Sorry long post I promise it's no conspiracist crap like Racer X and I know it's hard to read I'm very tired and blah 
But it's worth a read I think..
I have 600GB of downloaded movies, TV shows etc, not ashamed of it. Most of them are fairly old (eg Knight Rider original series) which you can't buy anymore (not easily at least) and the people who make it are not making money any more from it anyway, the remaining majority is made up of items which I already have (or have had and since lost) on DVD and want to have them in one easy to find location for ease of viewing on my home PC.
If these publicists and production agencies made it easy for me to transfer, episode by episode, a Season of 24 for example, from DVD to my Computer, then I wouldn't have to download them again via Torrent. Yes I could rip them from the DVD but to RIP, edit file names and process the data raw from DVDs using programs which cost ME money then I will just download it. Technically this is copyright breach because believe it or not when you buy a DVD it's not actually "yours". It allows you (and technically only you, the purchaser) to watch the film on your own device in private.
Technically lending a CD, movie or game to a friend is a copyright breach. Watching it with your family is a copyright breach, if you have several music CDs and compile them onto a CD-R to play in your car, that's copyright breach. Hell technically you can only use it on one playback device ever so you should have one copy for your computer DVD drive and one for your home cinema in the lounge...otherwise oh guess what that's a copyright breach.
There is no grey areas when it comes to this - you are either within the terms of usage license and thus in compliance with copyright or you are not and you aren't.
I think the only shows I have which I haven't bought are The Wire and Torchwood, mainly because from reading online, seeing clips here and there, the shows seem good but I want to watch them properly hence why I downloaded them. If they are very good I will go and buy one from HMV.
What people don't realise is that SOPA isn't so much about the copyright, it's about control. And money.
I was reading about some 12 year old who downloaded an Album and got caught. The people who were suing her were filing for damages of $150,000 PER TRACK I shit you not.
Now I don't now if they ended up having to pay but I was reading a family were charged about $34,000 for downloading of illegal softwares over a 3 year period. The Mum and Dad didn't know, it was the 2 teenage boys who did it. Now how are you telling me that's just; fair; morally right; it's not it's ****ed up in every sense of the term.
When a record company signs an artist for example, the people behind SOPA are saying that it's ruining their lives, when I read somewhere the AVERAGE income for someone in the Entertainment biz is $65k. I'm not talking about performing artists I'm talking about people who work at record labels, production studios, publishers, etc... even doing the advertising on the street with leaflets about shows..so that covers from $5 an hour workers to $5000 an hour CEOs...
That's like £35k which is a VERY comfortable living and could just about support Yourself, your spouse and 2 children, even if the spouse was unemployed. Even if the spouse was on a minimum wage job you would have a joint income of around £55k which is above the UK national average of around £45k. This is new car every 2 years, holiday every year, keep up with technology amounts of money to live on.
They claim it's bad for the performing artist, well it's not really. I was reading somewhere (can't remember) and apparently, for example - Lilly Allen's recording deal was only worth about £40k a year. A good salary but far from the hundreds of thousands you would expect. She made the rest of her money (as in the hundreds of thousands you imagine) by doing live performances, merchandise, and brand associations etc, that's where the money is at. If a label dropped an artist they would either publish it independently (which isn't as hard as you would think especially with iTunes and digital downloading which is what 90% of song purchases are nowadays)
Most artists are grateful you even listen to their music, they generally don't care if you download/torrent it...these Artists include Jean Grae, Wiley.
When Drakes latest album "take care" was leaked he tweeted this in response : “Listen, enjoy it, buy it if you like it…” - and J.Cole is in favour as well...these are all well known artists in their specific genres and Drake and J.Cole are commercial artists.. OH NO A COMMERCIAL ARTIST WHO ISN'T AGAINST PIRACY IT'S ALL A LIE. Well no it isn't really.
Drake's Take Care album leaked online about a week before release (I think) and it was one of the MOST downloaded torrents that week, after only a few hours the torrent had about 6000 seeds..close to 20000 peers. Oh my god you might think but no, it was a #1 album. A similar story happened with J.Cole..his leaked album went to #1. Thus proving that tormenting does not necessarily equal loss of sale.
Say Bob wanted Drakes album but was poor or a cheapskate..he goes to download it, it finishes, he listens and is happy - all done.
However if Bob wanted to download Drakes album but was poor or a cheapskate, he goes to download it and SOPA says "NO Y U BANNED U NO DOWNLOAD", would Bob then go out and buy the CD? Or get it from iTunes? IN ALMOST EVERY INSTANCE BOB WOULD NOT.
It's more than just downloading of music, movies and games as well. Any image which has copyright, the ENTIRE site which links to it, can be SHUT DOWN. Without question or legal proceedings. So say I have a blog which has hundreds of posts and in one of them I posted a picture something (innocently) which some poorly written computer code deems is copyrighted. My blog could then be shut down completely. Not the offending post removed, but shut down.
You know sites like Tumblr, etc, which people have made GIF images for TV shows, animations, captions, etc - ALL gone. You know people who sing along to songs on Youtube, or perform covers, ALL GONE. I could go on but I'm very tired and I think by now you get the picture. Probably about 70% of the functioning internet would be blacked out and gone, it's not an avoidable thing, it's things you would come across in an everyday browsing environment even if you aren't specifically looking for copyrighted material.
If this bill passes (and working in the IT industry and looking at it from an overall perspective) it would be hell for everyone. Yes a few bigwigs in congress and CEOs of Record Labels might get what they want but for us, the PEOPLE, we would certainly not. I mean look what happened when Sony/BMG music etc started interfering in Youtube. You post a video up of you and some friends in the car talking and you see a chicken trying to beat up an antelope or something. You video it but your Camera records a song playing in the background. You can't cut off the audio because you'll not hear the squawks of the Chicken or your funny commentary. Your video can (and I know this because it's happened to me) and/or will be REMOVED and you will be told to reupload either without Audio or without the "copyrighted material". - Because every spontaneous moment in live we can sit there and go "oh right hold up before we film there are no copyrighted materials in this right? no music or pictures, references or phrases? ok...good..let's go" the moment would have gone.
I very much doubt the bill will pass though, because even if the bill "passes", it needs to be veto'd by the President and brought into written law. It could pass a million times over in Congress but if the president says no then...we'll all be fine. Knowing Obama I feel he would not pass the bill. He has shown in the to clearly want to appeal to the younger generations and I think almost everyone who is a user of the internet (so perhaps say 75% of America) and who uses it regularly and to it's full capacity (say 50% that original 75%) is against this bill.
I would imagine congress have already recieved hundreds of thousands, if not millions of letters, emails, e-petitions etc which are protesting against this bill, logistically it simply won't pass.
But it's worth a read I think..I have 600GB of downloaded movies, TV shows etc, not ashamed of it. Most of them are fairly old (eg Knight Rider original series) which you can't buy anymore (not easily at least) and the people who make it are not making money any more from it anyway, the remaining majority is made up of items which I already have (or have had and since lost) on DVD and want to have them in one easy to find location for ease of viewing on my home PC.
If these publicists and production agencies made it easy for me to transfer, episode by episode, a Season of 24 for example, from DVD to my Computer, then I wouldn't have to download them again via Torrent. Yes I could rip them from the DVD but to RIP, edit file names and process the data raw from DVDs using programs which cost ME money then I will just download it. Technically this is copyright breach because believe it or not when you buy a DVD it's not actually "yours". It allows you (and technically only you, the purchaser) to watch the film on your own device in private.
Technically lending a CD, movie or game to a friend is a copyright breach. Watching it with your family is a copyright breach, if you have several music CDs and compile them onto a CD-R to play in your car, that's copyright breach. Hell technically you can only use it on one playback device ever so you should have one copy for your computer DVD drive and one for your home cinema in the lounge...otherwise oh guess what that's a copyright breach.
There is no grey areas when it comes to this - you are either within the terms of usage license and thus in compliance with copyright or you are not and you aren't.
I think the only shows I have which I haven't bought are The Wire and Torchwood, mainly because from reading online, seeing clips here and there, the shows seem good but I want to watch them properly hence why I downloaded them. If they are very good I will go and buy one from HMV.
What people don't realise is that SOPA isn't so much about the copyright, it's about control. And money.
I was reading about some 12 year old who downloaded an Album and got caught. The people who were suing her were filing for damages of $150,000 PER TRACK I shit you not.
Now I don't now if they ended up having to pay but I was reading a family were charged about $34,000 for downloading of illegal softwares over a 3 year period. The Mum and Dad didn't know, it was the 2 teenage boys who did it. Now how are you telling me that's just; fair; morally right; it's not it's ****ed up in every sense of the term.
When a record company signs an artist for example, the people behind SOPA are saying that it's ruining their lives, when I read somewhere the AVERAGE income for someone in the Entertainment biz is $65k. I'm not talking about performing artists I'm talking about people who work at record labels, production studios, publishers, etc... even doing the advertising on the street with leaflets about shows..so that covers from $5 an hour workers to $5000 an hour CEOs...
That's like £35k which is a VERY comfortable living and could just about support Yourself, your spouse and 2 children, even if the spouse was unemployed. Even if the spouse was on a minimum wage job you would have a joint income of around £55k which is above the UK national average of around £45k. This is new car every 2 years, holiday every year, keep up with technology amounts of money to live on.
They claim it's bad for the performing artist, well it's not really. I was reading somewhere (can't remember) and apparently, for example - Lilly Allen's recording deal was only worth about £40k a year. A good salary but far from the hundreds of thousands you would expect. She made the rest of her money (as in the hundreds of thousands you imagine) by doing live performances, merchandise, and brand associations etc, that's where the money is at. If a label dropped an artist they would either publish it independently (which isn't as hard as you would think especially with iTunes and digital downloading which is what 90% of song purchases are nowadays)
Most artists are grateful you even listen to their music, they generally don't care if you download/torrent it...these Artists include Jean Grae, Wiley.
When Drakes latest album "take care" was leaked he tweeted this in response : “Listen, enjoy it, buy it if you like it…” - and J.Cole is in favour as well...these are all well known artists in their specific genres and Drake and J.Cole are commercial artists.. OH NO A COMMERCIAL ARTIST WHO ISN'T AGAINST PIRACY IT'S ALL A LIE. Well no it isn't really.
Drake's Take Care album leaked online about a week before release (I think) and it was one of the MOST downloaded torrents that week, after only a few hours the torrent had about 6000 seeds..close to 20000 peers. Oh my god you might think but no, it was a #1 album. A similar story happened with J.Cole..his leaked album went to #1. Thus proving that tormenting does not necessarily equal loss of sale.
Say Bob wanted Drakes album but was poor or a cheapskate..he goes to download it, it finishes, he listens and is happy - all done.
However if Bob wanted to download Drakes album but was poor or a cheapskate, he goes to download it and SOPA says "NO Y U BANNED U NO DOWNLOAD", would Bob then go out and buy the CD? Or get it from iTunes? IN ALMOST EVERY INSTANCE BOB WOULD NOT.
It's more than just downloading of music, movies and games as well. Any image which has copyright, the ENTIRE site which links to it, can be SHUT DOWN. Without question or legal proceedings. So say I have a blog which has hundreds of posts and in one of them I posted a picture something (innocently) which some poorly written computer code deems is copyrighted. My blog could then be shut down completely. Not the offending post removed, but shut down.
You know sites like Tumblr, etc, which people have made GIF images for TV shows, animations, captions, etc - ALL gone. You know people who sing along to songs on Youtube, or perform covers, ALL GONE. I could go on but I'm very tired and I think by now you get the picture. Probably about 70% of the functioning internet would be blacked out and gone, it's not an avoidable thing, it's things you would come across in an everyday browsing environment even if you aren't specifically looking for copyrighted material.
If this bill passes (and working in the IT industry and looking at it from an overall perspective) it would be hell for everyone. Yes a few bigwigs in congress and CEOs of Record Labels might get what they want but for us, the PEOPLE, we would certainly not. I mean look what happened when Sony/BMG music etc started interfering in Youtube. You post a video up of you and some friends in the car talking and you see a chicken trying to beat up an antelope or something. You video it but your Camera records a song playing in the background. You can't cut off the audio because you'll not hear the squawks of the Chicken or your funny commentary. Your video can (and I know this because it's happened to me) and/or will be REMOVED and you will be told to reupload either without Audio or without the "copyrighted material". - Because every spontaneous moment in live we can sit there and go "oh right hold up before we film there are no copyrighted materials in this right? no music or pictures, references or phrases? ok...good..let's go" the moment would have gone.
I very much doubt the bill will pass though, because even if the bill "passes", it needs to be veto'd by the President and brought into written law. It could pass a million times over in Congress but if the president says no then...we'll all be fine. Knowing Obama I feel he would not pass the bill. He has shown in the to clearly want to appeal to the younger generations and I think almost everyone who is a user of the internet (so perhaps say 75% of America) and who uses it regularly and to it's full capacity (say 50% that original 75%) is against this bill.
I would imagine congress have already recieved hundreds of thousands, if not millions of letters, emails, e-petitions etc which are protesting against this bill, logistically it simply won't pass.
