[Welfl]

I little while ago, I sent the following email message to Pentax Forums, and Adam kindly sent me a very quick reply. I don't know if he gave me permission to quote him here or not, so I won't. Instead, I will let him reply to this post, if he sees it and wishes to do so. He recommended that I post this comment here, and so I shall. Here is what I wrote to him:

Hello,

As a Pentax Forums visitor for the past year (and a wonderful site it is), I strongly encourage you to consider joining the SOPA strike tomorrow, January 18, 2012. Pentax Forums readers need to be made aware of this travesty before it is too late to stop it.

Pentax Forums, by merely linking to web sites that contain "forbidden" copyrighted material (even if you are not linking directly to that forbidden material) would be in violation of the SOPA law -- if it is enacted --, and your site could be forced to shut down. Don't think it wouldn't happen. Even if you weren't forcibly shut down, you would never be able to link to other web sites again (such as Flickr) without always worrying about the consequences of even one frivolous complaint being filed against you. If even one of your subscribers uploaded a photo that is not his or hers, you could be shut down by the true owner of that photo, if he/she is of a mind to file a complaint.

Michael Nystrom, owner of one of the most prominent web sites on the internet these days, explains it very succinctly in this brief commentary.

A gaming web site owner(???) put it very succinctly in a recent internet radio broadcast He begins by saying:

Ladies and gentlemen, my name is [indecipherable], and I'm here to talk about something of an important issue. Unfortunately, I really don't like having to do this. This is a gaming channel. We like to have fun here. This is all about enjoyment. It's all about how to spend your leisure time. Unfortunately, since a certain piece of legislation, or more accurately, two pieces of legislation, are being forced through Congress at the moment to stop you from doing just that, then I think we're just gonna have to have a few words on the subject. Are we not?

So the subject of today's ridiculous lecture / rant is the SOPA -- the S-O-P-A -- the Stop Online Piracy Act -- and also Protect IP [Act].

Listen to his commentary here:

You Tube

You Tube

Among the many sites that will be blacking out tomorrow are "Wikipedia, Reddit..., BoingBoing, MoveOn.org [and] The Free Software Foundation" [Wikipedia, WordPress, possibly Craigslist, and others (see here).

You have many visitors who probably don't know about this legislation, which will have worldwide effects, not just in the United States, since the U.S. is home base for millions of worldwide sites. You could make a huge impact on your readers by closing down for the day and putting up a sign explaining why.

Thank you very much.

Sincerely,
Welfl

---

Last edited by Welfl; 01-17-2012 at 06:45 PM.

[Adam]

These acts sound quite radical- and while we're not going to close PF for the strike, we support any initiatives taken to prevent the internet from becoming a place of government censorship.

[Welfl]

That's certainly understandable. Maybe a banner of some sort on your home page would suffice? That's just a suggestion. I'm more than okay with whatever you decide to do or not to do.

Thank you for your quick reply!

[Adam]

Just shared this on our Facebook page. I think it deserves a mention, despite its being a political topic.

Adam
PentaxForums.com Webmaster (Site Usage Guide | Site Help | My Photography)



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[Jasvox]

What will shutting down PF for a day accomplish? Reminds me of how the Greek taxi drivers strike for days at a time to protest the government, yet they are all privatized. Pointless and lost wages. It's like holding your breath to punish someone else.

Jason

[Dark_Mist]

The point of closing sites down is to show politicians that we are not morons who will meekly surrender to their ill considered whims. The proposed legislation will do nothing to prevent piracy but will punish and limit the activities of a great number of completely innocent and law abiding web users.
The only thing politicians understand is popularity and if they were to receive large numbers of complaints from their constituent voters about being unable to access their favourite site due to an online protest against this ludicrous legislation they would reconsider supporting it.
Regardless of whether you support the strike action I urge you to write to your local politician and voice your concerns about this legislation's attack on your individual freedoms and right to determine what you will and won't view on-line. How long before there are amendments proposed to ban your access to the net and/or confiscate your computers because you made a comment that the government didn't agree with or preferred people not to see.
We have already had suggestions in Australia that all web traffic be filtered to ensure that our extremely sensitive population are not offended by anything on-line. That one will actually work because it would slow access times down so much that we won't actually be able to view anything at all.

[jolepp]

I see Wikipedia is closed today for this. It would seem that measures like this are unlikely to stand to a constitutional challenge in the US (?). Of course better not to have this sort of thing in the first place, hence this getting attention is a good thing. Actually, it would seem this has worked already (?):

On Saturday the White House issued a statement that appeared to side with critics of the legislation.
It said: "While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global internet."

BBC News - Wikipedia joins blackout protest at US anti-piracy moves

[séamuis]

I see Wikipedia is closed today for this. It would seem that measures like this are unlikely to stand to a constitutional challenge in the US (?). Of course better not to have this sort of thing in the first place, hence this getting attention is a good thing. Actually, it would seem this has worked already (?):

BBC News - Wikipedia joins blackout protest at US anti-piracy moves

this will not end with the destruction of SOPA or PIPA. the main architects of these constitutionally violating pieces of legislation are the movie and recording industries, and this as we all know is not the first time they have stepped on the toes of this nation in the name of protecting profits. they don't like where the future is headed in terms of the creation and distribution of entertainment content because they are becoming an unneccessry and unwanted entity. they are fighting with money to keep themselves the middle man. this in all reality has very little to do with piracy and theft. on the political side of things, the simple truth is, that there are people in congress, the house and senate that simply want a censored internet and some have actually come out and with no sugar coating, have said just that. so long as we have government representatives that don't care about the constitution and simply want to continue to widen the scope of censorship and stripping of personal liberties and freedoms and an entertainment industry that only cares about protecting profits, this nation will have a continued battle. killing SOPA will only spawn the birth of more and possibly even more outrageous legislation. but the biggest fear and threat is that the example we set, will only lead to the same behavior in governments across the globe as they follow the lead of our nations government.

[jolepp]

Yup. It would seem there is a coordinated international effort underway by the *AAs and their brethen: lobbying for this and other legislation, ACTA, suing individual P2P users and ISPs, ... Of course, I doubt anyone thinks artists and other content creators should not get paid for their work, the problem is how this has come to be set up as an industry of middlemen who take most of the money for a service of questionable merit. It is the completely shameless robber-baron attitude that irks me the most actually.

[kenafein]

Leaked Documents Show How The US Bullied Spain Into Passing Its Anti-Piracy Law - Business Insider

We lose credibility when we ask China to rescind it's draconian internet laws when we do something like this. We bully other nations and pass our own laws violating human rights. Small sites like ours are very vulnerable to SOPA. The Mods are going to be working overtime or risk being sued. Some small website owners may just think it's not worth the effort and liability and close up.

[crewl1]

You can symbolically join the strike by darkening your flickr photos today. If you go to your stream there is a button available under each photo.
http://blog.flickr.net/en

[boriscleto]

The Rude Pundit

Here's the deal, entertainment industry: your old model for making money is dying, and you haven't figured out how to deal with it yet. You're still in the Anger phase when you need to move on to Acceptance. It sucks, yeah, but right now you're the brontosaurus in the room, and the little critters that don't need so much to survive are evolving and changing. Sure, you can stomp all the monkeys and aardvarks and panthers you want, but eventually you're just gonna keel over and die.

[tuco]

The sad thing about these bills is it demonstrates who the US politicians consider are their constituents. They represent only paying members of the population. And also amazing is how RIAA/MPAA get to use other people's money to police their intellectual property whereas you or I have to use our own money to protect our IP.

[jolepp]

Two PROTECT IP sponsors drop support for their own bill ? The Register

[Welfl]

I'm very glad to see so many great replies here. I wasn't expecting too many replies of any sort since I rarely get them on other sites where I am registered. ;-)

The point of closing sites down is to show politicians that we are not morons who will meekly surrender to their ill considered whims. The proposed legislation will do nothing to prevent piracy but will punish and limit the activities of a great number of completely innocent and law abiding web users.

Very well said, Dark_Mist! Thank you!

this will not end with the destruction of SOPA or PIPA. the main architects of these constitutionally violating pieces of legislation are the movie and recording industries, and this as we all know is not the first time they have stepped on the toes of this nation in the name of protecting profits. they don't like where the future is headed in terms of the creation and distribution of entertainment content because they are becoming an unneccessry and unwanted entity. they are fighting with money to keep themselves the middle man. this in all reality has very little to do with piracy and theft. on the political side of things, the simple truth is, that there are people in congress, the house and senate that simply want a censored internet and some have actually come out and with no sugar coating, have said just that. so long as we have government representatives that don't care about the constitution and simply want to continue to widen the scope of censorship and stripping of personal liberties and freedoms and an entertainment industry that only cares about protecting profits, this nation will have a continued battle. killing SOPA will only spawn the birth of more and possibly even more outrageous legislation. but the biggest fear and threat is that the example we set, will only lead to the same behavior in governments across the globe as they follow the lead of our nations government.

I couldn't agree with you more on all counts, séamuis. They won't give up if these two bills fail, just as they didn't give up on the banker bailout in October 2008, even though 90 percent of Americans who contacted their congress dirtbags were against it (according to various reports). It failed the first time but was then reintroduced and passed a few days later. Ninety-three senators voted in favor of the NDAA last month, which allows the military to arrest U.S. citizens without charge and hold them indefinitely and in secret. They've really kicked the process into high gear in the last few years.

As for those politicians who have come right out and supported full-blown internet censorship, the most prominent one of the bunch is Senator Joseph Lieberman, who proudly, arrogantly, unashamedly said the U.S. should censor the internet the same way China does (in order to protect certain special interests whose crimes against humanity are being exposed to Americans, en masse, for the first time ever).