SOPA what, man?
So if you’re anything like me and read a lot of shit on the Internet (particularly when you should be working), you’ve probably already noticed that a good portion of the ‘Net is bringing attention to SOPA and PIPA today. I was confused even after reading the Wiki entries, so Reddit helped explain it a little better.
Here’s the thing: as with most bills, there are some things in here that sound pretty good! But the rest of it is entirely too vague. When I was younger I used to think that all the vague stuff would be justly handled by politicians because politicians should be really good people who never manipulate the law to fulfill their own greedy interests. But then I started watching the news, so, that was depressing.
These bills are too unclear about their proposed methods and actions. When taken to one extreme, the bill could mean that the US government wants people to stop stealing and monetizing other people’s intellectual property, and that they would be very careful about policing this. When taken to another extreme, the bill could mean that the US government could define IP theft however it (and its $upporter$) sees fit, and essentially shut down any website that so much as hosts a link to said thief’s site, even if it’s from an unregistered commenter.
So, Americans! (Sorry for boring you, non-Americans.) Here’s what you can do to raise your voices (I am borrowing this from my pal Zach because I had no idea what to do, myself):
1) Look up your congressperson or senator, and see if he/she supports or opposes.
For SOPA: projects.propublica.org/sopa/
For PIPA: projects.propublica.org/sopa/pipa#roll_call
2) Click the appropriate picture to pull up contact information.
3) Write a handwritten letter describing why you’re unhappy. This is the best way to get their attention.
4) If you don’t have time for that, call their office and politely but firmly express your complaint, specifically mentioning their support for SOPA (house of reps) or PIPA (senate).
Let’s avoid the possibility of GWS ever being blocked by some poorly-written over-funded bill. If we want to protect creators from being robbed of their intellectual property, let’s do it the right way and be transparent about our motives. And until that happens, let’s raise hell over these bills so they won’t pass.
I just wanted to say I think it is so great that you and other webcomic artists have teamed up to speak out against this bill. I especially appreciate the links you have posted about the senators/congressmen! While I am against the bill myself, I probably would not have looked that up if you hadn’t posted them(the typical lazy American). And to find out that the Senator that I voted for last election is in favor of SOPA…how disappointing.
It is inspiring how much sway you webcartoonists really have when you speak out against an issue. You’d be surprised just how many otherwise apathetic people perk up and listen! Keep up the great work and here’s to hoping the bill meets a fatal end.
Democracy in action.
Much applause from this side of the Atlantic.
Cory Doctorow gave an excellent talk recently that touched on SOPA, titled “The Coming War on General Computation. “It’s well worth a listen (https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=HUEvRyemKSg) or a read (https://github.com/jwise/28c3-doctorow/blob/master/transcript.md)
Very interesting!
(Hat tip: Stephen Dubner, Freakonomics Blog)
non-American here, definitely not bored.
Joining Mike’s applause and keeping my fingers crossed that this will cause a big stir, making the politicians in favor of these bills uncomfortable for a very long time.
Wasn’t SOPA shelved already?
Yes but that does not mean it is dead. There is already talk of it returning early February and PIPA is still on the table.
Unfortunately this bill affects non Americans more than Americans. I was listening to the BBC yesterday and they said – the bill allows American IP owners to make a complaint about a non American web site and shut it down. To reverse it the non American web company have to petition someone in America (I think it was the DA?). I the mean time the web site can not use any American web service (pay pal, visa, MasterCard…)
It just sounds to me like Team America – World Police. They should worry about policing their own boarders and let international organisations worry about policing the world.
Those same restrictions happen to American websites, American content creators, and the like.
And the IP owner doesn’t have to lodge the claim. Anyone can, and the Attorney General would have unlimited power to shut it down, and the process to overturn it would be more than most small companies could afford.
Yes, but only in the US would the content be unavailable. For instance, if you live in Britain and the US blocked access to a British site, you’d still be able to access your favourite British site… unless you moved to the U.S. For example.
Unless they screwed with root DNS in case of which the whole world is fucked.
It’s just US ISP’s and the like that have to worry about this sort of thing from within the US, but the broad brush strokes affect other countries, as US Citizens and Businesses would be unable to support foreign markets, should they be deemed ‘inappropriate’.
The problem with the US doing web censoring is twofold:
1 – The US is host to many of the support features of the internet. Most online payment companies, Google, etc are based in the US and subject to their laws.
2 – To a large extent, the US contains the backbone of the internet. A person from Canada and a person from the UK generally pipe their net interactions through US servers. If US servers block Demonoid, then Canadians can no longer use that site. Or at least, will be hampered – I’m not sure how much redundancy there is if you remove the US from the internet grid.
It’s certainly a lot further reaching than China’s censorship. Plus, Chinese censorship is at least limited to government control.
SOPA is not “boring” for us non-Americans, we just need to treat our protests a bit differently :)
I couldn’t agree more, the lack-luster effort supported by the general populous is saddening. I wish I was alive when America stood TOGETHER for the common right and not incoherency moaned in singularity.
as a Non-american, I am very glad you post this. I’m Dutch, and here in the Netherlands, they have already ordered two internet providers to block piratebay. And though it is still just a small thing, it is censorship. I am opposed to that, no matter where it is.
Plus, if you (U.S. citizens in general) can manage to ‘kill’ this bill (great slogan :P), than maybe they won’t even try such things here, of else.
I can only agree with Riette.
I’m also from The Netherlands and over here It’s a big issue as well! Censorship, not a big fan of it!
Actually, that’s not censorship, that’s trying to stop a massive online theft ring. There’s more than a little difference between the two….
Actually, it’s quite relevant to those of us who don’t live in the US too: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/michael-geist/sopa-protest_b_1210467.html?ref=canada
All that being said–you’re on Reddit?
If by “on Reddit” you mean “went to their website once,” then yes. ;)
I am to Reddit what your grandfather is to Twitter. I have no idea how it works. Get off my lawn.
But my Frisbee is over there!
Well I have to agree with the rest of the non-americans.
It is pretty relevant for us to as most ideas these days – both the good and the bad – seems to come from America. What surprises me the most is the fact that USA seems to get their inspiration from China now – I know that you (USA) have lent a lot of money from your local laundry owners family but this is not the way to pay it back guys. Just saying…
Yet another non-US citizen here.
It’s really hard for us to follow this. Hard in the sense that it’s extremely frustrating to not have any say what so ever in this, because we’re not Americans. This will affect us as much as it will you, because many, if not most, major internet sites are US based (especially for the gamers among us). So even if it did not have any direct international repercussions, it would still end up being just as hard on us… finally there’s Dave Pateys point. We are, by now, getting really fed up with the US playing “World Police”, especially given the level of gross lobbyism in your senate.
Agreed. Canadian here, and have been following this for months just biting my nails with worry and having to sit here and do nothing!!! Fingers crossed!
Hey Emma, You can always write to your MP in regards to this. They can bring it up to other MPs and, if there is enough pressure from Canadian people, they can talk to the US for us in an attempt to make the US gov understand how ridiculous this bill is. Personally, I think it is the US’s attempt to take over Canada (again, because we all know how well that worked out the last time lol).
Problem is, this time, Britain would likely back the US, not us Canadians. There was a lot more hostility between Britain and the US in those days. Not to mention the fact that Canada wasn’t much more than a very large acreage of the …King?’s in 1812.
Long time french-reader of your webcomic, first time commenting.
Here, in France, we already have Hadopi, somehow the same idea that you SOPA/PIPA, and even if our governement can’t close websites for now, it’s a work in progress.
Yeah, as Nathan said, it’s frustrating not to be able to do anything about that. Even more considering we weren’t able to stop anything in our own country. Even without the “world police” thing, it’s something that could be stopped. People that are barely understanding how a computer works shouldn’t be able to decide how to regulate the internet.
I hope you will succeed stopping that project from becoming a reality.
I am not entirely sure what this will mean globally if this does get passed. I don’t think it will be the end of piracy or force websites to close what it will mean is a more fragmented internet that’s for sure.
Access in the U.S. will be different than Access in Europe. Eastern Europe and China will also have their own Access. Severs will shift location as they need to and other payment services outside the U.S. will probably flurish for sites that are no longer connected to the U.S. internet.
I remember when BOSE sent me a letter informing me of impending legal action if i didn’t remove a skin for my jukebox software that mimicked touchtunes. This wasn’t a skin created by me or even hosted by me but I did remove the links. However the web as it is I couldn’t pull it from sites I had no control over so they sent me another letter, my host got jumpy and i ended up moving to a server in south america. Luckilly that was the end of it but with SOPA I could imagine having to get a new domain name as well, not a big deal as I could just mass email my users and iform them of this but imagine the chaos it would cause for search rankings on google? A lof of pages that were ranked highly might become blocked and then their new incarnations would have to be linked to the old rankings.
It will be really interesting to see how this all plays out. I have my AUS and RU servers standing by as well as my home UK based one :D
I wonder if this will boost use of .fr .de .uk addresses as they are outside the scope of this bill.
Very likely
[...] Sopapillas, not SOPA PIPAs Since she said it really well, I’m going to let Danielle Corsetto of Girls With Slingshots explain SOPA: SOPA what, man? [...]
I looked up my representative, but she’s not allowed to vote on anything. While I have concerns about SOPA/PIPA and other 21st century issues, I’m still concentrating on getting my 18th century rights (Representation for my taxation).
Why can’t she vote? :/
Pardon my legislative naivete, but how is that possible, unless you live in D.C.?
I’m going to guess they live in Puerto Rico, which is still a US territory, not a state. PR is mostly autonomous, with the US only really dealing with defense and diplomacy for them. They have a representative in Congress that is able to listen and speak but not vote. The two major parties in the territory are split about 50/50 in going for full independence or for statehood, and usually whenever on party snatches control of both houses of Congress they push for PR to become a state in the hopes of gaining more seats for their party.
Not allowed to vote?!? Presuming that you’re in the USA, how can a politician be prevented from voting???
To all asking: I’m guessing Yelena is in DC. I have a terrible memory so I’m not going to try to educate you on this particular injustice, but IIRC the trouble lies in some archaic law regarding residents and representatives of DC, and although times have changed drastically, the law has not.
I’m still so proud that DC natives have the words “Taxation without Representation” boldly stamped on their license plates. Now if only we could get the problem solved!
The US courts are already trying to extradite a UK person who did stuff on a UK server, to the US for piracy issues because they provided links to pirated software that US people clicked on. Not hosting or anything else. Being on another server in another country, is not going to stop them trying to use these laws against the non-US. It’s unjust that the US can make laws that materially affect people outside the US, and we have no say about it. Stop Sopa. If they’re really serious about piracy they’ll work on the causes of it rather than the consequences.
The US courts are already trying to extradite a UK person who did stuff on a UK server, to the US for piracy issues because they provided links to pirated software that US people clicked on.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2012/jan/13/piracy-student-loses-us-extradition – I think he already lost :(
Not an America, but I agree the SOPA/PIPA acts are ridiculous. Thankfully SOPA has been shelved, but no word on PIPA yet.
One down, one to go.
http://onforb.es/zAoUkk
thanks for the post. Woo-hoo 1 more to go !!!
On a totally unrelated rant, I love Hazel’s hand in the second panel, it is like a little design gem. I love that kind of details, cheers, Danielle!
I’ve actually e-mailed both of my federal senators and gotten responses back from both of them. I’m not sure if it was exactly a stock e-mail or not, but it was definitely written by someone. The replies I got were concerning SOPA. I’m also currently in the UK, so any Americans abroad can have a say by spamming their inboxes if they don’t feel like there’s enough time for a letter and don’t have enough money for an international phone call.
we need to get the internet away from usa. theyre ruining it.
SOPA, very important. Also important is MCPEDRO ON QC!
I sent a few tweets to senators, to local radio stations, and posted many a link to my facebook, and signed two petitions. I am hoping that other people are doing the same. I have no clue how to measure the impact we are all having on which direction this is going, but I would hate to see the internet being destroyed. No more crazy memes or viral videos. No more art.
I just think about all the sites that I love that would be forced to be taken down because of this act. Regretsy, Reddit, Youtube, etc.
And, as much as I can’t stand Justin Bieber, he got his start doing covers of other songs. People like him, doing the same thing could face fines and jail time now. So crazy.
Performing cover songs is perfectly legal, and you don’t have to pay the creator to PERFORM a song. If you record it, however, the creator of the song must be paid. if the performance is broadcast, there’s a different payment due.
When I recorded recorded an album 15 years ago with some friends, the bandleader made certain that all the tunes were either his own writing or by the well-known author Trad. :)
Saskfan — There is no general exception for ‘performance’; legally, you should presume you must obtain permission for non-public-domain music. There are 4 narrow exception areas. Review Ch. 17, “Performance Licenses”, in _Kohn On Music Licensing_ for more detail. Please don’t mistake non-enforcement for many small violations, for immunity — because most copyright violations can result in a ‘standard’ damage of up to $10,000 per violation, PLUS attorneys’ fees. I don’t currently represent either “side”; I’m hoping to keep a possible wrong assumption from biting you later on. This is one area of the law where $$ and egos, but mostly $$, talk loudest.
Thanks, Danielle for your reminder.
I’m finding myself being more and more supportive of the protest against SOPA and PIPA, and am thouroughly hoping it will never become real. Reason to this is that once those are set into action, other governments will follow and impliment their own versions of those laws, and once that has happened… well, we’d be pretty much screwed. There are those of us interwebbers (and people in general) who often say “Well, as long as you are honest, then you have nothing to fear…” as a reason so support such freedom-restricitve, and frankly rather capitalistic-dictator inspired, laws will find themselves in even deeper brown stinky stuff than the criminals, mainly because those of us who only know a little of how the allmighty internet works don’t know how to evade those laws.
Another risk is that those laws will create even craftier criminals who will be able to evade being caught for the longest time possible.
As a Norwegian I’m wondering what’ll happen with SOPA and PIPA, and what concequences those will have on our own DLD (Data Lagrings Direktiv = Computer Storage Directory).
On another note: I had a hard time taking SOPA and PIPA seriously when I first heard about them. Explanation: They are actually swedish words (sopa=to sweep, Pipa=to squeak).
I am getting educated about sopa because of you danielle. well, that and the totally awesome crossover with qc :)
Not USAer, nor living in the USA, but I agree with you guys and I support the anti-soup*, I mean, anti-SOPA movement. No to SOPA/PIPA!!
(*sopa means soup in my language, sorry, makes me laugh :D )
Hello – long time reader, first time poster.
I don’t usually post on webcomics. Truthfully, I read the comic, read the artist’s news, and carry on. Today, when I opened up this site with J. Jaques’ Questionable Content, I saw the SOPA ad. As a Canadian, I am completely helpless in this situation. I have no one to appeal to, no one to help change this bill. This bill will not only affect Americans. It will affect her neighbours (oooh, neighbours spelled with a u, colour me exotic!). No one country should ever have the legislation to rule over something so obviously international. This is comparable to Americans banning… air. Granted, it’s not as dire, but there’s no such thing as a power hungry man, right? Yeah-huh. That’s what I thought.
I do wish Americans had the right to veto a bill or their leader like Canadians. (I’m not saying America is a shitty country, please don’t think I’m trolling. I’m Canadian – I’m nice :D ) If your presidents thought that in a blink of an eye their turn in office could be overruled by an outcry of unhappy citizens, I’m certain America would be a better place to live (which is not to say that Canada is better, because Harper’s a jackass).
One thing we have to think though is Obama is at heart a nerd – he was in Marvel comics! He fought with lightsabers on the front lawn! I can really see him denying this bill. Hell, I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if he too was a pirate at least at some point in his life.
I’m still concerned over this issue. The internet is my job, my bread and butter. It’s my connection to my friends and family, and I can do nothing but hope that some American will read this and fight extra hard to compensate for my lack of voice.
I signed at least four seperate petitions my canadian friend, this american is trying. For ALL of us.
<3 <3 <3 Thank you!
Been following the comic for a while – Massively entertaining, many thanks :) On SOPA/PIPA – given that SOPA/PIPA make felonies of the offences, my overriding concern over here in Great Britain is a recent extradition agrement with the USA, signed in by the last (Labour) government here; if the US wants to try a British Subject in a US court, they just need to ask a British court for the person, no Just Cause, no Probablility of safe conviction, etc. Yet if we want a US citizen, we have to follow the US constitutional safeguards, supply Probable Cause, basic evidenciary weight, and so on. Combine this with SOPA/PIPA, and there’s a worrying combination for ANY blogger, content maker, artist, or web based whatnot over here. It’s horribly imbalanced, potentially unfair, and horrendous in its scope and potential for malicious misuse. It’s downright terrifying in its potential for misuse, in fact.
Props for opposing SOPA/PIPA!
The worst part about this? There’s already another bill in wait that people on Reddit are suspecting will be finished if SOPA/PIPA fail. Has the same sponsor and was introduced last year, it just remains unfinished. It’s under the guise of protecting children from internet pornography. I believe it’s H.R.1981. We’ll have to see what they try to pull with it. So even if SOPA/PIPA are defeated, there’s a good chance the fight isn’t over. The entertainment industry is paying the big bucks because they want a bill like this passed, one way or another. All they need is something to distract the public long enough for a vote to go through.
Actually, non-Americans can do something too. Sign the petition to send to the State Department and urge them to speak out against censorship in the USA (since they like doingt hat so much when it comes to other countries). Here’s the link: http://americancensorship.org/modal/state-dept-petition/index.html
Go sign it!
Whopsie, sorry Vale, I posted the same exact information as in your comment without realizing
Just an information: non US citizens can still participate in an initiative on http://americancensorship.org/ to petition the Department of State.
Just look for “Not in the us? Petition the state department” down in the page
Thanks a lot for that Reddit link, it made it all clearer. As I’m Dutch, this will only indirectly harm me, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t sign that petition. And sharing it, of course!
This, perhaps, interests some if not many in here as well. http://www.facebook.com/cynicalbrit/posts/10150472748921053
A somewhat different take on what these bills may mean for us, but he’s got some great points (IMO, but hey, what do I know).
Better add Protect the IP up there too. That’s the next bill coming up that’s like SOPA/PIPPA.
“Reddit helped explain it a little better”
Oh, THIS is why you believe SOPA will actually do anything.
Listen, Reddit is full of paranoid individuals that don’t understand well enough. As a friend of mine put it, it’s politicians that don’t understand the internet, and internet users that don’t understand politics.
Not only has the SOPA bill been put into delay for… what could be a very long time, but DNS blocking has also been removed from the bill – which is the only thing that was threatening sites like YouTube, Wikipedia, your comic site, etc etc. In fact, if it was passed right now, the only websites that would be gone would be foreign ones distributing illegal content.
Hey, I was just about to post an entry about SOPA on DeviantArt. I do a bit of video game fan art and wanted to put some input out there for my fellow artists. I loved the banner you have above today’s comic and was wondering if I could share it on DA?
Sorry for the delay; by all means! You’ll have to crop the comic out of it, though – it’s one big image – and it’ll be taken down late tonight. So grab it fast!
Thanks much. ^^ I’ve posted it here – http://timber-ridge.deviantart.com/art/We-re-Sorry-to-Interupt-Your-Scheduled-Program-280128844
Thank you, thank you, thank you! It’s so great to see my favorite places spreading the word on this. :)
So is maureen going to come out and explain all things good and bad like G.I. Joe? Hell, I bet G.I. Joe would fight this crap.I agree with our Canadian friend for the most part, I also read the reddit blog and yours here through Google reader and I have to say with great discontent that I live in TN, our congressmen agree with the others and although don’t understand the bill itself are following like blind sheep(also won’t take polite phone calls neither a one) so in that case what can we do?
In my lifetime, I have bought many thousands of dollars worth of legal content, perhaps several years’ wages worth. If you add up 50 years of movie tickets, LPs, tapes, CDs, DVDs and software, it’s not hard to imagine.
The creators and distributors of this content have become wealthy beyond all reasonable expectation. At some point, I decided that the owners; not just the creators but the descendants and buyers of this material; no longer deserve that much of my hard-earned money. A decent living; even a good living; but not enough to kill themselves with an excess of plastic surgery and designer drugs.
Therefore, I have no qualms about downloading a few decades-old sitcoms I happen to be nostalgic about but object to paying $150 for a boxed set. My two cents.
Danielle,
Please don’t be sorry for non-US, this is as important to us as it is you. These bills are quite clearly designed to go beyond US borders and that’s why it needs an international backlash against it.
Blocking search engines, stopping payments, and disabling advertising only on the flimsy premise of a US copyright holder filing a piece of paper saying a foreign site is being naughty based upon US law and only US law; doesn’t matter if the site is 100% legal in the country of origin or not. Yeah, that’s not good for anyone.
I messaged my Senators, messaged my congressman, and out of my district congressman (Ron Paul, cause he is pro constitution, and these acts will violate our 1st ammendment rights), and asked them to vote down PIPA and SOPA. Sadly all I’ve received is a generic “we got your message” response letter from one and a “I will consider your views on the matter” response (it did at least mention PIPA specifically).
The internet promotes creativity, artistic and philosophical exprssion, exchanges of ideas, and allows Americans to peaceably assemble despite being spread across the continent and even across oceans… that is our 1st ammendment right, and it states no laws can be passes to deny us those, so neither act is legal.
I like your sentiments. But, I dislike how you say “and allows americans to peaceably assemble”. These “things” (ugh) have the ability to affect more than just america, and i for one am glad that my internet doesn’t need borders. At the moment.
We are not the end all be all, and we damn well should NOT be the world police. I am telling you this right now.
Because as an american myself, i say that when that day comes to pass that america decides to police the entire world, i personally think god will step in and say
“orly”?
My statement was meant to use the wording of the US 1st Ammendment, whic protects those rights. Yes, I agree this affects everyone(well, maybe not the Amish, but that is just nitpicking), but sadly, not everyone is yet extended the rights addressed in the US Constitution, however, if an act violates the rights of a US citizen, locally and abroad, then we can stop that act via the terms set in the Constitution. :) I think everyone deserves those rights.
SOPA, PIPA etc all really bad, shouldn’t happen, massive overegged peice of estate grabbing crap etc.
But the point is noone should be sharing copyrighted materials whether that be music or photos. That we have had nearly 20 years of being able to do it (which has allowed the web to grow the way it has) isn’t the point. Just because you get away with a crime doesn’t mean it’s alright or indeed suddenly legal.
Yes, correct, which is why my friend’s older brother went to jail for making and selling bootleg dvds of movies, many of which were in theatres still at the time. Due process, the right to face one’s accussor, a trial by peers, and innocence until proven guilty are all protected rights. Innocent people should not have to suffer for the deeds of criminals. We had an era where an act like these brought termoil, chaos, and fear to the nation, it was called the McCarthy era. We don’t need another witch hunt where people can abuse the system to opress the masses. This would be McCarthism on a global scale. Heck, your screen name is a vioaltion of actor Martin Lawrence’s IP, cause he named his show Martin, and cause you posted here, Girlswithslingshots would be closed for it.
Regarding the actual comic 1313. “Every publication I’ve worked for is dead”, every call center I’ve worked for left the country. It makes me hesitant to apply to new ones. :)
Hope you don’t mind but I copied some of the information you wrote (especially the links) to put up and share. I did credit you. The more people that know and take action the better.
I’ve noticed something kinda similar in my town. Every business I applied for a summer job in a year ago is now closed.
I didn’t ever get that summer job. Serves them right for not hiring me :p.
Sry…I seemingly clicked the wrong reply link. That was meant for Kisai’s post.
The most worrisome part of these bills is they will likely kill innovation and commerce on the internet in North America. The people who will benefit have the money to buy ( ok “lobby”) the US law makers, but do not produce anything new.
One problem is that any unilateral action by the US will affect all of North America if they muck around in the guts of the internet.
This is what China and Iran do to stifle free access to information.
A possible reaction by the rest of the world will be to just ignore the US and ‘outsource’ all the mechanics to somewhere else. This would allow them to continue to prosper, while the US 1% and all of us fall back into dark ages.
The rest of the world is rapidly passing the US and Canada in internet accessibility (speed and cost) while no body will update ancient infrastructure here, but will instead increase share holder dividends. Again, money to non-producers.