SOPA

[Beta Wolf]

Take a stand against it. It's wrong and it shouldn't be passed.

[Isa]

It got postponed till 2013...
It ain't gonna happen.

[Harry Blue5]

In fairness to the SOPA act, the internet does have a lot of piracy on it, which preferably shouldn't be happening. But, there's only so much that can be done without stepping on normal people's toes.

[Al Gilman]

SOPA is nuts. It can affect our community, and your access to it if you live in the United States. If SOPA passes and our network is taken down I can move it to Canada however it may still be blocked for access in the United States. SOPA would also cut the revenue used to keep the network online.

Read the actual bill its crazy.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:H.R.3261:

Part relating to how it can cut off foreign sites:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c ... wAv:e11714:

I'm not quite sure how bills move through the house/senate in the US, but from what I read the issue of SOPA/PIPA will be taken up later this month.

[Isa]

I think too many people are fearing the US wont go around banning every site on the inter web, they can already take down sites on US Servers, we probably wont be affected as we have no copyrighted material and even if we did it would have to be reported.

If it does get passed I think there will have to be a lot of If's and But's (adjustments to it)

And anyway, the internet generally hates being censored.
I'm thinking Lulzsec, AnonOps or PoiSon will retaliate.

[Al Gilman]

This isn't the US Government that will have the ability to take sites down. But private corporations with no due process.

Two examples:

Artix Ent. would be able to completely disable our network for using their images.

Hasbro would be able to take our wikis down, because I'm pretty sure our wikis have pictures of their ponies.

It could be even silier, a company could take a site down for users simply linking to offending material.

[Isa]

I see your point but being able to doesn't mean it will happen.
AE could have sued us aloooooong time ago.
And Hasbro I doubt has ever heard of us.

It's just a childish law that really ends up annoying people that haven't done much wrong.

[Harry Blue5]

Out of curiosity, would Wikipedia be affected by this? I know all their images have fair-use rationales.

[Isa]

Who in their right mind would want to block wikipedia?
Anyway they have about 1KB on information about copyrights and stuff like that.
They're pretty safe.

[Al Gilman]

Who in their right mind would want to block wikipedia?

Those who could find a way to profit from wikipedia being unavailable?