The world as we know it revolves around social networking. We have become so dependent upon such sites as Facebook, and twitter, that a lot of people can't go a single day without checking one of them. It is pretty sickening to me, because I myself am guilty of these same perverse addictions. I wish that sites that weren't so addicting (such as xanga and myspace) were still popular, that way I might have found some more productive means for my time. I feel like our generation has been edging closer and closer to becoming a society that doesn't physically interact with each other anymore, and that scares the heck out of me.
I find the existence of Twitter to be disheartening. Facebook already had the whole status update thing going on for a while. Then Twitter came along and made it so their site had status's that were readable by anyone,anywhere, with no privacy, and people ate it up. Why were people so excited to share their thoughts and stupid saying with people around the world, when they could have just done that with their friends in person or even on facebook if need be!? I don't understand kids these days, I feel like i'm becoming that old grandpa that looks on at the kids in the park and shakes his head at how easy they have things these days.
A popular meme/hashtag that has been going around is #firstworldproblems , I find it pretty insightful. alot of these kids are growing up with social networking sites being their primary means of communication. I'm not saying that I'm immune so some of these problems, but at least I lived through land lines, and AOL being popular ways of staying in touch. Kids have it too easy, events are created with a click of a mouse, happy birthdays are said by typing it out, nothing is personal anymore , everything lacks personality. If I had some sort of super power, I would eliminate social networking sites for about a week, just to let people feel what it was like to be without them for a little. Hopefully it would make some people (including myself) realize how dependent we are on them, and help bring personal contact back into our lives.
Monday, April 30, 2012
SNS
Boyed and Ellison defines SNS as web-based service with three characteristic: First, it can give out or get offer the information by introducing yourself to the public, or some groups of the people within a limited system, second, it form the list of the users that you want to build or keep the relationship, and third, it lets the users within the system to see or connect to the other users through network. It reflects desire of modern society members who want to retain their identity and not to be isolated from the social structure at the same time. It is similar to “blogs” but more focused on forming relationships. Thus, SNS is the outcome of the desire of mutual communication from one person to one person using information technology.
Boyed and Ellison claims that SNS needs to have at least three functions: One is that it needs to be created public or anti-public private profile or contents, two, it needs to enable to build a network by making relationships with other users, and three, based on the network, the site needs to work with information such as text and image and enable to offer the function that shares them and communicate through the website.Therefore, social media is the result of the technology of internet service and actions based on the user’s participation and share in web environment. As long as the service is based on the communication between users it can be categorized in social media.
I
started using internet since the Warez websites boom. I have enjoyed and found out
so many things through internet and now my goal is to be web designer. I love
internet. However, personally, I am not so into the SNS. Maybe it is because I
do not have the strong desire to be connected to the people all over the world.
I started using SNS to share my pictures with my friend and chat with them
outside school. Now, I use “Cyworld” to show my pictures here in NY to my
parents over there in Korea and “Facebook,” and “Kakaotalk” to communicate my
friends in Korea or some friend who cannot be reached by phone in certain
situation. As Boyed and Ellison pointed
out, I do not like to have relationship with strangers and I never felt
comfortable to share my daily thought and pictures online. I believe SNS has a
strong power. I still do not like to jump into the strong current yet. Even
though I accept friend request only the people I know, there are still
different degrees of trust I have for each person. I never cannot assume how my
photos would be recreated by unknown person with unknown purpose. Moreover, I
do not believe the relationship built upon online. I have seen and experienced
trouble caused by SNS friendships and that has affected the off-line
world. I am busy enough to manage my
social life in off-line and I feel connected enough to the people by seeing
them in person.
Connected
What I was going to focus my blog post on, which for me is the most profound impact SNS's have had, is the majority of Shirky's lecture; that is that social networks have reciprocated the role between producer and consumer.
Any citizen around the globe is now capable of distributing endless content. Breaking news is a new meaning when people experiencing an event can alert the world in seconds. I think this also makes the news more "true," or less biased. In such a case you are not getting the work of a reporter at the scene, you're reading or watching something that came from someone who is experiencing the event.
The roles are reversed.
Though, social networks have been around for a while (at least all of my life), I'm still amazed when I read, hear of , or see news from a citizen at the other end of the globe alerting the world of said event. I'm still taken back by the immediacy.
Or if it's not the immediacy of an occurring event, its the immediacy of some viral video or awareness. The ability to reach out to so many people, possibly the word, is mind boggling. I think in many ways the scope of the world has shrunk to the internet and at the same time given people a much wider view.
On a completely different note, one part of the Boyd & Ellison reading that I found peculiar is how certain SNS's have stuck in some countries and not others. And more so does the prevent how globally connected we are? If we were all on the same SNS would we be more "connected?" I wonder if there will ever be a universal SNS and if so how much more quickly will we be able to obtain information.
Any citizen around the globe is now capable of distributing endless content. Breaking news is a new meaning when people experiencing an event can alert the world in seconds. I think this also makes the news more "true," or less biased. In such a case you are not getting the work of a reporter at the scene, you're reading or watching something that came from someone who is experiencing the event.
The roles are reversed.
Though, social networks have been around for a while (at least all of my life), I'm still amazed when I read, hear of , or see news from a citizen at the other end of the globe alerting the world of said event. I'm still taken back by the immediacy.
Or if it's not the immediacy of an occurring event, its the immediacy of some viral video or awareness. The ability to reach out to so many people, possibly the word, is mind boggling. I think in many ways the scope of the world has shrunk to the internet and at the same time given people a much wider view.
On a completely different note, one part of the Boyd & Ellison reading that I found peculiar is how certain SNS's have stuck in some countries and not others. And more so does the prevent how globally connected we are? If we were all on the same SNS would we be more "connected?" I wonder if there will ever be a universal SNS and if so how much more quickly will we be able to obtain information.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Super SNS
Since I prematurely spoke about social network sites in my previous post, I thought I would narrow the scope and talk about Facebook and Twitter.
I had abstained from social network sites for a good while, following the decline of Xanga, Myspace, and Sconex. Engaging with my friends on those sites were pretty fun while it lasted. However, after a good while, I relapsed and decided that I needed to jump on the Facebook bandwagon. I joined Facebook around 2007, my sophomore year of high school. Like the aforementioned sites, I started off by filling out information for my profile, and started adding people that I knew to my Friends list. It was and still is a great way to network with people that I know and people that I may meet in the future. I would say 99% of the people in my Friends list are people I have interacted with before in person. The remaining 1% are people who are fairly higher on the social status ladder than the lay person (musicians, celebrities, etc.). I am less inclined to add someone as a friend if I have not interacted with the person in the flesh.
What I like most about Facebook is the long-term connection that is established when I friend somebody. I can keep in touch with people that I used to interact with and see what they are up to. Seeing pictures of people getting wasted the previous weekend or albums which feature pictures that are taken only 5 seconds apart make for great conversation pieces.
I do not see Facebook ever going out of style because you can do anything on it. You can share pictures and videos, play games, and interact with others. The fact that Facebook developers keep innovating the site to keep it invigorated is also a plus. Facebook Messenger in my opinion was a great add-on. Unless some other social network site becomes popular, Facebook will stand the test of time.
As for Twitter, I joined it when it was a little ahead of its time. The "Twitterverse" was first introduced to me in high school by my technology teacher. At first, my reaction was to look to my friend and say, "What the hell is this?" We both chuckled, because Twitter at the time was mostly white space. It was simply Facebook stripped down to only its "status" function. I had not used Twitter until most recently. Before I really made visiting the site a hobby, I did not see a point in joining the site because I was so tied to Facebook. However, that all changed when I wanted to interact with celebrities. I feel that with the boom of celebrity endorsements, joining Twitter has become a social phenomenon. Before Twitter, there were only a few ways to reach celebrities - via live chats, mail, and blogs (if they had them). The interaction between celebrities on Twitter and their fans can be paralleled to that of indie bands on Myspace and their fans, but to a much larger scale. Indie bands on Myspace sought to promote their music, but celebrities on Twitter are not out to promote themselves - they simply use the site like any other person, but with a vested economic interest.
Tweeting is not just simply posting a status. Whenever a tweet gets sent, anyone in the "Twitterverse" can view it with the simple search of a keyword. Hash tags have paved the way for trending topics, thus having news spread like Californian wildfire. There is also the "retweet" function, which sort of follows the "reblog" function that blogging sites like Tumblr have. I certainly have less Friends on Twitter than on Facebook, mainly because Twitter does not fit everybody's tastes. I started using Twitter more since I got my iPhone, and I would prefer the app to accessing the website online, mainly because of the layout. Reading tweets on my phone is like reading the news. I follow several sports beat writers, and at times, I receive news faster on Twitter than I do on ESPN or Yahoo!
All in all, social network sites have made life much easier on a social level. If I want express my thoughts or feelings to the public, I can post a status or a tweet. If I want to contact someone that I have not spoken to in a long time, I can. If I want to share photos and videos, I will have no problem doing so!
I had abstained from social network sites for a good while, following the decline of Xanga, Myspace, and Sconex. Engaging with my friends on those sites were pretty fun while it lasted. However, after a good while, I relapsed and decided that I needed to jump on the Facebook bandwagon. I joined Facebook around 2007, my sophomore year of high school. Like the aforementioned sites, I started off by filling out information for my profile, and started adding people that I knew to my Friends list. It was and still is a great way to network with people that I know and people that I may meet in the future. I would say 99% of the people in my Friends list are people I have interacted with before in person. The remaining 1% are people who are fairly higher on the social status ladder than the lay person (musicians, celebrities, etc.). I am less inclined to add someone as a friend if I have not interacted with the person in the flesh.
What I like most about Facebook is the long-term connection that is established when I friend somebody. I can keep in touch with people that I used to interact with and see what they are up to. Seeing pictures of people getting wasted the previous weekend or albums which feature pictures that are taken only 5 seconds apart make for great conversation pieces.
I do not see Facebook ever going out of style because you can do anything on it. You can share pictures and videos, play games, and interact with others. The fact that Facebook developers keep innovating the site to keep it invigorated is also a plus. Facebook Messenger in my opinion was a great add-on. Unless some other social network site becomes popular, Facebook will stand the test of time.
As for Twitter, I joined it when it was a little ahead of its time. The "Twitterverse" was first introduced to me in high school by my technology teacher. At first, my reaction was to look to my friend and say, "What the hell is this?" We both chuckled, because Twitter at the time was mostly white space. It was simply Facebook stripped down to only its "status" function. I had not used Twitter until most recently. Before I really made visiting the site a hobby, I did not see a point in joining the site because I was so tied to Facebook. However, that all changed when I wanted to interact with celebrities. I feel that with the boom of celebrity endorsements, joining Twitter has become a social phenomenon. Before Twitter, there were only a few ways to reach celebrities - via live chats, mail, and blogs (if they had them). The interaction between celebrities on Twitter and their fans can be paralleled to that of indie bands on Myspace and their fans, but to a much larger scale. Indie bands on Myspace sought to promote their music, but celebrities on Twitter are not out to promote themselves - they simply use the site like any other person, but with a vested economic interest.
Tweeting is not just simply posting a status. Whenever a tweet gets sent, anyone in the "Twitterverse" can view it with the simple search of a keyword. Hash tags have paved the way for trending topics, thus having news spread like Californian wildfire. There is also the "retweet" function, which sort of follows the "reblog" function that blogging sites like Tumblr have. I certainly have less Friends on Twitter than on Facebook, mainly because Twitter does not fit everybody's tastes. I started using Twitter more since I got my iPhone, and I would prefer the app to accessing the website online, mainly because of the layout. Reading tweets on my phone is like reading the news. I follow several sports beat writers, and at times, I receive news faster on Twitter than I do on ESPN or Yahoo!
All in all, social network sites have made life much easier on a social level. If I want express my thoughts or feelings to the public, I can post a status or a tweet. If I want to contact someone that I have not spoken to in a long time, I can. If I want to share photos and videos, I will have no problem doing so!
Social Networking and Marketing
It's surprising that social networking has developed into such a phenomenon. "Blogging", "posting", "tweeting", "liking", "sharing", "tagging", "hash-tagging" have all become common verbs that are used in our everyday speech. It has become more than just a network of profiles and virtual friendships, it has evolved into a medium for communication, exposure of new ideas, and it has become an efficient marketing and advertising platform for many corporations.
I remember when I first became acquainted with social networking. I had a xanga account when I was 14 and it was considered something "cool" to create your own profile and post blogs about yourself. Back then, it was really just another website where teenagers used to waste time and keep in touch with their buddies. MySpace seemed to function very similarly, where it was mostly targeted at urban teenagers and upcoming bands who wanted to get some exposure. Then in 2005, Facebook entered the race and it went from being limited to only college-users to everyone.
According to danah m. boyd and Nicole B. Ellison, the expansion of communities that social networking allowed has prompted many corporations to invest time and money in creating, purchasing promoting and advertising using SNSs. Suddenly SNSs has become more than just a platform for a user to keep updated in what their friends are doing, it has become a vital marketing tool.
I've noticed that most subway ads include the Facebook and Twitter and sometimes even a Blogger logo. Many of today's leading companies have invested a great amount of money and time in their social networking campaigns. Over the summer, I interned for a small company, who's business was primarily to help high school kids get into college. I was in charge of their Facebook and Twitter accounts. My role was to get as many Facebook "likes" and Twitter "followers" as I could. The CEO and founder of the company I was working for actually encouraged me to follow the list of 1001 twitter users who will auto-follow you back. The experience was very confusing at first because personally, I don't care for the amount of friends I have on Facebook or how many followers I get on Twitter. It seemed so useless and time-consuming because the people I was expected to follow were just spammers. But I soon realized how important it was for a company to establish a good social network. "Aldo's Shoes" has 651,848 likes on Facebook and 16,580 likes on Twitter. "Aldo's Shoes" is a well-known, popular and established shoe company. It didn't really matter that these followers were "real" or not. It's the numbers that count. Numbers matter. The amount of likes and followers actually establish a level of credentials of a company. And so I followed as many twitter-following-spammers as I could and our numbers went from 50 to over 2000.
Social Networking has become a vital and necessary tool in today's market for advertising. Any upcoming band, small business, or activist group would most likely become successful if they establish a good social network within Facebook or Twitter.
I remember when I first became acquainted with social networking. I had a xanga account when I was 14 and it was considered something "cool" to create your own profile and post blogs about yourself. Back then, it was really just another website where teenagers used to waste time and keep in touch with their buddies. MySpace seemed to function very similarly, where it was mostly targeted at urban teenagers and upcoming bands who wanted to get some exposure. Then in 2005, Facebook entered the race and it went from being limited to only college-users to everyone.
According to danah m. boyd and Nicole B. Ellison, the expansion of communities that social networking allowed has prompted many corporations to invest time and money in creating, purchasing promoting and advertising using SNSs. Suddenly SNSs has become more than just a platform for a user to keep updated in what their friends are doing, it has become a vital marketing tool.
I've noticed that most subway ads include the Facebook and Twitter and sometimes even a Blogger logo. Many of today's leading companies have invested a great amount of money and time in their social networking campaigns. Over the summer, I interned for a small company, who's business was primarily to help high school kids get into college. I was in charge of their Facebook and Twitter accounts. My role was to get as many Facebook "likes" and Twitter "followers" as I could. The CEO and founder of the company I was working for actually encouraged me to follow the list of 1001 twitter users who will auto-follow you back. The experience was very confusing at first because personally, I don't care for the amount of friends I have on Facebook or how many followers I get on Twitter. It seemed so useless and time-consuming because the people I was expected to follow were just spammers. But I soon realized how important it was for a company to establish a good social network. "Aldo's Shoes" has 651,848 likes on Facebook and 16,580 likes on Twitter. "Aldo's Shoes" is a well-known, popular and established shoe company. It didn't really matter that these followers were "real" or not. It's the numbers that count. Numbers matter. The amount of likes and followers actually establish a level of credentials of a company. And so I followed as many twitter-following-spammers as I could and our numbers went from 50 to over 2000.
Social Networking has become a vital and necessary tool in today's market for advertising. Any upcoming band, small business, or activist group would most likely become successful if they establish a good social network within Facebook or Twitter.
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Social Networks Are Mostly Entertaining
I feel as if certain social networks serve particular functions in my life. I use them sparingly, for the most part. I'm not addicted to any one particular social network site, but I can say that I could spend hours on them depending the day and how I feel. I also don't have a particular favorite. I'll try something out once, given enough recommendation from friends and family. Plus, I think all the most popular ones are always good to know about, especially if one is leaning toward a more media-based career.
Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and YouTube are my primary sites. I've had a MySpace and LiveJournal (or still have them even if I've lost the passwords to them), and also have G+ that I rarely use. But those that I'm somewhat actively on serve their own purpose. For example, I see Facebook as my own personal address book of sorts. Everyone I have as a "friend" on Facebook are people I know in real life and have met more than once in my lifetime. It is basically a site where I friend those I know in the assumption that I'll need to contact them in the future about something. I also use Facebook as an events calendar. My friends like creating events and communicating about said events through Facebook and that's just how we plan things to do together in person. (Course, we massively text each other as well, but we primarily use Facebook for the planning.)
I use Twitter solely to follow Ellen DeGeneres' tweets. That was the only reason I created a Twitter way back in 2008 in the first place and I'm really not ashamed to say that, because what else is Twitter good for? I mean, I follow a few of my friends who use Twitter and did jump on the bandwagon when Charlie Sheen went on his Twitter rampage, but Twitter is like 140 characters of instant entertainment of sorts. I follow Jimmy Kimmel because he's funny, and Perez Hilton because that was once something I read online on a daily basis. But for the most part, my Twiiter is a sad, sad place that is often neglected for other productive uses of my online time...
Like YouTube! YouTube is pure fantasticalness. I can spend hours and hours doing nothing but watching videos of random things and it's all enjoyable. You can practically find anything on YouTube. Like if you missed a show, you can probably find it in parts on YouTube before it's taken down. If you can't find a song, chances are you can find it to listen to on the Tube. Show recaps, funny vloggers, really cool video artwork, silly parodies, horribly bad memes...anything. It's all accessible on YouTube. One can procrastinate for days.
Tumblr is another from of entertainment. I call Tumblr a blog on crack, because it is. It's not a traditional blog, but it is a blog. But I think it's mostly an audio/visual blog. Most people use it to transmit art and photos and music. Maybe the occasional video. Gifs are like Tumblr's permanent residents; they're everywhere. I feel Tumblr is not really a social network in that people follow and communicate with people they know, nor is it a place where people go to meet new people. It's more of a place where people share bits and pieces of the internet world that they like with other people.
I don't know, but I've never let social networks consume my life. I find them more accessories of entertainment more than anything. I'd personally like to communicate with people either face to face or through some means where I can hear the other person's voice, whether its the telephone or through Skype. There's something more personal about that sort of interaction than through instant messaging over Facebook (which I always keep off, cause no one needs to know when I'm on Facebook). I'm sure there are tons of people who feel the same way as I do in regards to social networks. I think it's the new generation of internet users, like teens and tweens who are the ones that consume themselves with social networks. Granted, there are a handful of those my age and older who live on Facebook or another site that they often neglect their real life or have created a world for themselves, where there's no separation between their online social network and offline real life network. And even though I'd like to say that those people are few, I feel like that's becoming a reality of sorts in today's society. I feel that people need to be connected with each other online now in order to feel connected offline, which I think is ridiculous. But with tethered devices and free wifi everywhere, I feel that that's becoming the norm.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
SOPA: Access Denied
The Stop Online Piracy Act has been a fail. The act that conspired to black list websites didn't go through and probably never will. The government relentless attempts to stop copy right infringement with SOPA came to a halt, when the biggest online protest came to life, joined in by companies such as Google and Wikipedia.
I can't imagine how dull the internet would be if SOPA went through. I found Herman's article very helpful in explaining exactly went down with SOPA. I remembered my Facebook newsfeed being colored by anti SOPA banners but I felt like most people weren't so sure of what it meant or what were the implications of such an act going through, I know I wasn't sure.
The beauty of the internet is that it's a place for people to be creative and the possibilities are literally endless. SOPA essentially : "authorizes the attorney general (AG) to seek court orders against a U.S.-directed foreign Internet site committing or facilitation online piracy to require the owner, operator, or domain name registrar or the site name [...] to cease and desist further activities constituting specified intellectual property offenses under the federal criminal code[...]."
The internet is rich of music, news articles, videos and images, where would Google be if we can't search for these things any longer. SOPA would essentially block domain names and re direct sites to government sites. Search engines such as Google, would have to block infringing sites and advertisers would be getting in trouble as well. SOPA also messes with the First Amendment, freedom of speech.
For now we are safe from SOPA but who knows how much longer until the government will decide to come up with something else for the sake of copyright infringement, but we can rest assured that people will not let it happen quietly.
Big Brother's Attempt at Babysitting
The internet has flourished over the past decade because of its free nature that encourages all types of innovation that allows the internet to grow and expand upon itself. As a result, the internet has rapidly become a ubiquitous force within society as it began to cannibalize mediums and industries that once had consumers in a deadlock as more and more devices were manufactured that have the ability to connect society to the internet and more services were created to help consumers in terms of pricing and convenience. While such innovation has allowed a vast amount of start-up companies to grow and succeed, the open-free nature of the internet has also given birth to a virtual "dark side" of the internet; places where people can go to illegally steal movies, music, books, magazines, and even software if the have the technical savvy on how to implement the downloaded scripts into their OS of choice.
Needless to say, sites like these have put plenty of industries out of a vast amount of money and a countless amount of people out of jobs. As a result, these sites have generated a large amount of scrutiny from the government as these large corporations have begun to demand that certain actions take place, and thus bills like SOPA and PIPA were written into existence. These are the bills that will supposedly fight copyright infringement and will put and end to it by shutting down the sites that allow people to illegally download such content. However, as the bill is written right now, it has the potential to do far more damage than good, by killing the creative innovation that has propelled the internet to become such a ubiquitous worldwide phenomenon. This would allow government to regulate the internet which will cause the freedom of the internet to virtually disappear and a country that prides itself on freedom will be trying to impose its laws on countries that have no reason to follow them.
Also, when it's all said and done, the bill would not even be able to stop the piracy because it seems that the people who wrote the bill don't truly understand how the internet works. People will find new ways and loopholes to bypass such regulation. So, what's the point Big Brother? Let us be.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Stop Online Piracy Act - Will it stick?
If the government gets it's way, there will likely be a new way they can regulate society; and that is by censoring the internet. Essentially, what this new bill, the "Stop Online Piracy Act", plans to do is blacklist websites that may post infringing links, videos, images, etc whether that be in-house or by its community. Websites like youtube, vimeo, Facebook, twitter, etc, will be among the most affect by this act because a large percentage of their content is 3rd party content. They become liable for users who post this content.
As a result of this act, you will immediately see a drop in web traffic for such sites as Facebook, twitter, youtube, vim, etc. There will also be a drastic decline in startups launching because of because of higher risks. Basically, this puts a damper on new innovation and we will see fewer video sites, social networks, hosting sites, and even personal pages!
In my opinion, I believe this act will fail hard. The internet should be free to roam for anyone who has access to it. It is free to consume at whichever volume one wants. We should be free to post links, videos, and images to any social sites to represent what we like and who we are. We should be able to express ourselves and fulfill our personal hobbies. If this act goes through, we will all become a closeted society and won't be able to consume small bits of information at ones leisure.
Links:
SOPA?
I will be honest in this post, I honestly did not know what SOPA stood for and what it was until I read the articles. It may seem hard to believe since it went all viral on the internet but I dont have any online accounts like FaceBook and Twitter (except blogger because of this class!)...
Now that I am informed and I have become a less of an internet-user, I am with the majority of Americans that are against this bill if it did pass. This would be a total violation of our first amendment! When I was looking at the New Study Shows Majority Of Americans Against SOPA article, I was surprised to see the visual graphs... (who knew that 65 year-old people downloaded music and movies?!) I was surprised to see that a lot of this copying had to do with people sharing with friends and family. Imagine a world where we couldn't share anything with the close ones in our lives? I believe that a country like this one with that weight of restriction would cause corruption and chaos. It is ridiculous to think that we are being restricted by the government to share things with people we know.
I agree with stoping the sharing of media by posting them on a website or facebook. That is after all what Hollywood has a problem with, right? There should be some type of minor restriction but nothing extreme like not being able to share with your family members...That is just ridiculous.
I also feel uncomfortable with the fact that there is surveillance kept on my activities on the internet. It does make sense since the internet was created by the government and it was first theirs....
I just hope that for the next time something like this happens, everyone who will be affected, like me, can know about this and are able to have a voice in this. It's amazing that the moajority involved in this did not have a say in anything when this bill was being argued and debated......But the government never changes. I feel like anything they can try to keep the majority out of, they do all in their power to do so.
Now that I am informed and I have become a less of an internet-user, I am with the majority of Americans that are against this bill if it did pass. This would be a total violation of our first amendment! When I was looking at the New Study Shows Majority Of Americans Against SOPA article, I was surprised to see the visual graphs... (who knew that 65 year-old people downloaded music and movies?!) I was surprised to see that a lot of this copying had to do with people sharing with friends and family. Imagine a world where we couldn't share anything with the close ones in our lives? I believe that a country like this one with that weight of restriction would cause corruption and chaos. It is ridiculous to think that we are being restricted by the government to share things with people we know.
I agree with stoping the sharing of media by posting them on a website or facebook. That is after all what Hollywood has a problem with, right? There should be some type of minor restriction but nothing extreme like not being able to share with your family members...That is just ridiculous.
I also feel uncomfortable with the fact that there is surveillance kept on my activities on the internet. It does make sense since the internet was created by the government and it was first theirs....
I just hope that for the next time something like this happens, everyone who will be affected, like me, can know about this and are able to have a voice in this. It's amazing that the moajority involved in this did not have a say in anything when this bill was being argued and debated......But the government never changes. I feel like anything they can try to keep the majority out of, they do all in their power to do so.
SOPA: Not Appetizing At All
SOPA, ahhh...at first glance, the word invokes great memories of family dinners with tasty Hispanic soups such as sancocho and cocido...the punchline being that sopa is Spanish for soup. (Ba-dum, ching) The SOPA (or Stop Online Piracy Act) that Congress was cooking up for internet websites and users however, didn't sound as warm and palatable, but cold and force-fed, much like the cod liver oil that mothers serve to their hesitant children ("come on now, it's good for you!").
Despite being someone who pirates often, my short attention span didn't allow me to comprehend the anti-SOPA movement, or the Act itself, entirely. All I knew prior to these readings is that it would've made pirating (and web-browsing, as evidenced by the Wikipedia withdrawal I suffered during the one-day "blackout") much more inconvenient. The two-step process described in the Bill Summary, in which IP holders provide a written notification identifying the site to related payment network providers and Internet advertising services, and the subsequent limited injunctive relief if said infringing sites didn't respond, sounded harsh, but fair. The additional bit of information provided by Prof. Herman's summary (albeit related to the earlier COICA bill), which states that the latter injunctive relief could occur without
an adversarial hearing during which a site’s operator could defend
their right to continue about their business sounds unfair and under-handed though
Similarly, the bill summary's mention of Attoney General-influenced preventive measures such as preventing users located in the United States from accessing the infringing site doesn't sound much unlike what YouTube does with certain copyrighted videos ("sorry, this video will not play in your country because it's copyrighted by [x] company"). Supplementing it with the Professor's "AllYourVideosHere.com" example, which states that sites holding even arguably infringing content could be frozen out, demonstrates how broad and obnoxious these domain seizure acts could've been. Would that mean that a site with videos such as, for example, me belting out a piss-poor rendition of Survivor's 'Burning Heart" (which I do often) would be at risk of getting shuttered? Guess so.
It was interesting to read how the SFU ("Strong Fair Use") coalition's heavy internet advocacy managed to break through to previously uninitiated people (of which I'm one) as well as having the double effect of educating them on the related DRM (Digital Rights Management) debate. I had thought that the anti-SOPA movement was exclusively the brainchild of internet juggernauts (as their sites are what make up the bulk of my usual internet traffic), with the aforementioned Wikipedia pulling off that "blackout" stunt and whatnot, but I guess I was wrong. Still, finding myself repeatedly being met with Wiki's "blackout" page on that January (?) day, and wondering if the same fate could befall YouTube was when the severity of SOPA really dawned on me. Glad that bullet was dodged.
Censorship and SOPA
After reading the several articles that were provided on the issue of SOPA, I can't help but imagine a future in which SOPA did actually pass. If this dangerous bill were to have gone through, what would this mean for the future of the Internet? Would the bill become a precedent which made it easier to pass other Internet censorship legislation? One of the most frightening things to realize when considering these questions is how close the bill actually was to passing, and could have passed largely unnoticed by the public. It is also horrifying to realize how much the government is influenced by whichever corporations have the most money. If anti-SOPA activists were not as effective in organizing a grass-roots movement, this bill would have passed for the simple fact that Hollywood had more money to spend.
However, as is pointed out in the articles, SOPA was unsuccessful in passing into law. As far as understanding the issue and its effects go, I believe that Professor Herman's article, "A Political History of DRM and Related Copyright Debates", was the most comprehensive. The charts and graphs provided in the other articles were helpful as a visual aid, but were unsuccessful in describing the actual movement that took place in order to stop this bill. It was also very helpful to have a general overview of copyright law and its history in understanding SOPA and what it means for the public today. The point was also made in Professor Herman's article, which I find interesting, is that the success of stopping SOPA was largely credited to the technology division rather than to the general public. What does this mean for us as citizens? Even though it is beneficial to us that the voices of the technology division are being taken seriously, what does it mean that our voices as citizens were largely overlooked? Does the support of websites like Google, Wikipedia, and Facebook mean more to our politicians than the fact that millions of citizens took the time to call and email their representatives? Either way, we are better off without SOPA being in effect as law. However, I believe it was a mistake on the part of both the media and politicians to overlook the fact that grass-roots movements can still be effective in policy making without the backing of major corporations. At least I hope that still remains to be true. I am grateful that organizations like Fight for the Future exist to educate us about the great costs that bills like SOPA would mean for us. I also hope that the next time a bill like SOPA comes around, that the public will be ready to make history once again.
However, as is pointed out in the articles, SOPA was unsuccessful in passing into law. As far as understanding the issue and its effects go, I believe that Professor Herman's article, "A Political History of DRM and Related Copyright Debates", was the most comprehensive. The charts and graphs provided in the other articles were helpful as a visual aid, but were unsuccessful in describing the actual movement that took place in order to stop this bill. It was also very helpful to have a general overview of copyright law and its history in understanding SOPA and what it means for the public today. The point was also made in Professor Herman's article, which I find interesting, is that the success of stopping SOPA was largely credited to the technology division rather than to the general public. What does this mean for us as citizens? Even though it is beneficial to us that the voices of the technology division are being taken seriously, what does it mean that our voices as citizens were largely overlooked? Does the support of websites like Google, Wikipedia, and Facebook mean more to our politicians than the fact that millions of citizens took the time to call and email their representatives? Either way, we are better off without SOPA being in effect as law. However, I believe it was a mistake on the part of both the media and politicians to overlook the fact that grass-roots movements can still be effective in policy making without the backing of major corporations. At least I hope that still remains to be true. I am grateful that organizations like Fight for the Future exist to educate us about the great costs that bills like SOPA would mean for us. I also hope that the next time a bill like SOPA comes around, that the public will be ready to make history once again.
opposition of SOPA/PIPA
SOPA and PIPA were similar pieces of legislation that were seeking to end online piracy and infringement in the United States. The bill proposed to block Americans from viewing infringing content as well as the possibility of blocking legal content from Internet users.
SOPA and PIPA, despite their reasons are tools that would have infringed Americans First Amendment Rights, Freedom of Speech. A bill such as this one is completely unconstitutional and in violation of the people's rights. For these simple reasons, SOPA and PIPA received much attention from our society. The moment the public became aware of these pieces of legislation, they went completely viral through social network sites, such as Facebook and Twitter. As well as, the support from major websites that opposed SOPA/PIPA, such as Google and Wikipedia through their infamous black out day.
According to the TechDirt article, creators, defenders, and lobbyist for SOPA claimed that a majority of Americans were in favor of the bill. However, as the article continues to state, the remark was completely false. In reality, members of Congress were completely out of touch with the demands and opinions of the people they represent. (An problem that seems to be recurring with various societal issues).When TechDirt did they're own research on the favorability of the SOPA bill, they're results were much different. What they found was that an overwhelming majority of Americans, 74%, were opposed to the bill.
If SOPA or PIPA had passed through congress and enacted, our society would be far worse off. SOPA and PIPA would have created more costs than benefits to our society and its future because it would not only attempt to put an end to online piracy and infringement, but it would also put an immense dent in the creativity of our society that is made because of the internet.
nabila c.
SOPA and PIPA, despite their reasons are tools that would have infringed Americans First Amendment Rights, Freedom of Speech. A bill such as this one is completely unconstitutional and in violation of the people's rights. For these simple reasons, SOPA and PIPA received much attention from our society. The moment the public became aware of these pieces of legislation, they went completely viral through social network sites, such as Facebook and Twitter. As well as, the support from major websites that opposed SOPA/PIPA, such as Google and Wikipedia through their infamous black out day.
According to the TechDirt article, creators, defenders, and lobbyist for SOPA claimed that a majority of Americans were in favor of the bill. However, as the article continues to state, the remark was completely false. In reality, members of Congress were completely out of touch with the demands and opinions of the people they represent. (An problem that seems to be recurring with various societal issues).When TechDirt did they're own research on the favorability of the SOPA bill, they're results were much different. What they found was that an overwhelming majority of Americans, 74%, were opposed to the bill.
If SOPA or PIPA had passed through congress and enacted, our society would be far worse off. SOPA and PIPA would have created more costs than benefits to our society and its future because it would not only attempt to put an end to online piracy and infringement, but it would also put an immense dent in the creativity of our society that is made because of the internet.
nabila c.
The CopyReich
It's amazing that a group of industries would propose making internet service providers, web developers, advertisers, search portals, and basically EVERYONE that runs the internet be held liable for copyright infringement. The copyright laws these industries have attempted to force through Congress expect internet based businesses and providers to not only police their customers but to carry the financial burden and resources of developing and enforcing these protections. The efforts involved in creating an online police state controlled by copyright interests would be detrimental to the evolution of the internet. The Stop Online Piracy Act(SOPA) and the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act(COICA) cost these copyright interests very little yet could potentially cost the internet community billions.
SOPA “Requires online service providers, Internet search engines, payment network providers, and internet advertising services, upon receiving a copy of a court order relating to an AG action, to carry out certain preventative measures including withholding services from an infringing site or preventing users located in the United States from accessing the infringing site. Requires payment network providers and Internet advertising services, upon receiving a copy of such an order relating to a right holder's action, to carry out similar preventative measures.” (Thomas.loc.gov)
In the era of the Patriot act and the infringement on basic rights of Americans I can see why these industries feel they wield the power to subjugate the internet and those who use it. These industries could correlate the copyright proposals to the results of the RIAA vs Napster case in some ways. Napster knew of the infringing material and the Napster seemed to support and facilitate piracy but Napster was its own company that controlled and developed its own network. Napster is not the internet. If you apply the logic of SOPA and COICA it would be like holding the American highway system liable for drug trafficking. Every onramp in this country would have to be guarded and suffer the time and cost of searching every vehicle.
“This overly broad definition could be read to give the Attorney General the power to order services ranging from public libraries to backbone providers to search engines to newspaper websites to host a blacklist of domain names.”(publicknowledge.org)
It’s obvious these industry groups and their constituents in Congress understand little in how the internet works. If they did they would know the monumental effort and expense these laws would require. Looking at the cost of China’s censuring efforts “Human rights activists believe the effort employs 30,000 people.”(news.bbc.co.uk).” and “by 2002 the preliminary work of the Golden Shield Project had cost [US dollars] $800 million”(Wikipedia.org). It would be the equivalent of holding Internet Service Providers liable for every virus, spam email and junk email that passes through their servers.
“This all would have happened without an adversarial hearing during which a site’s operator could defend their right to continue about their business without being shuttered. In most cases, the operators of an affected site would lose their domain and face other negative effects before they even knew what had happened.”(Herman, 3)
Filtering for copyright material would be just as complicated if not more as junk email filters and anti-virus filters. It would also be ineffective. Pirating technology is always one step ahead of anti-piracy. New preventative measures would bring more sophisticated ways of pirating. It’s a Gustapo approach for a never ending cycle of man hours, cost, and futility for little benefit to copyright holders and zero benefit for the internet community.
SOPA “Requires online service providers, Internet search engines, payment network providers, and internet advertising services, upon receiving a copy of a court order relating to an AG action, to carry out certain preventative measures including withholding services from an infringing site or preventing users located in the United States from accessing the infringing site. Requires payment network providers and Internet advertising services, upon receiving a copy of such an order relating to a right holder's action, to carry out similar preventative measures.” (Thomas.loc.gov)
In the era of the Patriot act and the infringement on basic rights of Americans I can see why these industries feel they wield the power to subjugate the internet and those who use it. These industries could correlate the copyright proposals to the results of the RIAA vs Napster case in some ways. Napster knew of the infringing material and the Napster seemed to support and facilitate piracy but Napster was its own company that controlled and developed its own network. Napster is not the internet. If you apply the logic of SOPA and COICA it would be like holding the American highway system liable for drug trafficking. Every onramp in this country would have to be guarded and suffer the time and cost of searching every vehicle.
“This overly broad definition could be read to give the Attorney General the power to order services ranging from public libraries to backbone providers to search engines to newspaper websites to host a blacklist of domain names.”(publicknowledge.org)
It’s obvious these industry groups and their constituents in Congress understand little in how the internet works. If they did they would know the monumental effort and expense these laws would require. Looking at the cost of China’s censuring efforts “Human rights activists believe the effort employs 30,000 people.”(news.bbc.co.uk).” and “by 2002 the preliminary work of the Golden Shield Project had cost [US dollars] $800 million”(Wikipedia.org). It would be the equivalent of holding Internet Service Providers liable for every virus, spam email and junk email that passes through their servers.
“This all would have happened without an adversarial hearing during which a site’s operator could defend their right to continue about their business without being shuttered. In most cases, the operators of an affected site would lose their domain and face other negative effects before they even knew what had happened.”(Herman, 3)
Filtering for copyright material would be just as complicated if not more as junk email filters and anti-virus filters. It would also be ineffective. Pirating technology is always one step ahead of anti-piracy. New preventative measures would bring more sophisticated ways of pirating. It’s a Gustapo approach for a never ending cycle of man hours, cost, and futility for little benefit to copyright holders and zero benefit for the internet community.
Bill Summary & Status - 112th Congress
(2011 - 2012) - H.R.3261 - All Information - THOMAS (Librar…Retrieved (4/23/2012) http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:HR03261:@@@D&summ2=m&
Mary Hennock. The cost of China's web censors. Retrieved (4/23/2012) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2264508.stm
Wikipedia. Internet censorship in the
Peoples republic of China. Retrieved (4/23/2012) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China
SOPA
So, the SOPA summary and Public Knowledge SOPA article were a little confusing for me. It just feels like they're trying to push too many big words together and go into too much detail. But what we discussed in class and Professor Herman's article were a lot more understandable for me.
I understand that SOPA's main point is stopping online piracy. Everyone is terrified of being taken advantage of, and the government thinks internet users are pulling one over on them because people are constantly illegally downloading music, movies, etc. I understand that intellectual property is important, but there are too many loopholes in what SOPA is proposing. They're trying to crack down on too much at once. One thing that irritates me specifically is eliminating videos of live musical performances. I like being able to watch bands/artists I haven't seen in concert yet in videos. I want to see if they're good or not live! I'll pay for a ticket eventually when they come to my city. LET ME HAVE THAT LIBERTY. The internet is a place for creativity and expansion. It isn't meant to be constantly regulated by the government. We have all grown very accustomed to posting whatever we want on our tumblrs and googling anything our heart desires. Just let us have it. Were paying for it anyway. This freedom of expression is important. People can find a lot of inspiring, motivating, and entertaining things on the internet that make them very happy. Like it said in the Techdirt article, about %2 of adults have large collections of unauthorized music, and then %1 have large collections of unauthorized films; those don't seem like detrimental numbers for the music and movie industries to me.
One thing that I like about the whole SOPA thing is the outrage that it brought out. I'm glad that sites that are so big, like Wikipedia and Reddit, took a stand and closed their sites down for entire days to prove a point and get people's attention. I didn't know much about SOPA beforehand, but that sure got my attention and made me want to look into it more. It's crazy how the largest online protest in history occurred because of this. I didn't know the exact statistics, how 10 million people signed the petition against SOPA and PIPA, 4 million people sent e-mails to congress, and 8 million people attempted to call congress. It's just so cool to see our generation and everyone who uses the internet show that they care, and that they can be a force that makes a difference. In just a day, the bill went from having 31 opponents to 122 opponents, and that is amazing. I enjoy this quote from Herman's article,"As a second legacy, policymakers are now terrified of the political backlash that comes when they go against the wishes of the technology crowd." because I'm glad that this protest made a difference, and that they're freaked out because of the backlash that occurred. I hope we don't have to deal with this again for awhile, but I think the internet community has shown that they can handle it.
Allison Volpe
I understand that SOPA's main point is stopping online piracy. Everyone is terrified of being taken advantage of, and the government thinks internet users are pulling one over on them because people are constantly illegally downloading music, movies, etc. I understand that intellectual property is important, but there are too many loopholes in what SOPA is proposing. They're trying to crack down on too much at once. One thing that irritates me specifically is eliminating videos of live musical performances. I like being able to watch bands/artists I haven't seen in concert yet in videos. I want to see if they're good or not live! I'll pay for a ticket eventually when they come to my city. LET ME HAVE THAT LIBERTY. The internet is a place for creativity and expansion. It isn't meant to be constantly regulated by the government. We have all grown very accustomed to posting whatever we want on our tumblrs and googling anything our heart desires. Just let us have it. Were paying for it anyway. This freedom of expression is important. People can find a lot of inspiring, motivating, and entertaining things on the internet that make them very happy. Like it said in the Techdirt article, about %2 of adults have large collections of unauthorized music, and then %1 have large collections of unauthorized films; those don't seem like detrimental numbers for the music and movie industries to me.
One thing that I like about the whole SOPA thing is the outrage that it brought out. I'm glad that sites that are so big, like Wikipedia and Reddit, took a stand and closed their sites down for entire days to prove a point and get people's attention. I didn't know much about SOPA beforehand, but that sure got my attention and made me want to look into it more. It's crazy how the largest online protest in history occurred because of this. I didn't know the exact statistics, how 10 million people signed the petition against SOPA and PIPA, 4 million people sent e-mails to congress, and 8 million people attempted to call congress. It's just so cool to see our generation and everyone who uses the internet show that they care, and that they can be a force that makes a difference. In just a day, the bill went from having 31 opponents to 122 opponents, and that is amazing. I enjoy this quote from Herman's article,"As a second legacy, policymakers are now terrified of the political backlash that comes when they go against the wishes of the technology crowd." because I'm glad that this protest made a difference, and that they're freaked out because of the backlash that occurred. I hope we don't have to deal with this again for awhile, but I think the internet community has shown that they can handle it.
Allison Volpe
The People v. SOPA: Pro-Freedom or Anti-Piracy...? You Choose.
Youtube.
Facebook. Google. Twitter.
Wikipedia. Sounds familiar? These particular websites amongst thousands of
websites provide and host a plethora of shared and uploaded content via
public-based domains. In other words,
virtually anyone with access to the Internet has the ability to access these
public websites. For the most part, we
have all most likely engaged with the content hosted on these sites in one form
or another. As Internet users, who have
contributed to a culturally-technological expansion of Internet browsing, we
have systematically expanded the prevailing notion of freedom of expression
through speech from a narrow-casted individualistic perspective into an era of
online free speech. According to the
First Amendment of the United States, Freedom of Speech entitles a legal
individual to express opinion and ideas through speech. Moreover, “International, national and
regional standards recognize that freedom of speech, as one form of freedom of
expression, applies to any medium, including the Internet.” Nonetheless, with legislative actions, such
as Stopping Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), taken against
the aforementioned websites in a radical effort to manage digital rights and
terminate the illegal reproduction of copyrighted material, one must ask
themselves this question: What is at stake for the Internet community when
their natural right at expressing free speech through public file sharing is
being threatened by an enclave of capitalistic political influences seeking to
prioritize the legality and expansion of Digital Rights Management (DRM or
Copyright) over the First Amendment?
According
to his essay, A Political History of DRM
and Related Copyright Debates, 1987-2012, Professor Bill Herman critically assesses the socio-political ramifications behind the introduction of two of the most controversial Bill proposals against today's Internet social groups, SOPA and PIPA. Towards the beginning of his essay, Herman provides insight into the measures taken to thwart Google and its viral video partner, Youtube. "On November 16, 2011, the House Committee on
the Judiciary held a hearing that was heavily
stacked in favor of the bill’s passage,
and the committee’s website describing the hearing expresses clear enthusiasm
about the bill.
At the very start of the hearing, Judiciary Chair Lamar Smith accused Google—the only substantive
opponents at the hearing table—of obstructionism; he also accused them of
supporting “rogue” websites. This is consistent with both
judiciary committees’ longstanding support for the SC coalition, writes Herman. One could argue that by "allegedly" supporting rogue websites, Google actually helps to emphasize its unprejudiced and unbiased dedication and clarity towards expressing online free speech. You either support all, or support none. Moreover, I must respectfully disagree with Judiciary Chair Lamar Smith on the obstructionism grounds that faced Google. In any event, I would sincerely argue that Google has instead promoted websites, the content hosted on said websites, and promoted the users to actively engage with the content within those websites. It could be seen as a win-win situation, more or less.
Furthermore, I must contend against the argument attributed against Youtube. "Several of the music sites that have been taken down were apparently targeted because they posted files that were given to them by record label or artist representatives. The wave of lawsuits against YouTube highlights the possibility that, had domain seizure procedures been in place five years ago, the world’s number one video sharing site may well have been seized." Youtube has been governed and regulated by the advertisements hosted upon the website. The ads, according to the commercial free speech exception, remain within the public video sharing website to generate profit despite infringement. However, one could plausibly argue that despite the reproduction of copyrighted media material, Youtube's ads help to reinvest into the pockets of corporate media conglomerates, theoretically limiting its supposedly damaging effect on the copyright holders. In addition, the fair use doctrine could also be used to generate the argument that Youtube adheres to the practicality of fairness with respect to copyright. Most Youtube users generally upload content strictly out of a benevolent context. Whether these users may want to share music with thousands of other users or use portion of copyrighted material without the purposes of profiting, the bottom line here is that Youtube essentially deviates from unfair practices.
Furthermore, I must contend against the argument attributed against Youtube. "Several of the music sites that have been taken down were apparently targeted because they posted files that were given to them by record label or artist representatives. The wave of lawsuits against YouTube highlights the possibility that, had domain seizure procedures been in place five years ago, the world’s number one video sharing site may well have been seized." Youtube has been governed and regulated by the advertisements hosted upon the website. The ads, according to the commercial free speech exception, remain within the public video sharing website to generate profit despite infringement. However, one could plausibly argue that despite the reproduction of copyrighted media material, Youtube's ads help to reinvest into the pockets of corporate media conglomerates, theoretically limiting its supposedly damaging effect on the copyright holders. In addition, the fair use doctrine could also be used to generate the argument that Youtube adheres to the practicality of fairness with respect to copyright. Most Youtube users generally upload content strictly out of a benevolent context. Whether these users may want to share music with thousands of other users or use portion of copyrighted material without the purposes of profiting, the bottom line here is that Youtube essentially deviates from unfair practices.
More importantly, I thought it was significantly critical that Herman brought to light the legacy brought about by the expansive politicization and mobilization of actively aware Internet users to oppose the proposed institutions of SOPA and PIPA. The fact that SOPA and policymakers are now terrified of the political backlash that comes when they go against the wishes of the technology crowd just goes to show that we do our homework when it comes to brawling for our freedom of the expression. Hopefully our cause, our fight, lasts for another 10 or so more years before another piracy attack commences.
Great article Professor Herman. Truly insightful, indeed.
Great article Professor Herman. Truly insightful, indeed.
SOPA: Where to Begin?
There was a whole lot of reading pertaining to SOPA, and there is a lot to say about it more bad than good. The best way to explain what on God's green earth is SOPA? SOPA also known as, Stop Online Piracy Act would mean that the internet and everything that we ever wanted to or try to download, from music to writings to programs would be regulated by the U.S. Government. This is a bad thing. Why is this a bad thing you are probably going to ask? It's a bad thing, because in essence we enable the government to stop anyone to illegal download any and every type of recording music, movie, live recording, trafficking illegal material, or otherwise. But this is not what make it grimey. What makes it grimey is that, they are making the ISPs and search engines to do there dirty work. Which from the summary from the explanations is just not cool at all. I get the benefit of it, which is to protect copyright infringement and intellectual property. But is this the only reason to have SOPA, because if that's it then we have laws already in place for that. Those of which our professor proficiently knows to the letter, and has every right to know. Since he is awesomely knowledgeable in this section and his expertise on the matter is flawless. But this is not to focus on his expertise on the matter of copyright, though he does make some good points concerning the matter. I'll get to that in a moment, just be patient and read along.
The readings pretty much explain everybody's feelings about SOPA, and though I would say that it would be pointless for me to say something about it I will put my two cents in. The very Act is stripping our rights ie. "Freedom of Speech, internet rights, and innovative opportunities" as pointed out in the article in, PublicKnowledge.com. There is not much I can say that is positive about the Act. And yes there are dozens of quotes that I can use from the readings, but that would also be unfair. Unfair in the sense of trying to looking at both sides, thought the Act itself is one-sided. This where I will let Professor Herman do the talking, because he make a valid point in the beginning of his piece from his SOPA excerpt. Where he states,
"Still, it is already clear that the debate over copyright will never be the same again. Whether an SC ally, an SFU supporter, or one without any clear allegiances, any scholar who cares about copyright law—or the policy process in general—now cannot help but be intrigued to see how the copyright debate plays out going forward.The SOPA blackout and its aftermath have left several key legacies in the politics of copyright going forward. First and most obviously, the internet community and the general public have now mobilized around this issue to a previously unimaginable degree." (Herman, 12)
This debate will be probably continuous for a bit, and most likely will take a while to sort out, but one thing remains clear. I, nor anyone else will be losing any sleep on whether or not to download anything since we either have to pay for it or we have to use Utorrent. But don't tell anyone I told you that, just keep that to yourself. And I will leave you with a quote from our own Professor Herman concerning copyright and the internet saying, "As its biggest fans has been saying for years, the internet is good for more than committing copyright enfringement". (Herman, 21)
The readings pretty much explain everybody's feelings about SOPA, and though I would say that it would be pointless for me to say something about it I will put my two cents in. The very Act is stripping our rights ie. "Freedom of Speech, internet rights, and innovative opportunities" as pointed out in the article in, PublicKnowledge.com. There is not much I can say that is positive about the Act. And yes there are dozens of quotes that I can use from the readings, but that would also be unfair. Unfair in the sense of trying to looking at both sides, thought the Act itself is one-sided. This where I will let Professor Herman do the talking, because he make a valid point in the beginning of his piece from his SOPA excerpt. Where he states,
"Still, it is already clear that the debate over copyright will never be the same again. Whether an SC ally, an SFU supporter, or one without any clear allegiances, any scholar who cares about copyright law—or the policy process in general—now cannot help but be intrigued to see how the copyright debate plays out going forward.The SOPA blackout and its aftermath have left several key legacies in the politics of copyright going forward. First and most obviously, the internet community and the general public have now mobilized around this issue to a previously unimaginable degree." (Herman, 12)
This debate will be probably continuous for a bit, and most likely will take a while to sort out, but one thing remains clear. I, nor anyone else will be losing any sleep on whether or not to download anything since we either have to pay for it or we have to use Utorrent. But don't tell anyone I told you that, just keep that to yourself. And I will leave you with a quote from our own Professor Herman concerning copyright and the internet saying, "As its biggest fans has been saying for years, the internet is good for more than committing copyright enfringement". (Herman, 21)
Works Cited:
2. Herman. Bill D. "A Political History of DRM and Related Copyright Debates, 1987-2012. Yale Journal on Law and Technology
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
SOPA
SOPA stands for Stop Online Piracy
Act, which was a Bill that was meant to prohibit and regulate online piracy. It
would slow down illegal downloads and would broaden law enforcement’s ability
to impose punishment on those who download illegally. The act would prohibit
ISP’s from allowing access to websites that make copyrighted material
accessible. The maximum penalty for people who broke the law would be raised to
five years. Also, this law would mean that search engines and providers (based
in the U.S.) take away access to certain websites, or take away services from
those sites. International website hosts would not have to obey this law,
obviously.
When this Bill first surfaced,
people felt that it violated their first amendment rights. Many people were One
clear problem with SOPA is how much copyrighted material is worth the blocking
of a domain? Will SOPA allow blogs commenting on copyrighted music or a book to
be blocked? Facebook and Twitter posts? According to SOPA the Attorney General
would decide what fell under the policy and what does not.
In my opinion, the Bill would do
more harm than good and people would lose out on their use of the Internet and
the limitations. Although, I do not think it is far-fetched to want to curb the
transfer of pirated and copyrighted materials. I mean someone is creating it
and one can argue that they do deserve credit, or payment. I think it comes
down to accessibility in the end. If people can access something for free
rather than paying for it, that’s what they will download. SOPA can attempt to
prevent that, but I think it will not be passed when it comes to vote.
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