CGA Forums blackout Jan. 18 7 a.m.-7 p.m. Central to protest SOPA?

SOPA is only the house version. NObody is talking about the protectip act that is the same thing that is sneaking through the house.
 
Seeing as the current version of SOPA has a less than 1% of getting passed, and the amount of lobbyist against it should ensure it not getting passed. And the fact that certain tech areas have blown it WAY out of proportion talking about how it could pass and getting everyone up on their high horse about it...

SOPA (in it's current form) will not pass, so why is everyone freaking out?

I say it would be an utter waste of time and effort...heh.

/my 2 cents
 
Tek, I know we were discussing a blackout on the 18th, but you didn't have to jump the gun and take the website down. :D
 
XionTawa said:
Seeing as the current version of SOPA has a less than 1% of getting passed, and the amount of lobbyist against it should ensure it not getting passed. And the fact that certain tech areas have blown it WAY out of proportion talking about how it could pass and getting everyone up on their high horse about it...

SOPA (in it's current form) will not pass, so why is everyone freaking out?

I say it would be an utter waste of time and effort...heh.

/my 2 cents
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There was at one point a good chance of it passin, but now that more people know about the bill that chance has gotten smaller. I personally can't believe some people aren't upset by it. One of my biggest problems with SOPA (I'm not as familiar with PIP) is that it does not specify what type of website they are aiming at and along side that, if a website does get in trouble under SOPA, it does not get to defend itself in court. I have no problem with companies trying to defend their intellectual property, but doing it through a bill with vague language and one that will stop piracy (its more like posting copyrighted material without permission) in only one country is definitely not the way to go.

XT, I know you do an update of your everyday happenings. I've seen you do it on Facebook and I know you have your own blog and twitter account. I don't think its too much of a stretch that you might accidentally post copyrighted material to one of these social media outlets. The company that owns said copyright could shut you down without any input from you. I don't think you would appreciate being silenced.

Edit: A congressperson introducing a bill that has the ability to censor you on the internet should get you infuriated anyway, regardless of whether or not it will pass.
 
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Odale said:
XT, I know you do an update of your everyday happenings. I've seen you do it on Facebook and I know you have your own blog and twitter account. I don't think its too much of a stretch that you might accidentally post copyrighted material to one of these social media outlets. The company that owns said copyright could shut you down without any input from you. I don't think you would appreciate being silenced.

Edit: A congressperson introducing a bill that has the ability to censor you on the internet should get you infuriated anyway, regardless of whether or not it will pass.
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There is no inherent protection in the Bill of Rights for you posting copyrighted material in any form. You do not own that material and are essentially stealing it when you post it.

This bill may not go about providing better protection for copyright holders in the best manner, but I do not have a problem with the general intent (protecting people's property and the effort required to produce it).
 
From what I understand, the mechanism in which the copyright holder gains the ability to respond is the issue. If they have the power to shut you down for mentioning their product because they alone have the right to use the name.... That's pretty crappy. You add that the idea that the language is loose enough to be able to claim that you violated a trademark (with no real proof - just the threat) and that is enough to shut someone down?

If you post a picture of a trademarked item on your Facebook page.... Should the copyright and trademark holder be able to shut down all of Facebook? Or would it be wiser to just have your page go into moderation?

I see that it creates difficulties when you start talking about bit torrents for music/video stealing, or websites that function through users creating pages to illegally distribute material. But loose- language bills are a bad thing. The authors of the Constitution were thorough and articulate, sending their documents through multiple revisions to make sure they said exactly what was needed, rather than passing through thousands of lines of legislation every other week.
 
Unless someone else does all the legwork in preparing a once-per-session click-through splash page (not a total blackout), we (more specifically, I) won't be modifying the forums to publicly protest the SOPA or PIPA.

I spent most of my free time over the last 3 days dealing with a nightmarish web script error on the ToJ side and I just don't have it in me to look at any more web code unless it's a dire emergency.

If someone else wants to prepare a file or files and send it over to Lloren, the CGA Forums Administrator, then we may arrange something.

In short: If someone else doesn't do it, it ain't gettin' done.

And just so no one takes offense at my tone in this post: Yes, I'm tired and I'm frustrated at the situation, but I'm not angry at any person on these forums.
 
Are you vetoing a 12-hour blackout? That is about the extent of what I would be able to do... And it would be ugly and basic.
 
Durruck said:
Are you vetoing a 12-hour blackout? That is about the extent of what I would be able to do... And it would be ugly and basic.
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Yes.

Nearly every regular on our forums is already aware of SOPA and PIPA. I don't think shutting down the forums would have any more impact than, say, inverting the forum color scheme (black background, white text, etc.) and adding a click-through page with a brief explanation of the threat SOPA and PIPA represent and information on what actions users can take to protest both acts.

Unfortunately, a moderate approach (the once-per-session click-through splash page with information on SOPA and PIPA) would require more work and I'm not willing to invest that much time after surviving the recent ToJ web site debacle.

I still wholeheartedly oppose SOPA and PIPA, but I need to leave it to others to organize the protest effort.
 
Though if Lloren is willing to make the changes, we could certainly do something like this.
 
Lloren said:
I couldn't get that demo script to work. :( Any other prefab ideas?
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Did you mean the link didn't work for you or you weren't able to add it to the forums?

Because that was the best fit I found for pre-canned protest code. Most everything else blacked out the entire site or prevented users from accessing site content.
 
Tek7 said:
Did you mean the link didn't work for you or you weren't able to add it to the forums?

Because that was the best fit I found for pre-canned protest code. Most everything else blacked out the entire site or prevented users from accessing site content.
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I actually tried the script on a test web server before our server. I couldn't get it to come up. Do have any example page where it works at?
 
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