In case anyone really needs to use it, all wikipedia did was tag a lil script to the end of all their pages. To view wikipedia regularly, disable javascript.

Out of curiosity, does woot have a stance on SOPA at all? I know politicians rarely affect monkeys (although they're both experts when it comes to flinging poo)

penguinart1 wrote:In case anyone really needs to use it, all wikipedia did was tag a lil script to the end of all their pages. To view wikipedia regularly, disable javascript.

Adblock en.wikipedia.org/w/* and bam. No disabling needed.

I am surprised that PIPA and SOPA haven't gotten more press earlier with sites like Wikipedia. The bills were introduced a few months ago.

Now Google is protesting the bills with their logo.

As a longtime songwriter and record producer, I'm seriously tempted to boycott the sites who ARE anti-SOPA for their knee-jerk positions.

If your livelihood was being stolen out from under you, and google was cheerfully enabling those thefts, you might feel differently.

█████ ███ ████ ██ ███████ ██ ███ ██████ ███ ████ ████ ██ ████ ██ ██████ ████ █████ ██ ██████ ████ ██████ ████ ████?

wwittman wrote:As a longtime songwriter and record producer, I'm seriously tempted to boycott the sites who ARE anti-SOPA for their knee-jerk positions.

If your livelihood was being stolen out from under you, and google was cheerfully enabling those thefts, you might feel differently.

Making websites legally responsible for what their customers upload is not the answer. I'm not a supporter of piracy. I pay for all of my music and movies on principle, not out of fear of getting caught. But this legislation gives the government and the media industry power to censor the Internet. Facebook and YouTube should not be liable just because little Johnny Smith chooses to upload a clip from Family Guy or my band wants to record a cover song.

It's just my opinion, but I sincerely believe that the media industry needs to move with the flow of technology. Obviously the current setup isn't working, so instead of trying to legislate an obsolete system into profitability, how about moving to a medium based on ad revenue and/or reasonable prices?

If you disagree with me, just remember the Sony v. Betamax case years ago. If the courts would have ruled differently than they did, ALL personal media with a recording element (camcorders, audio recorders, VCRs, DVDs, MP3 players, etc.) wouldn't exist today. Just think what incredible advancements might not be invented if SOPA/PIPA pass.

wwittman wrote:As a longtime songwriter and record producer, I'm seriously tempted to boycott the sites who ARE anti-SOPA for their knee-jerk positions.

If your livelihood was being stolen out from under you, and google was cheerfully enabling those thefts, you might feel differently.

Understood. I don't believe the drive is to enable piracy, but to find a better means to prevent it.

Ridiculous metaphor alert: Most bank robbers use cars to "getaway" so let's ban cars to solve bank robberies.

uh, it's too late/early to make sense right now....

wwittman wrote:As a longtime songwriter and record producer, I'm seriously tempted to boycott the sites who ARE anti-SOPA for their knee-jerk positions.

If your livelihood was being stolen out from under you, and google was cheerfully enabling those thefts, you might feel differently.

It's OK to want laws that actually protect your work. it's another to blindly sign off on a law that does 30 other things besides the one you want just cause the one idea. this is as bad the patriot act. I want to introduce a new bill called 'Jobs for all' it guaranties 100% employment rate. what it allows is the government to kill anyone who is terminated from their job and does not find a new one or leave the country immediately. also it removes all wage minimums allows employers to seize your property when you become and employee and retains all rights to your belongings even if change jobs. the sad thing is if no one forces the issue of how bad an ideal that bill would be it would pass with a cheer from all.

+1 to all the above responses. A better solution to protect the artists can be found other than censorship, which is un-American!

If Woot decides to have a SOPA-blocked Bravo Charlie, I'm fairly convinced there will be bloodshed...

wwittman wrote:As a longtime songwriter and record producer, I'm seriously tempted to boycott the sites who ARE anti-SOPA for their knee-jerk positions.

If your livelihood was being stolen out from under you, and google was cheerfully enabling those thefts, you might feel differently.

Have you actually read the bill and seen what it entails? Not just the parts they like to mention to get it passed?

BTW, just as a suggestion, maybe expand from records into newer formats. That could be part of the problem.

wwittman wrote:As a longtime songwriter and record producer, I'm seriously tempted to boycott the sites who ARE anti-SOPA for their knee-jerk positions.

If your livelihood was being stolen out from under you, and google was cheerfully enabling those thefts, you might feel differently.

I don't mean to be rude, but I don't think you quite understand what these sites are protesting. They ARE against piracy. They are also against censorship. US citizens would not be allowed to use many sites, including Amazon (didn't they just buy Woot or something?), Youtube, Wikipedia... And hey, you know that Facebook thing? Yeah, they'd get shut down too. Even if they disabled sharing links, all it would take is someone taking a video of their family singing Happy Birthday to a 5 year old and BAM Facebook is in violation. Or hey, what if you and a friend decide to meet up after having not seen each other in forever? You take a picture, and load it on Facebook. You know that shirt you're wearing? Well, that design is someone's intellectual property. And now, you've just uploaded an image to the internet that contains intellectual property / copyrighted material (that you don't own) for people to view. YOU have just broken the law.
Also, tons of jobs / livelihoods are being 'stolen' due to the fact that EVERYTHING IS MADE IN CHINA! Ok, maybe not everything, and maybe not all in China, but you get my drift? Ever try to boycott companies that outsource jobs? It's sad when money becomes the most important thing.

I am anti SOPA and PIPA, but what scares me the most is the people in the committee have no idea what they are being told. Can we please get some brains in the lawmakers??

...and I took my own site down for the day.

The bill is pretty messed up, but it doesn't stand much of a chance of getting signed into law.

BorisBadenov wrote:█████ ███ ████ ██ ███████ ██ ███ ██████ ███ ████ ████ ██ ████ ██ ██████ ████ █████ ██ ██████ ████ ██████ ████ ████?

Thank You... Even if no one else gets it, you have nailed it dead on!

penguinart1 wrote:In case anyone really needs to use it, all wikipedia did was tag a lil script to the end of all their pages. To view wikipedia regularly, disable javascript.

Wikipedia even tells you how to bypass the blackout. They even say it's OK. They just want awareness of what SOPA/PIPA can do to the Grid!

wwittman wrote:As a longtime songwriter and record producer, I'm seriously tempted to boycott the sites who ARE anti-SOPA for their knee-jerk positions.

If your livelihood was being stolen out from under you, and google was cheerfully enabling those thefts, you might feel differently.

If you really are in the industry, you should know that there isn't any such thing as bad publicity. Just spell my name right. (Thanks to Andy Warhol for that one). Besides, what is with these fascist lawsuits from the RIAA? Against mothers on welfare, because their kids downloaded some Justin Bieber? BTW, remember what happened to Metallica when Lars went on his little crusade? Might as well shoot yourself in the foot!

Am making a list and checking it twice to see who supports freedom and who don't! Plain Black & White Issue here.

Do you know what Countries already these type of laws that control what their citizens can see or hear??? Do You See A pattern?

Afghanistan
Angola
China
Congo
Iran
Iraq
Kenya
Nigeria
North Korea
Pakistan
Saudi Arabia
Somalia
Sudan
Syria
Turkey
Venezuela
Vietnam
Yemen

wwittman wrote:As a longtime songwriter and record producer, I'm seriously tempted to boycott the sites who ARE anti-SOPA for their knee-jerk positions.

If your livelihood was being stolen out from under you, and google was cheerfully enabling those thefts, you might feel differently.

I think there's a bit of irony in you criticizing these sites for "knee-jerk" reactions when you obviously have no understanding of why they oppose it. Your emotionally-driven support of SOPA is, by definition, "knee-jerk." Wikipedia and Reddit, at least, have full write-ups of their reasoning. Why don't you take a look?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Learn_more

http://www.reddit.com/#faq

http://blog.reddit.com/2012/01/technical-examination-of-sopa-and.html

wwittman wrote:As a longtime songwriter and record producer, I'm seriously tempted to boycott the sites who ARE anti-SOPA for their knee-jerk positions.

If your livelihood was being stolen out from under you, and google was cheerfully enabling those thefts, you might feel differently.

As a long time programmer and web application developer I find your own reaction to be rather knee-jerk.

I have no facts at hand but I feel its safe to say there are far more successful programmers, artists, salesmen, etc. that make their living from the internet than artists, actors, etc.

The vast majority would loose their jobs in the years to come after SOPA\PIPA to corporations taking down their sites for petty crap that could have been handled in a much better way.


PS: I've had my work stolen. I felt kind of flattered.

These bills take anti-piracy to ridiculous extremes. The entertainment industry seems to think if they keep crushing and choking the world at large, they will someday achieve zero theft. IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN. It's like the TSA....people allow horrible invasions of their privacy and their bodies for the illusion of zero risk, when in actuality the extreme methods add almost no extra safety to the metal detectors and bag xrays of the past. Same with this...pirates will quickly and easily find ways around whatever gets thrown at them, and the only people to suffer will be the ones who *want* to pay for what they get.

Frankly, anyone who thinks it's okay to block an entire website because a few random users violated copyright--despite the fact that the websites already cooperate and remove clips and delete accounts when violations are reported--deserves to be pirated right out of business.

penguinart1 wrote:In case anyone really needs to use it, all wikipedia did was tag a lil script to the end of all their pages. To view wikipedia regularly, disable javascript.

Not even necessary. First thing I noticed was, it loads the entire page you requested, -then- it redirects you to the blackout page. So you can just wait for it to load your page, then hit escape while it's loading the second page. Disabling javascript's way too much work :p.

That said, thedailywtf was already one of my favorite sites, and they just got mad internet points for their hilarious "support" of SOPA. Complete with, of course, letting you past the whiteout page if you use their ip address instead of the url. Exactly like the post-SOPA internet also would.

"Nah, I don’t frequent those liberal commie sites."

That's ironic, because most of the backers of the bill are those liberal commies".

""A so-called blackout is yet another gimmick, albeit a dangerous one, designed to punish elected and administration officials who are working diligently to protect American jobs from foreign criminals." - Chris Dodd, MPAA CEO, Former high ranking Democrat Senator.

wwittman wrote:As a longtime songwriter and record producer, I'm seriously tempted to boycott the sites who ARE anti-SOPA for their knee-jerk positions.

If your livelihood was being stolen out from under you, and google was cheerfully enabling those thefts, you might feel differently.

It's literally 12 - 24 hours. And if SOPA passes, you will get even less page views because of it. So take this small hit so that afterward you will continue to make money.

Some of my favorite sites are blacked out, but I don't mind that woot is up.

Did DealsWoot just go dark in protest, or did the refurb servers crash?

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The BEST response !!

dw1771 wrote:Did DealsWoot just go dark in protest, or did the refurb servers crash?

I think they were censored by Disney. They're just getting some practice in.

Blackout, or Blackmail?

I'm sure a lot of little first-world problems will arise from the blackouts, like students unable to finish their research papers or flip through the random articles on Wikipedia or discuss their latest testicular injury on Reddit.

Nevertheless, if SOPA in its proposed form were to pass and be enforced to the fullest extent possible, or even the more realistic level that governmental bureaucracy would enable, it would kneecap the internet in a way never seen before.

thumperchick wrote:I think they were censored by Disney. They're just getting some practice in.

It went splat. Should be fine now.

wwittman wrote:As a longtime songwriter and record producer, I'm seriously tempted to boycott the sites who ARE anti-SOPA for their knee-jerk positions.

If your livelihood was being stolen out from under you, and google was cheerfully enabling those thefts, you might feel differently.

I get where you are coming from and stand by your desire to make a living from your work, however SOPA and PIPA *ARE* knee-jerk reactions to file distribution and, arguably, overreaching copyright infringement.

SOPA and PIPA are the equivalent of making gun control laws to stop people from breaking the current gun control laws. The people who were already breaking the law will continue to do so without reservation. The people who will be adversely affected are the law abiding citizens.
More laws, especially poorly worded ones that grant ridiculous amounts of power to private corporations without reprisals for abuse, are not the answer.
How about the entertainment industry looks logically at it's customer base and shifts it's profit structure to something that makes sense for the current technology? No? Ok, well then just take YouTube offline because you refuse to come into the 21st century.

It is days like to day that I realise I am a Wikipedia adict. I'm even shaking a bit from the withdrawl...

... actually, I'm probably shaking because it is always so frickin' cold in the office- but I am missing Wikipedia- tried some of the alternatives and they're not as good.

Yes, I know you can work-around the blackout but it's a pain.

[This Woot comment was removed by the MPAA.]

WhirlwindMonk wrote:I think there's a bit of irony in you criticizing these sites for "knee-jerk" reactions when you obviously have no understanding of why they oppose it. Your emotionally-driven support of SOPA is, by definition, "knee-jerk." Wikipedia and Reddit, at least, have full write-ups of their reasoning. Why don't you take a look?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Learn_more

http://www.reddit.com/#faq

http://blog.reddit.com/2012/01/technical-examination-of-sopa-and.html

According to proponents of the bill, much of the information you link to is incorrect, no matter how many times it has been repeated. I don't know who to believe, and frankly don't have the time to figure it out, but I do know better than to listen to one side of an argument and spout off on internet message boards without understanding the other side of the story, which I assume is the case with most of the people posting here. I also know better than to believe everything I read on Wikipedia unquestioningly.

For those in support of these bills because they're help "prevent piracy", you really need to get your head out of your derriere. These laws will punish the innocent and not do a thing to actually stop piracy. I've been online through much of the Internet's history, and I've learned something that should be obvious to everyone. You will never stop piracy. Punishing everyone is just a knee-jerk reaction by politicians and pushed by organizations with more money than brains.

barry171 wrote:frankly don't have the time to figure it out

Found your problem.

barry171 wrote:spout off on internet message boards without understanding the other side of the story,

Ah, that's good, so you're giving fair chance to all opinions, I can get behind that.

barry171 wrote:which I assume is the case with most of the people posting here.

...oh. You "assume." So other people "spouting off" while only knowing one side of the story is bad, but you "spouting off" about one side while "assuming" you know the other is ok. Gotcha.

Also, the reddit blog post I linked to cites and links to the specific language in the bill. The proponents can say whatever they want, if the language is in the bill, they have no ground to stand on. Even if the proponents claim that that isn't the "intention" and that they "don't plan to use it that way," having the possibility be in there is problem enough.