Anyone got concerns about SOPA?

[swampy170]

Here in the UK we've already had a few attempts at censorship, which so far are pretty dead in the water.

What are people's feelings towards SOPA? Personally I'm dead against it, particularly since it will inevitably spread to the UK should it go ahead.

Personally I've totally gone off Marvel comics because of the bill, admittedly I'm a DC man anyway - but I did get the odd one or two. However Marvel are pro SOPA independently of Disney, which for me means I'm simply never going to buy another Marvel comic.

They are actually pretty much the only comic company to be pro SOPA, DC have opted out despite WarnerBro's support.

It's pretty mad when you think how much Marvel uses services like Facebook and Twitter which would be damaged by the bill.

[scwank]

SOPA is just bad news. It shows how our Congress whores itself out to the highest bidder. Here's an example of the sort of stuff we can expect if SOPA passes:

http://david.weebly.com/1/post/2011/12/ ... -sopa.html

http://i.imgur.com/Nrt7B.png

[swampy170]

Agreed - though the ability of the government to so comprehensively disable those sites surely means that they have enough powers already.

Surely they realise SOPA and PIP is just overkill.

[Visitor]

Of course the bills are overkill, but you have to think about how the government could take advantage of it. WikiLeaks could have been shut down not because of leaking classified information, but purely for violation of copyright on the content. Once something is written it's automatically considered copyrighted material even if it's never registered.

It's a great tool for someone with deep pockets to shut down anyone that can't afford the cost and time to fight back.

[drh1966]

I don't know a lot of about this legislation, just what I've read on message boards and a couple of stories in the media, but there's a good documentary out there about copyright law and how big business is crushing anybody who tries to use any material under copyright without explicit permission and payment. The doc focuses mostly on music and DJ mashups but it talks about other forms of entertainment as well. It's well worth a look, very eye opening.

http://films.nfb.ca/rip-a-remix-manifesto/