How does SOPA threaten Stack Overflow?

I was once the registered DMCA agent for a large organization. All of the registered agents are listed on the US Copyright's Office website so that rights holders can look-up the names and addresses to send notices when an IP address within that organization is found to have content that is thought to be infringing (P2P, music, movies, etc).<p>Fewer than 1 in 10 came to me (the person registered to receive the notices). Subcontractors working on behalf of rights holders would send notices to any email address that they could find. Some went to retired employees, transferred employees, etc. It got so bad that we put a comment in ARIN that specified the agent's contact address to try and stop it. Didn't work.<p>The DMCA requires a proper notice be sent to the registered agent and grants the organization safe-harbor. It is very well defined. Here is the official list of registered agents (the one and only list... but DMCA subcontractors don't read it):<p><a href="http://www.copyright.gov/onlinesp/list/a_agents.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.copyright.gov/onlinesp/list/a_agents.html</a>

I participated in the recent EFF push for contacting elected representatives regarding SOPA. I customized their pre-packaged letter greatly, adding both my experience and qualifications and expounding on the distrust from the tech industry to SOPA.<p>The response from my (Republican) Congressman was a form letter telling me I was wrong, and regurgitating a the pro-SOPA talking points.<p>I've been contemplating a rather severe letter in response, but I haven't gotten to it as I don't believe anything I can say to him will be effective.

Did anyone ever think we'd see the day where we were using DMCA as an example of the preferrable alternative?

Thanksgiving was the cutesy (but needed) Upgrade Your Parents' Browser Day.<p>$winter_holiday_of_choice should include a Explain SOPA To Your Parents Lunch or something - we need to get as many level-headed against SOPA as possible.

The fact that its even possible for this law to be considered should give people another hint at how dangerous and negligent our "representatives" are. Other obvious hints are apparent also, such as the Patriot Act and about 100 other things I won't mention.<p>People just need to face reality. Its a corrupt system. The government is full of fraudsters and even mass murderers. I know its hard to accept that, but that's the truth.<p>The other problem is that its the very structure of our government and society that creates these outcomes over and over again.<p>We need to do some agile engineering on society, starting from base premises.

This is great but surely we need to be targeting a wider audience? SO is made up of tech enthusiasts, I imagine a large percentage of them have heard of SOPA and understand the issues. However they probably represent a tiny fraction of the population.<p>Really we need the eBay's, AOL's and Craiglist's of this world to be running campaigns like this, getting the message out to the more casual internet user.

Odd they didn't do this on the day that every other site did. Or has it been up since then?

The whole SOPA and PROTECT IP thing is a power play to leverage the Internet community into a compromise which would allow the acceptance of a removal of anonymous internet usage.

Very good, I already had a lot of respect for SO now I have a lot more!

The global internet is quickly becoming a more powerful entity than all the rulers in Congress. Congress will not stop trying to put a leash on it. The more powerful the internet gets, the more you will see Congress trying anything to establish control. Child pornography, digital rights, copyright, Chinese hackers, national security, containing the terrorists, fud... Congress will use military force if necessary if the global internet challenges its supreme authority as global sovreign. Which one day it will.

I'm used to seeing a close button on these types of messages on Stack Overflow. Kind of a nuisance to have it stuck there even after I've signed the petition. Maybe if it were a different color, or I hadn't been trained to read all of the yellow status messages on each SO page, it would be less annoying..