Antipiracy bills

[obgyn65]

SOPA, PIPA, Open Act, etc.

I keep hearing about SOPA and PIPA bills but don't understand all the details as I am not an IT person. Not sure what to think about these bills, but I would be interested to know what this community's views are on this topic.

Ob

[MichaelB]

Quote:

Originally Posted by obgyn65 SOPA, PIPA, Open Act, etc. I keep hearing about SOPA and PIPA bills but don't understand all the details as I am not an IT person. Not sure what to think about these bills, but I would be interested to know what this community's views are on this topic. Ob

Here is an infographic that offers a view on the different proposals

Technical Examination SOPA & PIPA | The Big Picture

[MikeD]

I really, really like Pippa!

Mike D.

[plex]

It is something that Congress is, apparently, in way over their heads in their ability to address. It requires a certain level of technical knowledge that I am not sure Congress will ever have in order to draft a decent bill to do what they really want, which is to take down foreign sites that mostly host pirated work.

Instead, they made something that would work, occasionally, but mostly would cause a massive amount of damage to legal domestic sites, including most of the major websites.

Basically they need a much more narrowly tailored bill. Blocking or taking down a website is just like shutting down a business, so if they want to do it, the same sort of process needs to be required, which is a successful lawsuit in a court of equity to have the business stopped. Trying to create easy, and more importantly obvious, loopholes in the normal legal process isn't going to go well.

[MichaelB]

I think our congress has a great deal of expertise. The response to these bills shows groups with different but equally legitimate interests, and how the interests of one segment of society can have unintended negative consequences on another.