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PIPA, SOPA One Step Closer to Dead
SOPA/PIPA Support Becomes Liability for Democrats

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has announced that he will postpone a test vote scheduled for next week on PIPA, indicating another victory for this week's anti-SOPA/PIPA activists. In a statement, Reid (just as the MPAA/RIAA is doing) insists that the problems with the bills can be fixed with some additional work, even though it's certainly clear that both Hollywood-written laws have become politically toxic. Still, Reid seems to insist that a consensus can be reached within a few weeks, even if this week's events were an early death knell for the MPAA/RIAA written laws:

quote:
“I admire the work that Chairman Leahy has put into this bill. I encourage him to continue engaging with all stakeholders to forge a balance between protecting Americans’ intellectual property, and maintaining openness and innovation on the internet. We made good progress through the discussions we’ve held in recent days, and I am optimistic that we can reach a compromise in the coming weeks."
Originally PIPA/SOPA weren't about political affiliation or partisan politics; the bills were just awful -- period. But responding to this week's blackouts, most of the politicians backing away from SOPA/PIPA were Republican, and GOP Presidential candidates last night all came out against the laws. That placed a new layer of pressure on Reid and the Democrats to stop supporting the bills, lest they want to get swept away on a wave of public disgust.

It seems likely you'll only have to suffer through a few more weeks of empty rhetoric about job creation by the MPAA/RIAA (and the politicians who love their campaign contributions). It seems clear that SOPA/PIPA will be too much of a liability during election season and are headed out to pasture, replaced by new, slightly-less-awful MPAA/RIAA written legislation at a later date -- when you're paying less attention.

Update: Senator Patrick Leahy is mad that a bad bill written by the entertainment industry is facing opposition by constituents he was elected to represent.

Update 2: House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) has also announced that his planned February vote on SOPA has been shelved.
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nutcr0cker
join:2003-04-02
Chandler, AZ

nutcr0cker

Member

Reid is a scoundrel

That scoundrel will never relent until he completely screws us
ISurfTooMuch
join:2007-04-23
Tuscaloosa, AL

ISurfTooMuch

Member

Re: Reid is a scoundrel

Are you kidding? Most all of them are scoundrels. They've either sold their souls, or they never had souls to begin with.

Noah Vail
Oh God please no.
Premium Member
join:2004-12-10
SouthAmerica

Noah Vail

Premium Member

Re: Reid is a scoundrel

said by ISurfTooMuch:

Are you kidding? Most all of them are scoundrels. They've either sold their souls, or they never had souls to begin with.

Truer words....

I guess that's what kills me about this.
Both our Florida Senators (Bill Nelson-D & Marco Rubio-R) are pretty good guys. (Nelson had a decent track record for advocacy as FL's insurance commissioner).
Yet both of them signed on to PIPA, Rubio as a co-sponsor.

Is it even possible to hold office in the White House or Congress and not become owned by conglomerates?

DataRiker
Premium Member
join:2002-05-19
00000

DataRiker

Premium Member

Re: Reid is a scoundrel

Speaking of scoundrels did you guys see Santorum last night on the debate talking about this?

Basically taking both sides of the issue in one sentence. Can't stand that double talking POS.

All the other candidates backed away, with Ron Paul once again outclassing all the others by trying to block this bill before they others probably even heard about it.

Rand Paul has promised a filibuster.

FutureMon
Dude Whats mine say?

join:2000-10-05
Marina, CA

FutureMon to Noah Vail

to Noah Vail
said by Noah Vail:

Is it even possible to hold office in the White House or Congress and not become owned by conglomerates?

I think it's one of those things like "When in Rome, do as the Romans do".

Otherwise, you're not gonna fit in, and that would mean you wouldn't be there very long.

The other side of that is similar to the way if something gets repeated enough, people will believe it whether it's right or wrong. And in the case of politics, when the people around you are constantly doing these things and "getting away with it", over time it will affect you and you will eventually begin to do the same.

- FM

woody7
Premium Member
join:2000-10-13
Torrance, CA

woody7 to nutcr0cker

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to nutcr0cker
Being Dem, I am ashamed, but this is really a bipartisan thing also. Dems can take the money but it may cost them in the long run, what they should be saying is this legislation is wrong, and get input from more than just the industry, he11 didn't the industry write this piece o crap anyway, let them take the heat.

Noah Vail
Oh God please no.
Premium Member
join:2004-12-10
SouthAmerica

Noah Vail

Premium Member

Re: Reid is a scoundrel

said by woody7:

Being Dem, I am ashamed, but this is really a bipartisan thing also.

Yes, but both parties are corrupted by corporations - beyond distinction.

It's just that some corporations traditionally favor Congressional Republicans. With other corps, it's Congressional Democrats.
See this article titled 'After Outcry, SOPA Backers Are Mainly Democrats'.

Neither party is less corrupt than the other.

DataRiker
Premium Member
join:2002-05-19
00000

DataRiker

Premium Member

Re: Reid is a scoundrel

Absolutely.

woody7
Premium Member
join:2000-10-13
Torrance, CA

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to Noah Vail
Totally agree
Stumbles
join:2002-12-17
Port Saint Lucie, FL

Stumbles to woody7

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to woody7
AFAIU it was written by the MPAA/RIAA to serve their own purposes and damn anyone else.
gorehound
join:2009-06-19
Portland, ME

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Washington is truly owned by Corporations.We will have to take our Government back if we ever want to have peace of mind
moonpuppy (banned)
join:2000-08-21
Glen Burnie, MD

moonpuppy (banned)

Member

Who cares about Senator Patrick Leahy?

I could care less if you are mad or not Senator. You are just another example of a bought and paid for elected official. You admit to taping Grateful Dead concerts but support a bill that says what you did is illegal.

The term hypocrite comes to mind.

And before anyone says they are all like this, Senator Patrick Leahy prides himself as a progressive. He cares not what the people actually want.

FFH5
Premium Member
join:2002-03-03
Tavistock NJ

FFH5

Premium Member

Re: Who cares about Senator Patrick Leahy?

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.”

rebel1
@sbcglobal.net

rebel1

Anon

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.”

Poor baby.

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

1 recommendation

n2jtx to FFH5

Member

to FFH5
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

Re: Who cares about Senator Patrick Leahy?

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.
nutcr0cker
join:2003-04-02
Chandler, AZ

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So what you are saying that if your finger hurts the doctor should chop off your head correct. Why bot send these scum bucket politicians to china and have sopa there.

Steve B
Premium Member
join:2004-08-02
Auburn, WA

Steve B to FFH5

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to FFH5
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.”

It doesn't matter if he's right or wrong for that matter. Who cares at the moment what the criminals oversees are saying? Americans realized how bad these bills were. If stopping the bills this time also meant stopping the debate, then so be it. They all can go cry me a river, build a bridge and get the f over it.

TechyDad
Premium Member
join:2001-07-13
USA

1 recommendation

TechyDad

Premium Member

Re: Who cares about Senator Patrick Leahy?

There's a saying that we should rather 10 guilty men go free than jail one innocent man. In this case, we're not immediately taking action against some overseas pirates*, in order to not shut down legitimate businesses/individuals. I'd say that's an acceptable tradeoff.

*This is putting aside, for a second, the fact that SOPA probably wouldn't have stopped them anyway.

Noah Vail
Oh God please no.
Premium Member
join:2004-12-10
SouthAmerica

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to FFH5
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...

Funny. When I read that I was struck by the absolute irony of that statement.

If I may:
Somewhere in China today, in Russia today, and in many other countries that do not respect the American drive for Individual Liberty,
an unimaginably corrupt government is smugly watching the United States Senate try to follow their example - of relegating citizens to the status of exploitable commodity.

NV

DataRiker
Premium Member
join:2002-05-19
00000

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to FFH5
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.”

Why should non Americans care about American laws? Do you care about Saudi laws? Do you stop women from driving?

What kind of logic is this?

FFH5
Premium Member
join:2002-03-03
Tavistock NJ

FFH5

Premium Member

Re: Who cares about Senator Patrick Leahy?

said by DataRiker:

Why should non Americans care about American laws?

because their countries signed treaties to honor our trade laws and copyright laws IF we honor their trade and copyright laws. It is tit for tat. We protect their rights if they protect our citizens rights.

woody7
Premium Member
join:2000-10-13
Torrance, CA

woody7

Premium Member

Re: Who cares about Senator Patrick Leahy?

But for the most part they aren't

DataRiker
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said by FFH5:

because their countries signed treaties to honor our trade laws and copyright laws IF we honor their trade and copyright laws. It is tit for tat. We protect their rights if they protect our citizens rights.

Simply put, their government sold them out. Nobody respects that.

Pirate515
Premium Member
join:2001-01-22
Brooklyn, NY

2 edits

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Pirate515 to FFH5

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said by FFH5:

said by DataRiker:

Why should non Americans care about American laws?

Because their countries signed treaties to honor our trade laws and copyright laws IF we honor their trade and copyright laws. It is tit for tat. We protect their rights if they protect our citizens' rights.

If there are treaties in place, then why not force the governments of the countries that do not respect our intellectual property to do something about their own offenders, or terminate those treaties if they don't. For example, at one point US and some of the countries in Western Europe did put pressure on Russia to shut down AllOfMP3.com in exchange for them allowing Russia's bid to enter WTO to go through. Similarly, if China does not respect our copyrights, it would be a perfect excuse to put blocks on their imports or at least raise tariffs/taxes, which may in turn bring some manufacturing jobs back home.

Let me know if I'm making too much sense here.
moonpuppy (banned)
join:2000-08-21
Glen Burnie, MD

moonpuppy (banned)

Member

Re: Who cares about Senator Patrick Leahy?

Tariffs against China will never happen as long as the campaign money keeps flowing in.

El Quintron
Cancel Culture Ambassador
Premium Member
join:2008-04-28
Tronna

El Quintron

Premium Member

Re: Who cares about Senator Patrick Leahy?

said by moonpuppy:

Tariffs against China will never happen as long as the campaign money keeps flowing in.

To quote Michele Bachmann in a rare stroke of oratory genius:

"Hu's your Daddy?"

Stumbles
join:2002-12-17
Port Saint Lucie, FL

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Then that means there are existing legal mechanisms in place to deal with those types of problems and SOPA?PIPA is not needed.
Kamus
join:2011-01-27
El Paso, TX

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Damn, we need Batman on the job.
Stumbles
join:2002-12-17
Port Saint Lucie, FL

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Yeah well there exits now many laws and treaties between us and other countries to deal with that problem and there is no need for SOPA/PIPA. This link says it better than I;

»www.ted.com/talks/defend ··· dea.html

ExitWound
Porsche Snob
join:2001-12-13
Boalsburg, PA

ExitWound

Member

Intervention

I think it's funny that even those who favor small government and deregulation are insisting the government get involved in the affairs of businesses like the MPAA and RIAA.

pende_tim
Premium Member
join:2004-01-04
Selbyville, DE

pende_tim

Premium Member

Don't Kid Yourselves

As the famous line in the Monty Python skit said "I'm not dead yet!" This one will be back in some other form soon.

tmh
@comcastbusiness.net

tmh

Anon

SOPA is dead, long live SOPA

There's too much attention on SOPA. It will die and get reincarnated with another name. It might even get written into some must-pass piece of legislation.

••••••••

Kilroy
MVM
join:2002-11-21
Saint Paul, MN

Kilroy

MVM

Let them vote on it NOW

Then we'll know who we want in office come November.

meeeeeeeeee
join:2003-07-13
Newburgh, NY

meeeeeeeeee

Member

Re: Let them vote on it NOW

Democrat... Republicrat... All skunks with a slightly different stripe. It's time for Americans to ditch the parties and take back control of OUR government from those that only support the 1% and want to make the 99% poor slaves.

dfrandin
Premium Member
join:2002-06-14
Las Vegas, NV

dfrandin

Premium Member

Only "Dead" Not really DEAD!

Perhaps the bills are essentially dead BY THESE NAMES, but you can bet your bottom dollar they will be back with some other mindless acronym, likely without changing word-one of these bills. These loons are not going to give up..

Somebody mentioned about what a scoundrel Reid is.. Being from Las Vegas, Nevada, I'm fully aware of this pantload. Believe me, we (the non-liberal/non-seiu-union/non-bat$hit-insane voters) tried to flush him down the toillet a year ago last November, but his pet SEIU thugs were out committing voter fraud during our early voting and on election day. This isn't hearsay, as I saw a lot of this with my own eyes. An attempt was made to get the state attorney general to bring charges, but since THAT pantload is also a democrat, nothing ever happened. Thus we (and America) get few more years of this lunatic, who is in control of the Senate, trashing America.. Sorry, America, we tried...

coldmoon
Premium Member
join:2002-02-04
Fulton, NY

coldmoon

Premium Member

Both NC Senators back away...finally

Senators Richard Burr (R) and Kay Hagen (D) have announced they are not going to support PIPA. To his credit, Burr came out against the bill yesterday in no uncertain terms while Hagen, though backing away from the current legislation still wants to see something similar get through.

This is disappointing and Hagen will need to "get with it" or get steam rolled for trying to play both sides...

ZonisX
@bbnplanet.net

ZonisX

Anon

OPEN

Well, now apparently there is a new bill being circulated about called OPEN. Any info on it?

starreem
Premium Member
join:2000-12-22
Raleigh, NC

starreem

Premium Member

Re: OPEN

Here's the poop:

»keepthewebopen.com/sopa-vs-open
georgeglass5
join:2010-06-07
New York, NY

georgeglass5

Member

Unreal

Why was there no outrage over the NDAA law that was signed by the potus? Like there was with SOPA & PIPA? Seems like they go hand in hand. This is all so ripe, for abuse on so many levels, it's mind boggling.

jmn1207
Premium Member
join:2000-07-19
Sterling, VA

jmn1207

Premium Member

Re: Unreal

said by georgeglass5:

Why was there no outrage over the NDAA law that was signed by the potus? Like there was with SOPA & PIPA? Seems like they go hand in hand. This is all so ripe, for abuse on so many levels, it's mind boggling.

The Prez said not to worry though, because he wouldn't abuse his new powers. I'm comfortable with that.

SOPA is just another law being introduced that will mainly serve to be an inconvenience to the innocent parties, like the airport screening fiasco we all have to put up with now.

anon6
@comcast.net

anon6

Anon

So...

Looks like this won't end well.

davidbugs
@cox.net

davidbugs

Anon

One world government? This is why Sopa and Pipa

One world government You probably heard about Alex Jones talking about it.
tmc8080
join:2004-04-24
Brooklyn, NY

tmc8080

Member

dead or not

THE CORRUPTION that generates these kinds of democracy killing laws is alive and kicking... Santorum just as good as killed his chance for winning the Republican nomination by wrapping his arms around SOPA. Ordinary people now see the mask pulled off!

Really, a Pennsylvania republican cares about Hollywood corporate interests?!? Insane... just as insane as the other schmo's loading up on PAC money by OIL interests. Gasoline price hike season is underway and guess who's pockets pay for those TV commercials?!? YOURS!
Kearnstd
Space Elf
Premium Member
join:2002-01-22
Mullica Hill, NJ

Kearnstd

Premium Member

Re: dead or not

I do not actually mind my pockets paying for political ads...

But I think there should be specially controlled fund for political ads, as well as extremely strict regulation on them with fixed and regulated numbers of hours per week each person can advertise.

In short I really think that all those running should have a federal coffer they can pull from but that is their fixed ad budget and there would be other regulations in place controlling how much TV time each one gets.

My thought is the whole money fight has to end, Right now people wanting to get elected and their Super-PACs throw money around like they are Budweiser buying ad time during the superbowl.

WHT
join:2010-03-26
Rosston, TX

WHT

Member

"Continue engaging with all stakeholders"

Wait...they never engaged the opposing stakeholders in the first place!

»Leahy: Let's Ignore How SOPA Breaks DNS For Now [19] comments
said by Karl Bode :
the bill creation process wasn't open in the slightest, with no hearings held on PIPA whatsoever, and consumer and expert input that disagreed with the MPAA/RIAA perspective being utterly ignored.

anon6
@comcast.net

anon6

Anon

Just maybe

People don't want the entertainment industry to take over the internet? People are tired of being gouged for content at high prices.
equivocal
join:2008-01-23
USA

equivocal

Member

Thoroughly Corrupt

Smith, Leahy, Reid, et al's reactions just demonstrates how thoroughly corrupt the culture in DC is. It's so corrupt that the participants no longer recognize corruption. Having industry write legislation and using tools such as stacking the deck at hearings are all normal--they way things are always done. It genuinely left them dumbfounded when those pesky annoyances known as people began complaining to their staffers and the main stream media began airing their grievances. They're still in disbelief that a bunch of "nerds" disrupted their time honoured process for something so meaningless as the Internets.

Maybe this is what happened to those "pretty good guys" from FL.

Octavean
MVM
join:2001-03-31
New York, NY

Octavean

MVM

They are getting bolder in their actions every time

I was reading an article not too long ago that suggested public domain material could be copyrighted. So this with SOPA and PIPA among other things makes clear how utterly corrupt our government can be. However, the malleability of our government is only part of the problem because the motives of those paying off the officials is a big part in setting the agenda.

So in the case of the MPAA and the like, the only solution I see is to make them question their own agenda. For example, for every SOPA / PIPA like action they should face the political backlash and negative attention they already have but should also face a strong organized boycott resulting in a loss of revenue directly attributed to their own actions.

I’m talking about going off the grid. Not one soul in a movie theater for at least a month, not one song sold on iTunes or any other music service, suspending cable / satellite service for at least a month. I’m talking about cutting off their flow of money as a moral protest and show of strength.

If they feel like they will lose something every time they attempt something like this not only may they think twice or think thrice but they may actually back off the idea completely before the idea ever gets off the ground.

Anything less is a half measure. Anything less is almost the equivalent to keeping our collective heads near the ground, chewing the soft grass and cud.