people like our steakburgers and fried grease chips
oh, and they like to talk about the "land of opportunity" or something like that :E
The end of the internet could be soon
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oh, and they like to talk about the "land of opportunity" or something like that :E
csmgiw
Member
To be a bit blunt, this is only going to hurt the average man, the hackers, pirates, and otherwise will still be getting onto those sites, SOME (like the pirate bay) are not subject to US law, as being outside the US. But those in America will just hack their way past the ban, others will start hosing black market internet.
I find it a bit funny though, this all started off as an international treaty under the name ACTA, and now its.. this.. this pile of b.s...
I find it a bit funny though, this all started off as an international treaty under the name ACTA, and now its.. this.. this pile of b.s...
It didn't, actually. This is mostly unrelated to ACTA, though they both deal with piracy... and for that matter, ACTA got (thankfully) watered down to a bunch of weak suggestions.
World War I, my man.
Also, I don't feel like having America slowly turning into Australia, censorship-wise, thank you very much.
Actually, I'd say the REAL problem is that there has been a huge shift in the means of production, and most companies cannot realize this.
I'll use movies as an example. Before the internet, if you wanted to own a movie, you had a few options:
1. Actually go to the theater.
2. Buy a VHS tape.
3. Borrow a VHS tape and copy it to a blank tape using two VCRs.
While option #3 is piracy, it is a lot more work than #2, so it didn't cause a huge problem for the movie companies because it was extremely limited in scale. Also, buying blank tapes also costs money, so it's not entirely free either. This means that the owners of intellectual property had control over the means of production, since average users couldn't make their own VHS tapes. It was expensive to make hundreds or thousands of copies of something, so people didn't have an easy alternative to get a cheaper, pirated copy of the film. Hence, this allowed the content holders to set whatever price they wanted and either the public would pay it or they wouldn't get to watch the movie.
Nowadays, with the power of computers, the means of production is completely irrelevant. DVDs are incredibly cheap to produce and using a computer it's trivially easy to make as many copies of something as you want for only the cost of electricity. This means that instead of the copyright holders having a monopoly on the means of production, anyone can make a copy and instead of the physical object, such as a tape or disc, being the cost of the movie, you're now really paying for the content ON the tape or disc. Since everyone can make free copies, it no longer makes sense to pay 20-30 dollars for a two hour movie. This begs the question of how much the intellectual property is REALLY worth, not the disc the IP comes on. The answer is clearly less than what the movie studios would like to charge, and obviously as a result we end up with widespread piracy.
The bottom line is that something has to give. In reality, even if they did somehow shut down the internet entirely, the cat is already out of the bag and I assure you we would still have no problem pirating works in large quantities without it. Just look at what happened when the RIAA shut down Napster and it didn't put a dent in piracy at all. Owning the copyright to a work just simply isn't as valuable in the new, computerized world as it was in the 70s and 80s, and copyright owners are simply going to have to realize this and adjust their business models. It's not like people aren't willing to pay what they feel is reasonable. Just look at iTunes for a perfect example. It's still just as easy to pirate music as it was when Napster was still around, and you can even listen to huge quantities of music on YouTube and other various streaming sites, yet people are buying huge amounts of content off of iTunes constantly.
We don't need to delete the internet to deal with piracy, the copyright owners need to get with the times and realize that a new world where people can get lots of content for practically nothing is here, and if they don't lower their prices and adjust their business model to match the increased supply the public will simply pirate their content instead of paying them for it.
RikkiandSparkey
Member
they ban my internet and I'll ban them with a gun!!! just kidding....I don't have one sadly... but seriously, can they even do that? ban us from the freaking internet?! if they do I WILL kill someone! maybe my self... :/ i love my internet way to much!! yeeeah just kidding...it wouldn't be worth it....
akirahedgehog
Veteran
Do you guys believe anything you read? There is no way this thing will get passed. It's completely against the moral grounds that America is built on. I find your lack of faith in the Senate disturbing.
Chibs
Just Someone
You've kept up with American politics how long?
Chaos Knux
Daww, a mother and her foal
Politics are the greatest evil mankind ever known. Just like Dr. Light.
Well, that was relevant.
The same senate that's sitting there voting in their own payraises, mandatory unconstitutionally enforced health insurance, and putting out billions of dollars into bailout money that in the end amounted to nothing?
It's more reasonable than you think.
Now, I don't expect this to even matter if it gets passed. Sure, they can shut down the popular sites, but they can't really do anything about international sites, and they sure can't stop piracy. This bill won't do anything but shut down really high-profile websites such as YouTube, at the absolute worst. This is not something that can be effectively enforced. And that's assuming it passes, which it probably will not.
Cue
ALAM STOP BREAKING THE S
Truth be told, it won't even shut down YouTube, since YouTube is an international site as well, they have servers all over the place now, I suspect in every country Google has a base in, so even YouTube wouldn't fall.
I've seen my own government cock up enough times, akirahedgehog, I wouldn't be surprised if yours does something incredibly stupid at some point. I want Winston Churchill back... :<
I've seen my own government cock up enough times, akirahedgehog, I wouldn't be surprised if yours does something incredibly stupid at some point. I want Winston Churchill back... :<
I can say with some confidence that this will not happen. I am from America and we have NEVER in a long time had this much control on anything noticable, even if it does get passed, I think it will be unnoticed doing little things in the background. And if it does The people will not stand for it! Even know it's our government, doesn't mean we agree. So don't blame EVERYONE here, it's just the government.
Jeck, the whole point of American government is that its policies are supposed to be a reflection of the will of the people. I guarantee this is not what the American people want. Therefore, the fact that it is "just the government" doing this is a serious problem.
Yes, AJ, but if this law had existed when YouTube was created, you can bet it would have never made it anywhere. The inherent problem is that if a law like this passed, nothing new and innovative would ever get made because it might be used for copyright infringement.
For instance, BitTorrent is a great tool and I use it for plenty of legal AND illegal things. Just because something can be used for copyright infringement doesn't mean it should be taken off the internet by the US government. Nobody should have that right.
For instance, BitTorrent is a great tool and I use it for plenty of legal AND illegal things. Just because something can be used for copyright infringement doesn't mean it should be taken off the internet by the US government. Nobody should have that right.
Sonnarkku
Obamasnow Fan-- With a Hat
Hmmm, well, there´s like 259 more countries who could care less of what United States thinks, not just because 1 single country is like ¨The internet is bad, censor it!¨ everyone´s gonna obey. There´s still a HELL ALOT of independant countries who could carry up their own, United States would end up being an underdeveloped territory with no Interwebz, I don´t think this won´t happen, I know it won´t happen.
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