This doesn't seem to be working for me, when I visit some of Scribd's varied completely legitimate content.<p>Like this 288 page book, found in seconds on Google (does Kernighan still work there?) , which I guess must be in public domain, right? <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/59247191/PRENTICE-HALL-The-C-Programming-Language-Second-Edition" rel="nofollow">http://www.scribd.com/doc/59247191/PRENTICE-HALL-The-C-Progr...</a><p>Just how much of Scribd's value comes from books like this?
Serious question, here. How difficult would it be for anti-SOPA corporations and supporters to block congressional IP addresses?<p>Assumption (possibly incorrect) on my part that it would be fairly easy to identify blocks and ranges of congressional IP addresses, and that it would be legal to block them in the first place.
I've never really understood how SOPA will deal with websites that are indisputably multi-use. I don't think anyone could, with a straight face, argue that Scribd doesn't have a significant amount of non-copyright infringing use (unlike Napster, which was close to 99%+ copyright infringing by volume) - thought it does have a significant component of copyright infringements that rights holders are always having to stamp out with DMCA takedown requests.<p>So - what to do with sites like Scribd, post SOPA? Just blacklist the entire site because it gets a lot of DMCA requests?<p>What do the SOPA proponents (do we have _ANY_ of those on HN, I really would love to be educated by them) have to say about that?
We as the internet should do everything in our power to mute Congress. Encourage Twitter and Facebook other social networks to shutdown their accounts for a day. Show them that their laws impact them as well.
There are sooo many factors about this that its hard to make a point that covers everything, and its had to stay partial when explaining your point. From reading the comments etc and various reports about SOPA, it seems everyone is going on about the music companies rather than the artists they represent. IMO the music companies are the ones who have been making the money off of someone else's talent for a long time now, perhaps taking more than their fair share. Do I feel sorry for the profit driven record labels? No I don’t. Its no coincidence that all of the richest artists in the world are the ones who have built their own record labels and cut out the middle man, and hats off to them, the ones with the talent are the ones who should make the biggest share. With the opening of apple's itunes it gave (even the smallest) artists the chance of putting their content on the internet to buy, without having to necessarily deal with the companies who have have been making millions/billions off them for years.. Several artists (and i would go as far as saying most) have now accepted that downloading music is the new norm and itunes is the way to keep the money coming in, whilst also being able to appeal to the masses. When you read (<a href="https://torrentfreak.com/swiss-govt-downloading-movies-and-music-will-stay-legal-111202/)then" rel="nofollow">https://torrentfreak.com/swiss-govt-downloading-movies-and-m...</a> take into account that alot of music artists have actually uploaded their own albums to torrent sites prior to release to gain attention, it would seem the artists know exactly how to play the market. I can truthfully say I have been to many gigs I wouldn’t have known about etc had I not downloaded the artists albums, I have also bought merchandise as a result of this.<p>then you read something like <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/retired-computerless-woman-fined-for-pirating-hooligan-movie-111222/" rel="nofollow">https://torrentfreak.com/retired-computerless-woman-fined-fo...</a> , and realise this is what would happen if the music companies had their way. Profit at any costs, even when it cant even be proven that any crime has been breached.<p>At the end of the day I see the music companies fighting a losing battle (the megalupload takedown certainly didnt help), the musicians still "making it rich" and the consumers who buy music STILL buying music, though direct from the musician, thats why the companies are trying to have this act passed.
I would be interested in seeing some stats on number and % of unique visitors that clicked on the 'call now' or 'write now' buttons. ( see: <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/75153093/Tribe-Legis-Memo-on-SOPA-12-6-11-1" rel="nofollow">http://www.scribd.com/doc/75153093/Tribe-Legis-Memo-on-SOPA-...</a> )
Good start.<p>For maximum impact: Google should disable all of its public facing web servers for a week.<p>I think Congress would get its act together pretty darn quickly if there were no Google search or GMail.
I applaud all of these anti-SOPA efforts. What I can't figure out is why our legislators are hell bent on passing this thing.<p>I've not heard of a single rational person being individually in favor of this bill. Now, that certainly doesn't mean there aren't any, but by and large I would be willing to bet that the vast majority of US citizens are either ambivalent or in opposition when it comes to SOPA. The only groups that are for this bill, so far as I can tell, are big content providers and their lobbies.<p>If almost no one is in favor of a piece of legislation, and there are millions vehemently opposed to it, why in God's name is it still being considered? Is it really just so certain Congressman can collect money from the proponents of the bill? That seems far too cynical to be accurate. If there's more truth in that statement than false, I think we owe it to ourselves to never re-elect a single sitting member of this Congress.<p>The longer I live, the more ashamed I become of the United States government.
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