I want to know if I will have a chance to speak my side before some sort of action is taken....and THAT is the bottom line for me. We can't have sites shut down in the same way a judge determines a search warrant (no actual due process there).
I want to know if I will have a chance to speak my side before some sort of action is taken....and THAT is the bottom line for me. We can't have sites shut down in the same way a judge determines a search warrant (no actual due process there).
Email me anytime at [email protected].
I seriously doubt you won't Phil. The type of overreach being propagated here would never pass the courts and would go down in a appeal. You will have to be given a chance to address someone or something that is posting stuff on your site that falls into the category of this bill.Originally Posted by Phil D.
This comment speaks volumes An aide to Rep. Lamar Smith has stated that "He is open to changes but only legitimate changes. Some site[s] are totally capable of filtering illegal content, but they won’t and are instead profiting from the traffic of illegal content.”[104]
I take this to mean if you are willing to do your part you will be treated fairly. If you don't or refuse then DOJ goes to the court with evidence of such and they go from there.
'My idea of a good picture is one that's in focus and of a famous person doing something unfamous.' Andy Warhol
I know that judges will make snap decisions based on incomplete information and a TOTAL lack of understanding of how websites work or how content is posted because... they already do. All the time. Anyone who follows tech news knows that every few months some judge decides that the Internet really is "a series of tubes"... these are judges, they understand law, but they don't understand how DNS works, or what a dynamic IP is (most of them, enough of them).
I also know they'll be acting based on incomplete information because they will only be hearing one side of the story. Not because the defendant (website owner) is in another country... there is NOTHING in this legislation which states it will only be used against foreign websites... but because a judicial decision like this doesn't require hearing both sides of the story. The decision process they will be using is akin to that used to issue a warrant or permission for wire-tapping... it's supposed to be used to take immediate action that DOESN'T harm the defendant but needs to be taken immediately in order to further the investigation. It is NOT the process used to sue, request damages, try someone on criminal charges, etc... all those things which could do irreparable harm to the defendant. It's the WRONG process to be using, period.
It sounds like you agree that the wording of this legislation is horrible and needs to be made MUCH more specific before it is passed... but do you realize that all of your "processes and amendments" are being rushed through thanks to lobbying by the entertainment industry? They are trying to get this thing out of committee and onto the floor to be passed RIGHT NOW, AS IS! That is BAD.
Text from the bill:
(b) Action by the Attorney General-
(3) NOTICE- Upon commencing an action under this subsection, the Attorney General shall send a notice of the alleged violation and intent to proceed under this section--
(A) to the registrant of the domain name of the Internet site--
(B) to the owner or operator of the Internet site--
(c) Actions Based on Court Orders-
(A) SERVICE PROVIDERS-
(i) IN GENERAL- A service provider shall take technically feasible and reasonable measures designed to prevent access by its subscribers located within the United States to the foreign infringing site (or portion thereof) that is subject to the order, including measures designed to prevent the domain name of the foreign infringing site (or portion thereof) from resolving to that domain name's Internet Protocol address. Such actions shall be taken as expeditiously as possible, but in any case within 5 days after being served with a copy of the order, or within such time as the court may order.
(B) INTERNET SEARCH ENGINES- A provider of an Internet search engine shall take technically feasible and reasonable measures, as expeditiously as possible, but in any case within 5 days after being served with a copy of the order, or within such time as the court may order, designed to prevent the foreign infringing site that is subject to the order, or a portion of such site specified in the order, from being served as a direct hypertext link.
(C) PAYMENT NETWORK PROVIDERS-
(i) PREVENTING AFFILIATION- A payment network provider shall take technically feasible and reasonable measures, as expeditiously as possible, but in any case within 5 days after being served with a copy of the order, or within such time as the court may order, designed to prevent, prohibit, or suspend its service from completing payment transactions involving customers located within the United States or subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and the payment account--
(D) INTERNET ADVERTISING SERVICES-
(i) REQUIRED ACTIONS- An Internet advertising service that contracts to provide advertising to or for the foreign infringing site, or portion thereof, that is subject to the order, or that knowingly serves advertising to or for such site or such portion thereof, shall take technically feasible and reasonable measures, as expeditiously as possible, but in any case within 5 days after being served with a copy of the order, or within such time as the court may order, designed to--
(I) prevent its service from providing advertisements to or relating to the foreign infringing site that is subject to the order or a portion of such site specified in the order;
(II) cease making available advertisements for the foreign infringing site or such portion thereof, or paid or sponsored search results, links, or other placements that provide access to such foreign infringing site or such portion thereof; and
(III) cease providing or receiving any compensation for advertising or related services to, from, or in connection with such foreign infringing site or such portion thereof.
Read that carefully... UPON COMMENCING AN ACTION, they will send you, the owner or operator of the website, notice. This means you will not even know someone has accused your site of hosting illegal content until they have already blocked access to it, removed it from search engines, and/or pulled all advertising and payment processing services.
You can read the entire bill here: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill...bill=h112-3261
Oh, and carefully read the definition of "foreign internet site"... it's anything not domenstic... then read the definition of "domestic internet site"... (5) DOMESTIC INTERNET SITE- The term ‘domestic Internet site’ means an Internet site for which the corresponding domain name or, if there is no domain name, the corresponding Internet Protocol address, is a domestic domain name or domestic Internet Protocol address.
Well, a .us would be domestic, but what about a .com? What if your domain registrar is a Canadian company, or your hosting provider? They don't have a clue what they're saying, and what they're saying is technically meaningless, and because of this everything in this legislation could apply to anyone.
Last edited by ImperfectSense; 2011-12-25 at 11:13 PM.
I wish you would of. Nowhere in that text you provided will sites be shut down within hours. It sure seems to me that the site and ISP will be given a reasonable period of time to fix the issue. In addition to being at the courts control on to what the DOJ can do. Which you are predicting are going to be heavy handed and unreasonable based on no info whatsoever but what you "feel".Read that carefully.
'My idea of a good picture is one that's in focus and of a famous person doing something unfamous.' Andy Warhol
"that the site... will be given a reasonable period of time to fix the issue." Huh? The site owner won't be notified until they have "commenced action" "as expeditiously as possible". Now, it takes exactly 5 seconds to block a given domain name or IP address, once the request to do so reaches the tech who manages that for the service provider... So the only "heads up" you'll be getting is to the email address and/or postal address listed in your PUBLIC DNS record, and will be in a "race" against how fast the request trickles down through the service provider. Now, the reason I emphasized PUBLIC DNS record is because most domain registrars offer a service, highly recommend, that hides all of your personal data on the public DNS record, this is to cut down on spam, and most smart registrants use it. So they probably won't be able to contact you by email or snail mail, they'll have to contact the company you used to register your domain. Do you know who that is? Do you trust them to forward the notice to you quickly, if at all? Did you register your domain with 123domains.com or godaddy.com or who? How much you wanna bet your site will be blocked before you have the slightest clue what's happening? I can almost guarantee that's what would happen to me with my websites...
And this is COMPLETELY ignoring the biggest issue here... the fact that you will have NO say at all in the judge's decision. Regardless of whether you find out days before the site is actually shut down that they are taking that action against you... there will still be nothing you can do! All you are getting is a notification that they are about to take your website offline. That's not a request for you to defend yourself, that's not an opportunity to speak up before bad things happen, that's just you being told what is about to happen. I'm sure there will be some fine print on the back of the letter (like with a speeding ticket) telling you what the appeals process is and how you can request a hearing date... but even that will not change the fact that your website will cease to exist until you have proven you are innocent. This entire situation is "guilty until proven innocent" and it goes against everything our country was founded on.
Last edited by ImperfectSense; 2011-12-25 at 11:27 PM.
Completely lost on you is there isn't a judge alive that will allow or will the DOJ attempt to do anything you are describing in your doomsday scenario. Doing so would violate just about everything and wouldn't last a second. The sites will be given every opportunity to take reasonable action in a reasonable period of time. If they fail to do so then they deserve anything they get. You are inventing these scenarios that have zero chance of happening in an attempt to scare the heck out of people and get them believing the internet will be run like the Gestapo. Which most level headed people know is not going to happen. I am sure once the bill begins to be debated and amendments are added sites will be treated fairly and given ample time to address piracy. No tin hats needed just yet.
'My idea of a good picture is one that's in focus and of a famous person doing something unfamous.' Andy Warhol
So what you want is a bill that says: If a site has illegal content on it, the copyright holder should first contact the site owner and ask them to take down the offending material, if they do so there will be no penalty, if they don't then the matter proceeds to court where both sides can submit their arguments and evidence and a judge will make a ruling about the fate of the offending material and any damages that should be paid in either direction.
Is that correct, roughly?
LOL, how many have you had? We take ourselves far too seriously... I have been taking pictures for a ery long time and I have never found my pictures being used by a major media outlet I can actually sue for damages... so not sure how valuable would it have been to actually register each of my 250,000+ collection!
Manny Gonzalez
Thrust Images | General Photography | R.I.P. Matt Molnar 1979-2013
BRING BACK THE KJFK/KLGA OBSERVATION DECKS
This is pretty much standard practice.So what you want is a bill that says: If a site has illegal content on it, the copyright holder should first contact the site owner and ask them to take down the offending material,
Depends on the situation but if the offending party took steps to remove copyright how would the person running the website know?if they do so there will be no penalty
Again if you read what Lamar Smith said it's the sites that refuse to act when they know it's illegal content. When you are hosting illegal content you don't have a say so how can a site have an argument? If the judge is convinced the evidence supports the content is being used without permission the site doesn't have a say. Since these sites are hosted outside the US the search engine and payment processors are addressed and so on.if they don't then the matter proceeds to court where both sides can submit their arguments and evidence and a judge will make a ruling about the fate of the offending material and any damages that should be paid in either direction.
Again you are making the argument that types of piracy are ok. It's not.
'My idea of a good picture is one that's in focus and of a famous person doing something unfamous.' Andy Warhol
My point was, that outline of a balanced and fair approach to dealing with illegal content is already in existence. It's called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and it's been in effect for YEARS. It's why YouTube, Flickr, etc will all take down potentially offending content just at the request of the copyright holder. It's been doing a damn good job of fairly policing the internet for a while.
SOPA is new, it's different, it's not fair and balanced. As you yourself said, if a judge is convinced you're hosting illegal content, why should you have a say? CLEARLY you are guilty, a judge said so, based entirely on testimony from your accuser. Wait a minute, what happened to due process?
Oh, we don't have to give them due process because they're foreign? Or at least their domain name is? So... wait, if they're foreign, and they committed any other crime, wouldn't we either 1) request that their government extradite them so they can face justice (and by the way benefit from due process) here in the U.S. or 2) request that their government try them under their own laws? Don't those things sound... fair?
Let's turn the tables. Let's say you run an aviation news website. You run a story about how Alenia is screwing up the 787 again. Alenia takes offense and goes crying to the Italian government. These are the people who are suing geologists for not predicting the last earthquake, ok? They're bonkers. Anyway, Alenia finds some content someone posted on your site, or maybe even fabricates some evidence, who knows, they're pissed. Anyway, they have an Italian judge turn off all access to your website (no Italians can get there, so much for all those hits that article was getting), request to have you removed from all search engines (these are international, so, NOBODY can search for you anymore), and disable all your ads/revenue (again, most of these are international, so it would affect all traffic). Sometime before or after all this happened you got a very nice letter (by way of your domain registrar... yea, right) telling you what was going to happen, and offering that if you'd like to appeal the decision you can fly to Italy, request a hearing, wait a few months, and then talk to some crazy people wearing wigs who just got done sentencing some geologists to prison for not predicting an unpredictable event. That sounds like justice to you?
Yea, it's kind of a funny ha ha far-fetched scenario... until it happens. I promise you I can create any amount of documentation required to convince ANY judge that a website is secretly hosting illegal material. All you need is a screenshot of an FTP directory and Photoshop to change some text, and voila, instant illegal file hosting. Sure, there is a SLIM chance that I might get caught when the website owner finds out... but I've got all this evidence, and all they have is the same evidence I do, taken days later, after they know about the accusation against them, showing no illegal content there. Who is to say whether it was really there and they just deleted it or whether I'm making it up? How long could I drag the fight out, how much would it cost in lawyer fees? Even if they finally prove the content was never there, they can't recover any losses from me unless they prove I did it because I was mad at them. This whole thing is ridiculous.
Stick to due process, innocent until proven guilty, down with SOPA.
Working for an Internet service provider, this is the biggest threat to freedom that I have seen to this date. Daily we talk about how communist country's filter news media and the Internet and do not have the freedom to speak. You can throw a pin on this 10,000 ways but if you are that worried about someone stealing your work, do not release it. Your art will always be stolen, not just from the evil Internet. Make a painting and put it on display, someone WILL take a picture of it. It is a fact of life and a spin can be put on this too, it does not change the fact that right now you DO have recourse against someone that steals your work. YOU can sue them and win. This is really scary and I have read a lot into this as I work daily supporting what we are talking about.
The three most common expressions in aviation are, "Why is it doing that?", "Where are we?" and "Oh Crap".
So Actors and musicians should just find another line of work????if you are that worried about someone stealing your work, do not release it
No, people should be allowed to release songs, movies, pictures etc without having to endure piracy for the sake of people who want to hide behind "freedom" and who really want free stuff. This bill isn't about ending our freedoms but giving people another layer of protection from people who use the internet to steal their work.
'My idea of a good picture is one that's in focus and of a famous person doing something unfamous.' Andy Warhol
LOL Anyone want to sit on the sidelines with me and share my popcorn? I have an extra tin-foil hat!
R.I.P. Matt Molnar 1979-2013
#DeleteThePickleSmoocher
LETS GO CAPS!
[URL]http://www.sopicturethis.net[/URL]
I am game...I'll bring a six pack!
The three most common expressions in aviation are, "Why is it doing that?", "Where are we?" and "Oh Crap".
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