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n2jtx
join:2001-01-13
Glen Head, NY

1 recommendation

n2jtx to FFH5

Member

to FFH5

Re: Who cares about Senator Patrick Leahy?

said by FFH5:

Leahy is right about this is in his statement:
Somewhere in China today, in Russia today, and in many other countries that do not respect American intellectual property, criminals who do nothing but peddle in counterfeit products and stolen American content are smugly watching how the United States Senate decided it was not even worth debating how to stop the overseas criminals from draining our economy.”

Except I do not see how SOPA or PIPA would fix that. The Chinese can set up shop on .cn and the Russians on .ru. They will continue to sell freely within their own countries and laugh as web sites disappear because of lack of due process on takedown requests. They may block access to people in the United States but the EU and other countries can maintain unfettered access, especially if they use national .xx named domains.

I do not support piracy but as the Megaupload takedown shows, there are laws already in place that work and can be used. Heck, Megaupload was based in China according to news reports and they were still able to be shut down. Besides, as was reported here last summer, the Internet community was not invited to hearings or to any bill mockups regarding SOPA/PIPA. The content industry wrote the bill and did not want any debates. It wasn't until opposition started getting traction in the late fall that some Internet companies were invited and even then, everything they basically said was ignored.

TechyDad
Premium Member
join:2001-07-13
USA

TechyDad

Premium Member

I do not support piracy but as the Megaupload takedown shows, there are laws already in place that work and can be used. Heck, Megaupload was based in China according to news reports and they were still able to be shut down.

SOPA wouldn't even shut these sites down. It would seize the domain name and close any ad network accounts, but the site would still be up and accessible by IP address. One HOSTS file entry or backup domain name or even link with an IP address instead of a domain name later and the pirates would go right back to pirating. So this bill wouldn't have even stopped the piracy it claimed to stop.

Besides, as was reported here last summer, the Internet community was not invited to hearings or to any bill mockups regarding SOPA/PIPA. The content industry wrote the bill and did not want any debates. It wasn't until opposition started getting traction in the late fall that some Internet companies were invited and even then, everything they basically said was ignored.

Exactly. Leahy is whining about how the Senate won't even debate this, but they *DID* debate this. When the law was being formed, they locked out tech companies and anyone not pro-SOPA. When it was being debated, they sneered at the "nerds" for saying it would break the Internet. And now, when everyone uses the Internet to rally support and beat it back, he whines about how we all should have just told him so he could tweak the bull a tiny bit to mollify us and then pass it.