bandwagons scare you, but this doesn't?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzqMoOk9NWc

If google really put their money where their mouth is, they'd black out their site for at least an hour. Or are they afraid of losing revenue?

I understand why people are scared. The govt could shut down any site that has copyrighted material or links to it. That includes a TON of sites. But the govt can also pull you over for driving 2 MPH over the speed limit, and it never happens. Google and Wikipedia also had the very easy defense of 'our site is not supposed to be used for piracy, but we can't control what people search for etc.' Just like they don't outlaw steak knives because someone got killed with one once. They'd probably just have a disclaimer on their site.

I wish it had been voted on so we would have learned which politicians supported it. then we could vote em out. Now we don't know, and (as mentioned) it might be slipped in slowly in future bills.

It also really annoyed me how wikipedia shut down their site. Stick it to the poor kid who's got a project due at school?! Google is at least considerate and doesn't put their own business plan over the need of the public to use their site.

I'm not much on politics or the the elected *******s in office,,, this was smoke and mirrors BS,,, it is the lobbyist that pay our elected officials to bend over in favor of there wishes,,, It is like this,,, if it is fun for us then they want to find a way to make money off of it,,, occupy wall street is still going on because none of the big banks have changed any single thing they do,,, JOBS are how they control us,,, you want to get real attention,,, then stop spending your money,,, all in the name of the newest and best toys that are nothing but pure crap,,, play kick the can for a while and see what happens,,, OIL yeah we need it, only because the brightest IDEALS have been brought up and hidden from us,,, cars that can get 100 miles to a gallon has been around for years,,, now who would not what that,,, hard to figure that one out... Protect not yourself,,, but the future of your KIDS,,, I could go on and on about all the things I have seen and have been taken a way from us,,, because they see us as poms on the chess board,,, they are always 3 moves ahead of what we know and that is why they fear the INTERNET,,, we get the news in real time before it can be white washed before it gets on TV,,, wikileaks open the door,,, lets keep it open... PEACE from the 70's

If you are going to protest, do it now!! The Justice of US Department has already blocked Megavideo and there will be no hope if the Justice of US Department keeps going on like this until February. By the February is here, most websites will be block.

All you had to do was disable Javascript and you could use the site just fine. Or use Google cache, or use a different language version of Wikipedia. Not hard to do, in fact they even explained the workarounds if you bothered to click "Learn more" on the block page.

By the way, thanks for that video mattfrompa.

Issues with this argument:

1) Driving over the speed limit is the literal definition of breaking the law, if you go 2MPH over though it is very hard to tell. meanwhile, hosting a blog with a youtube video embedded, and there's a video on youtube which is violating copyright, could lead to your website being permanently removed from you within a week unless you can delete all the copyright videos on youtube. This is a retarded law, so shouldn't pass.

2) The law specifically makes the 'our site is not supposed to be used for piracy, but we can't control what people search for' defense invalid, it places the responsibility on the site owner not the user.

3) your argument can be summed up as "I trust the government to not use this to it's advantage" which is a rather silly idea based on past experience.

<I>Au contraire.</I> Poor observation.

My analogy would have been erroneous if its intent was to demonstrate how the process of one is parallel to the other. But it wasn't.

The purpose of the analogy was to showcase how imminent danger to something has been (directly or indirectly) made known to someone, and to suggest that the matter is of great importance, and therefore action is something which must be taken with haste. Clearly, in my analogy, the "man" was not asking for votes to burn the house down.

We also don't know <i>why</i> the man wants to burn the house down, something that shows distinct disparity with the analogous reality--but still doesn't diminish its urgency--, as unlike the very reality, due to our political structure, we <i>do</i> know why this piece of legislation wants to be passed. Which leads me to the heart of the reason for the blackouts/protests:

We know what it entails for our future, as we've seen/read worse.

It's not that the Internet is suddenly up in arms just because... its because we know that the legislation could potentially blur the line between "law" and "corporate interest." You know, more than it already has. The legislation threatens the freedom of an open medium; it is clearly a (purposely written) broad legislation, one which its supposed reason of being is clear, but its applications and consequent effects are inconspicuous to say the very, very least.

We are not talking politics, or how the political framework works (or how much do regular joes know about it), but rather me challenging you, on why do you feel there's supposedly a "right" time to exercise democratic debate? Why should we wait until it reaches the president's desk? We shouldn't, because there's no "right" time to act when there's imminent danger. (In this context, of course.)

People have seen the MPAA and RIAA unjustly suing, and demanding ridiculous amount of money from whoever is in their way for years. From 12-year old girls, to families even without computers. SOPA/PIPA was simply a more "formal", broad way to do it. People didn't just react to it because it had a chance of passing, but because it all <i>had</i> to be stopped.

Alternatively, because the Internet was originally developed in the United States with federal money, the US government enjoys disproportionate influence over Internet governance. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is based in the United States, as are the majority of the DNS root servers and the registries for popular top-level domains like “.com” and “.org.” The US government passing such legislation could have greatly compromised the open medium that the Internet is, and all negative effects would have undoubtedly fell upon those countries that follow us. In other words, it would have spread like a virus.

If you look close, the conversation is not so much asking that SOPA/PIPA be vetoed, but more that nothing like it should ever come up again. And they are listening.

Its not called the privilege of free speech. It's the RIGHT to free speech. Having a government that could censor any website for any reason would no doubt lead to them abusing that and censoring anything that went against their ideals or conflicted with their agendas.

Following that logic, it would make more sense to wait until it was too late to do anything about it to take action against SOPA instead of taking the initiative and fighting back while we can?

The difference is that Bush's invasion of Iraq was not accepted by everyone as the right path to take and the initial effect on Americans was minimal. With SOPA, and how integrated that the internet has become, if the bill passed it would affect ALL Americans in a negative way.

Those big internet companies are the ones who are main resources on the internet. Its not a business move to protest SOPA, its a common sense move in a nation that is continuously losing more and more of the freedom that was promised and declared a right when America was founded. I would rather get behind "the big internet companies" who know what they are talking about since it is literally their business to understand the internet than the politicians who openly admitted that they don't even understand how the internet works.

Yes, we were all part of something big and important. We were all part of fighting to retain our rights in a country that's moving farther from democracy and closer to a totalitarian state every day. If we let them take one right away, whats to stop them from taking the rest? That sounds pretty big and important to me.

Im glad the peoples opinion beat the legal bribes (lobbyists), this rarely happens. Round 1 the people, round 2 entertainment industries bribes? Hope not!

How and the Hell can you call yourself intelligent?! Yes, companies are protesting and people are hopping on the bandwagon, but not because they are just blindly following a big movement such as this. Yes, people are more keen to follow when it has to deal with corruption of the government. You act like this corruption thing just surfaced. When in fact, it has been boiling for years just waiting for the right time to pop. There has been many complaints across many websites these past few years about corruption of the government and organizations. However, nobody wanted to be the one to make a stand and now that there is ground to stand on, more people are joining the fight.

Many sites have already posted what SOPA and PIPA will do to the internet. Yes, everybody will not understand all the ramifications that these bills will enforce. However, most people will understand just enough of these bills to know that it is violating their freedom and that they need to protect their freedom. If the people had waited till it reached the president and in fact, he was in favor, it would have been too late. That's why bills go to him, so he can sign and pass them, or veto them, whatever the case may be. Opposing the bill while it's in congress is probably the smartest thing that was done. On another note, the internet does not belong to any one country. If you like the government so much, why don't you go work for them, and quit raining on everyone's parade.

If that poor kid had a project due and he relied on wikipedia as his only source, then he deserves whatever he gets. There are these awesome places called "libraries." Great places to go and do research. Oh, and there is also this thing called the "internet." It has a LOT of information in MULTIPLE places on any given subject. If some kid was too stupid to not look elsewhere, that's his/her problem.

milwaukeemike said:
&quot;IIt also really annoyed me how wikipedia shut down their site. Stick it to the poor kid who's got a project due at school?! Google is at least considerate and doesn't put their own business plan over the need of the public to use their site.&quot;(sic)

Don't you read the donation thing on top of the Wikipedia page, they're running out of money, a day to shtdown their site means money saved.

Wow, what a great evolution for humanity Facebook is! Great example! Is that what socializing is these days.. ? Bored people having nothing to discuss with each other most of the time and just posting what they just did, with no one asking them to? Someone must really be thankful for that wealth of information, even if to the posters it means nothing. And to the people posting it: you are becoming less human everyday, hooked to your fake lives even in the subway on your smartphone, with real people all around you. Carpe diem.