Dont artists make enough money as it is?
I know music is only half the problem, but still...

this will pass, maybe not this year, but it will pass. it will keep coming back re-named until it does.

Maybe an independent network not under the thumb of know-nothing politicians and the kind of lawyer willing to hit students with million-dollar fines for downloading, what, 22 songs was it? - gawd, between the pols and the lawyers, they don't care what or who they damage.

By the way, if you look up how much the artists make from their recordings - they mostly don't. Their income is from personal appearances. The copyrights, for the most part, are owned not by the artists but by the kind of people who hire those lawyers, and believe me, they're not artists.

The whole situation is disgusting. And the pols want it to continue. Meh.

I couldn't agree more!

we only have ourselves to blame.

corporations will not allow theft to carry on unabated.

not that they are not thieves themselves

Its time for Google to start spending some of that Google money already. Enough of this nonsense.
Hollywood has spent like $91,000,000 alone this year on lobbyists and politicians. Was reported Google spent like only 3 mil. Wtf??

Google its time to play the game! Stop being so cheap and start paying off any and all politicians and lobbyists to do your bidding to have the courts in your favor. This SOPA bill is proof that spending money on politicians works for Hollywood.

Google, its time to start spending money to gain influence in congress!

perhaps by the time this passes, America will be enough of a broken third-world economy that any bills they pass wont matter anyway.

As long as people keep voting for the corrupt-to-their-core Democrats/Republicans, they'll keep losing their rights. While I disagree with these voters, they should be free to keep voting themselves into a corporatist state.

This sounds familiar

"such legislation would engender censorship that will simultaneously be circumvented by deliberate infringers while hampering innocent parties’ right and ability to communicate and express themselves online."

Any of you who are gun owners in the US will find that quote from the article a bit familiar in that the bad guys, with guns or regarding piracy will circumvent the law while only honest, well meaning citizens will be adversely affected.

Politicians just don't have a clue when it comes to guns OR the internet!

"Politicians just don't have a clue when it comes to guns OR the internet!"

hrowder, you are wrong on both accounts:

take away your guns = control without fear of rebellion.
take away freedom of speech = control without fear of rebellion.

To the guest who responded: I was implying by the "don't have a clue" statement that the politicians don't truly understand the will of the people. Taking away the 1st or 2nd Amendment will in due time lead to just such a rebellion, but even short of that will in a shorter time lead to protest of a magnitude they cannot imagine. There are at least 80 million gun owners in this country, and certainly twice that many internet users. The will not all remain quiescent.

"Politicians just don't have a clue when it comes to guns OR the internet!"

hrowder, you are wrong on both accounts:

take away your guns = control without fear of rebellion.
take away freedom of speech = control without fear of rebellion.



What??

They don't have to take anything away, there already is zero fear of rebellion. We Americans (well, the majority of us, and that's what matters; also, I am not excluded in this statement) are FAR too lazy and/or worried about what's going on in our lives to be concerned with a silly rebellion. There will never again be a revolution in this country, on any appreciable scale. Those corporate fatcats in control have nothing to fear- they've had us by the balls for decades, and all we can really do now is just ride it out and hope things don't get too much worse, until the future leaders being raised now are in a position to (hopefully) make GOOD changes when they ascend.
We may still have our 'freedoms' (and I mean that in the loosest sense possible), but we don't have any actual power. Look at OWS. Accomplished NOTHING. Enviable, yes, but not practical in any sense.

This is the thing, Artists aren't the one making money.

The ones you see "being rich" that's the publishing companies taking care of them most of the time.

Those companies also pay radio stations to spam their music, pretty much the reason music sucks nowadays.

the internet's anarchy is its greatest appeal and what made it explode in the first place.

LOL.. artists? Try recording industry instead. They get the bulk of it.

it is right .Google should be on-board now and hand out some payments to politicians as they were deprived of online profit stream and lobby-money for so long .As least they designed SOPA to get their pie from internet business .

Quote

"censorship that will simultaneously be circumvented by deliberate infringers while hampering innocent parties? right and ability to communicate and express themselves online."

Pass whatever bills you like. People get what they want. And as long as files can be shared across a network, they will.

So true!!

The bills will only allow some pencil pusher the opportunity to make a buck or two. The efforts some people go through to keep from making a honest living but yet they feel justified in pointing fingers.

Let me clarify the basis of my thoughts. This whole ordeal is wrapped around everyones desire for media we do not need to live our lives, while the main purpose behind it maybe to spy on everyone surfing the Internet. I question everyday why the necessities of life offer so little fortune but yet the non-necessities offer huge fortune. We as a society care more for things we do not need than we do for things we do need.