That ridiculous new anti-piracy act could kill Listal...

If you haven't heard, a new act that's being put to congress will basically give the keys to the World Wide Web to movie studios. The Fair Use or Fair Dealing agreements will be null -- if a studio sees something they deem to be copyright infringement (from a movie poster to a film clip to a screenshot) on a website, then they can kill the site. You're guilty until proven innocent. YouTube will go bust due to all the movie trailers & clips it hosts, Facebook will disintegrate if so much as a screenshot is posted by a user, etc etc. Listal will thus be in the firing line as well. No doubt the power will be abused as well, as studios will have fun killing every negative word about their movies online. You're guilty until proven innocent and there will be millions of innocence claims, what hope does anyone have?

Fingers crossed that congress kills this ridiculous notion. The World Wide Web is made by the people and for the people. It shouldn't be a fascist dictatorship.

This is ridiculous! I can understand that they want to kill piracy, but stopping people from posting photos, screenshots, clips and trailers will not only kill sites like this but surely most of the internet?

Let's hope this doesn't get passed to that extent.

People have gained so much power because of the internet. Of course that won't sit well with certain parties. =[

What this makes me think of is the internet censorship from when I was in high school. When I began as a freshman, I don't remember any websites being blocked on school computers (people could even go on YouTube), and by the time I was a senior harmless sites like TohoKingdom.com were blocked along with any link with the word "hate" in it. It was ridiculous.

The internet is very progressive for humanity - it's the next step in our evolution. Giving companies the ability to pick and choose what's on it would defeat the purpose. I agree that some of the legal stuff has gotten out of control - few make the effort to buy music anymore because it's all on YouTube - but things like parodies and fan art are legitimate contributions.

The Supreme Court recently ruled that video games are art. I don't know how open-minded Congress is by comparison, but let's hope it's enough.

U.S. Congress also declared pizza a vegetable. It's run by children.

Is this serious? you've got to be kidding me.............

When does this get decided? And is it possible for the other branches to check said decision, or for Obama to veto it?

Facts and background can be found here;
www.eff.org
www.openrightsgroup.org

It's very serious, Derek. If you so much as sing your own rendition of a song on Facebook, you're a felon and your name becomes immediately blacklisted.

There's a good video about it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=t74BzyM7iis

Apparently more people in Congress are for it than against it, because Congress is full of old codgers who don't actually know how the internet works.

And just remember, Congress has also declared pizza a vegetable.....

A very sad state of affairs this world has come to.......

There's a good video about it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=t74BzyM7iis

I watched it, created an IMDb page for it, and sent a proposal to the United States Library of Congress to select it for preservation in the National Film Registry.

Seriously, though, I watched it and signed the petitions linked to in the description. I also created a Facebook status update and started a thread on another forum on this issue.

Good man!

http://www.getyourcensoron.com/

Enjoy!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamar_S._Smith

This is one of the guys that wrote the bill, and its strongest advocate.

From Texas. 'Natch.

Here's a good article: In His Own Words

Stop Online Piracy Act Vote Delayed

At the very least, this means I won't return from my one-week vacation to find all my online contributions wiped off the face of the net.

The Wiki going dark for 24 hours to protest.

www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/16/idUS178605270520120116

Wiki isn't the only one. :)

http://sopastrike.com/

Any chance Listal will go offline tomorrow? If so, could we get some advance notice? ;)

I considered it but Listal has been down quite a bit recently and I don't want to take it down again.

So did yesterday's "strike" achieve anything? From what I could see most of the sites I frequent did not take part, and I myself forgot to stay offline until the US woke up and mentioned it.

@talia_sparkle - Yes. Both bills have been postponed indefinitely. That doesn't mean they won't draft another bill that seems less threatening though.

I bet that many of you know it by now, but I'll mention it for anyone who isn't aware of the news. Well, the file-sharing site Megaupload is down since yesterday. You can read the hows and whys here:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16642369

It started with or without a bill! Megaupload isn't similar to Listal, Facebook or Youtube and there is of course a law for copyrights, but... The fact is that they shut it down!

@the giraffe - great news!

However, I hear that there is another piece of proposed legislation that could mean death to most websites and possibly affect your day to day life also - ACTA
trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2010/april/tradoc_146029.pdf

This sounds pretty scary as it represses free speech and access to information via the internet. There are lots of petitions going around, so have a good look at what it proposes and vote against it if you can.

ACTA is much scarier because it was designed and could be enacted by, so far, up to 39 ountries. According to all the sources I can find online The United States, Australia, Canada, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, and South Korea have already signed it and we are just waiting on European Parliment to sign and enact it. Hopefully European contries can convince their governments not to sign it cause otherwise we are well and truly screwed.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Counterfeiting_Trade_Agreement
www.youtube.com/watch?v=citzRjwk-sQ
To sign the petition to the white house
wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petition/end-acta-and-protect-our-right-privacy-internet/MwfSVNBK

Just signed the petition.

Me too! hope it helps!

@talia_sparkle @tersanay - Thanks! Signed. :)

Since the U.S. Chamber of Commerce played such a big role in defending SOPA, many parties have dropped support for it. Watch this video and sign the petition to have Google deal the critical blow!

Everyone check this out.
www.theinternetvshollywood.com/

Heck, I signed.