet censored would help with this by, how exactly? Not showing images or video of the violence because it might damage children here? What?
How is people acting badly in parts of the world where Internet access isn’t as pervasive as others in any way caused or influenced by the porn industry or the availability of pornographic videos?!
Is Einstein’s spooky, action at a distance causing guys who jerk-off to porn in front of their computers in their own homes causing people halfway around the world to get raped by their relatives like demented quantum puppets?
Please explain your thinking process to me.
Jason Bourne’s Spunky action at a distance theory of the porn industries magical effects on South Africa.
The American government does have too much control, yes.
Edited 2012-01-19 19:47 UTC
He’s lying. He has only one comment at -25 (most of his comments are modded up, with a few KDE-related comments at -6 or -7), and that’s this one:
http://www.osnews.com/permalink?492068
I didn’t mod it.
And it makes me wonder, why that comment was modded down, and am I laying when I say you have deleted some of my comments like this one:
“Google apologizers kicking in in 5..4…3..2..1”
You censor according to your interests and morals, don’t be hypocrit.
Edited 2012-01-19 22:06 UTC
That’s a troll. It was the first comment. You know just as I do it would’ve derailed the entire comment section before it started.
On top of that, we’re not the government.
Yes, exactly, this is your product and you can do what ever you want with it, just like Apple has its product and can censor the applications they want in their app store, so why rave about that when you do the same with your product?
Thom. You are the one lying. What’s the context for “As you can see, I just threw down the mod hammer”? I had this comment by -25 in just a few minutes. You censored me. And it was only my comment to spot -25 in a matter of 3 minutes. It is very well obvious that you didn’t like the taste of my comment and “hit the mod hammer” on it, as you say. You didn’t let it to others do it. You chose to do it. If there’s no proof that you just made it -25, then why did you say such thing as hit the “hammer”?
Dude, censorship is the name of that.
You play whatever you like within your website. -1 was enough to make my comment hidden.
Here’s what you wrote, and please don’t go there and delete it.
http://www.osnews.com/permalink?492084
One last thing concerning THAT thread, well, you may have had a good reason to censor me. Ok, I get it. Dutch proverbs. Ok. However, why didn’t you pre-censor then upon the headlines? That’s what you should have done: “THIS HEADLINE MAY NOT RECEIVE ANY NEGATIVE COMMENTS ON STEVE JOBS’ CHARACTER”. That would have been much easier for OSNews.
Edited 2012-01-20 13:45 UTC
Throwing down the mod hammer meant DELETING COMMENTS.
YOURS is still THERE. Hence, I DID NOT TOUCH IT.
Jesus H. Christ. Butthurt much? You were modded down by other commenters, NOT ME. Want proof? Here’s a shot of the mod history of that post. Do you see my name there? DO YOU?
http://i.imgur.com/IdzDc.png
Now, please stop lying.
How come David can mode down 5 times the same comment¡
Hiev,
“How come David can mode down 5 times the same comment¡”
I agree that is quite surprising. I’ve already made some recommendations for improving the value of the comment voting system to users, but it doesn’t seem to have any traction with the site operators. Oh well, I’m thankful for the light touch with regards to real moderation, as opposed to the negative score of shame, which can’t be considered censorship in my opinion.
On topic: I really don’t know why porn is so divisive. If someone wants to keep it out of his own home, fine, but he shouldn’t have authority over what other people have in theirs. Oh Brave New World.
twitterfire might be on to something, if porn were not taboo, and everyone were expected to view and discuss it more openly, then we’d be less repressed and humanity might be better off. It seems a lot of the most severe sexual crimes against women happen in cultures where porn is illegal and shunned (*).
* Just an impression, I’ve not done research on the matter.
Edited 2012-01-22 20:57 UTC
The problem has nothing to do with people not being able to set up parental restrictions, the problem is that on a wide scale parents today just don’t spend enough time with their kids to make sure they are alright because they are too busy ‘living their own lives’.
This in turn is just insane, because when you become a parent you dawn well should realize that from now on there is no thing called your own life and that whetever microscoping scraps are left of it will always come at a distant second to the needs of your children.
Sadly we are seeing parents today shrugging off these responsibilities (and it hurts me to write ‘responsibilities’ because it’s just crazy that some people will look at it as that and not as caring for the most precious thing you’ll ever have in your life) in order to live their lives while claiming that the responsibility for their kids behaviour and lack of parenting is the fault of the school and things like you know, ‘internet porn’.
Kids are increasingly screwed up these days due to lack of love and attention from their parents and in some cases through traumatic real world incidents, not because they watched a hardcore porn clip on the internet.
So true … and censoring the internet will give those parents more excuses to pay less attention to their kids, for example let’s just leave them in front of the PC, because we know it’s safe ( the government says so, now that they have censored it ), and spend less time with them.
Also wasn’t there quite a number of studies showing negative correlation between the availability of porn and sex crimes ?
South Africa ? A place where there’s almost no internet access ? Thanks for making the point about no censorship and easier access to the interwebs !
To anyone using the “think of the children” argument: Haven’t you seen porn when you were young ? Even without the internets ? Like in a magazine or something ? And are you screwed up because of that ? My point : If your children see porn on the internet it’s probably because they were looking for it, and if they really want to see it, no amount of censorship will stop them ! And in your browser there’s a thing called history, you know, a place from which you can find out if someone has been visiting pornographic web sites, now tell me that your parents found those well hidden magazines !
And instead of worrying that your child has been searching for porn on the internet, don’t you think it’s about time to have “the talk” with your 17 years old son, or your 20 years old daughter ?
Yeah right, your comment is ignorant and here is why:
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/children-sexually-molesting-other-…
Truth be told that if I were a decision maker I would have enforced porn by demanding search engines and major websites to randomly change one in ten search results or links in links to porn sites. I would have made it mandatory for DNS servers to randomly reply with porn sites for one in ten requests.
People need MORE porn not LESS.
Please excuse the external link, but this best illustrates said subject.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRgNOyCnbqg
Now that the ‘SOPA protest day’ is rounding down, let’s talk about the problem of piracy. Many SOPA supporters will tell you that piracy is a real problem because it results in lost sales and the loss of jobs. Well, many people would argue with this reasoning, but let’s say for the sake of argument that this is true. Which leads me to ask the following question:
So what?
How many jobs have been lost and companies gone down the crapper as a result of the Internet. If there’s one truism about the Internet (and technology in general) is that businesses that either can’t or wont adapt to the changes will cease to exist. But for businesses that are destroyed, new ones are created. This is the way it has been since the advent of business, and I’m just not sure why we should feel guilted into trying to save businesses who’s end products can now be replicated an infinite amount of times for $0. As we come to grips with this new reality, maybe that means people won’t be able to make movies that costs $200 million, and make me feel a little dumber every time I watch them. Is that not ok? Of course, music and books will always exist, as will movies that don’t cost a fortune to make. As for apps and games, those who want to make money off of them will probably go to an online/subscription model as a way to curb piracy. This is an end result that a lot of people won’t like, but it is just the way of things.
As a final thought, once physical replicators become a reality, are we going to insist that people still buy a loaf of bread, when they can just create one out of thin air? I’m just saying that instead of wasting time trying to stop something that will never be stopped, and labeling pirates as seal-clubbing bastards, maybe… just MAYBE we should try and think about how things are going to work going forward, with piracy being simply a reality, and a business problem for some to work out. Can you figure out a way to sell content that people can download for free? If yes, then great. If no, then you go out of business. It’s just as simple as that. You don’t have some god-given right to create content and sell it, especially when it’s pretty much in the public domain as soon as you put it out there. If that means you have to find a new career, sucks to be you. If you couldn’t see this coming, it’s your own damn fault.
Edited 2012-01-19 02:00 UTC
It’s interesting to take into consideration that the technologies to make movies and music of high production values is becoming cheaper by the month.
And, seriously, $200 for a movie? That’s fscking insane.
Also look at a recent counter example to “piracy is killing movie profits”.
The first Sherlock Holmes movie had a budget of $90 million and made more than $524 at the box office. Please don’t tell me piracy is killing the profits. Maybe what’s wrong is the profit expectations. Maybe too many shitty movies with high budgets are made.
Maybe the time has come when you will not make insane profits on movies any more but such is life. A lot of businesses and professions has come and gone over the ages and I don’t see anyone crying over the fact that you can’t become famous and rich by being a woodcutter anymore.
Oh, I am sure that after accountants finished their part of creative work, “Sherlock Holmes” was a net loss. Look ma, no taxes!
I would take it one step further in regards to the whole ‘losing jobs’ thing. I am certain that piracy does result in lost sales, how many lost sales is another matter entirely and it’s obviously not anywhere remotely near the one lost sale per illegal copy which is what the content industry is fabricating as facts.
But let’s say that there is loss of income, and that this leads to a loss of jobs in that industry. Does that mean that the money people are not spending on content just suddenly disappear? No, obviously not, instead that money is being spent in other areas (perhaps physical goods or services) which in turn employ people, which in turn might employ more people than what would have had the money been spent on what the content industry offers, which in would be better for the economy as a whole.
Obviously this doesn’t negate the right of imaginar… intellectual property owners to cry foul when they are not compensated for these copies but to claim that ‘american jobs’ are at stake seems disingenuous at best
given that what we are talking about here are jobs in a particular industry that are potentially lost, and that the loss of jobs in that area is most likely to generate jobs in other areas.
edit: Oh, and respect to OSNews for the blackout, not being able to access one of your favourite sites at all during a period drives the message home in a much stronger way than a black bar over the logo.
Edited 2012-01-19 08:00 UTC
Really REALLY the best post I’ve ever read about the so-called piracy. You spell the words for what I was thinking.
Well, I’ve certainly learned something. The “Cache” and “Google Cache Link Protector” extensions for Chrome/Chromium, and the Gcache+ extension for Firefox, are invaluable. As managers of the sites like Wikipedia, which we’ve come to depend upon, start thinking of themselves more as political lobbyists and less as the providers of valuable public resources, we’re likely to see a lot more of these kinds of things. By effectively leveraging the Internet’s ultimate mirror, the Google Cache, you can go on working almost as if nothing had happened.
Note that while Google did use its wild popularity to get the word out, and got millions of anti-SOPA petition signatures… they didn’t skip out on us.
I never did understand how making knowledge more difficult to access was supposed to help the Internet.
I found better resources other than wiki, but I still like the wiki
Wiki was available, you could just disable the JavaScript. Their point was not to deprive people of content, but to raise awareness of the SOPA issue.
Better yet, you just click your browser’s stop button before it brings up the blackout page…
Not exactly the point. Google Cache has you covered no matter what site X decides to do. (Well, within limits.) But besides that, it still leaves you with Wikipedia’s clunky search and relatively slow page loads. I’m continuing to use the extensions. Google Cache is a better delivery system than Wikipedia’s.
The self censorship on display today was about as practically effective as the government kind.
Now, If I were going to disappear, I’d send everyone a HTTP response code of 410 GONE, and include a statement of protest/yo mama jokes in custom HTTP headers.
“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent” -Thomas Jefferson
Good job guys
I would have been surprised if OSNews didn’t support the protests, given how involved Thom is in American politics and particularly their unwanted impact around the world.
Thanks for helping to raise awareness, Thom.
was the coolest Blackout site by far.
did you see theoatmeal.com?
No I didn’t
I gave-in to the petition once I discovered both OSNews and Distrowatch we’re blacked out.
It was a looooooooong day.
In my opinion, I see the future of the Internet being offered in tiers…
– The Wild West Tier (as we know the Internet now)
– The Corporate Tier
– The Government Tier
Splitting up the Internotz will provide varying degrees of liability, protection, and personal interests.