Re: [us-marketing] SOPA

On 01/18/2012 02:26 PM, upscope wrote:
> On Tuesday, January 17, 2012 11:58:24 PM drew wrote:
> > Howdy,
> >
> > Well, someone decided that the English website should go dark today..I
> > guess if you are reading this you know why.
> >
> > I would like encourage you to follow your own feelings on this. IMO
> > it's a good time, if you haven't done it before, to send your
> > congressman and or senators an email. (My personal experience is that
> > it's much better do it yourself, don't use one of the canned
> > services..)
> >
> > The vote in the congress isn't happening till the 24th, so you have
> > time..
> >
> > Best wishes,
> >
> > //drew
> Drew I have to dis-agree with people not wanting to pass these bills. My
> wife is aself publiched ebook author and at least 5 illegill sites have
> stolen her books and are giving them away or charging less. This reduces
> her income significantly.
Where are these sites? I think the answer will tell you where the real 
problem is.
> Maybe the bill news to be tuned to not step on peoples free thoughts,
> but definately should protect writer, author, etc. But noing our so
> called representatives I wonder what they are really after, probably
> more loss of our freedoms.
>
> Just my biased thoughts.
The real problem with piracy is that it will occur regardless of the 
law. The best you can do is minimize it. One problem is that IP law is 
not uniform worldwide and that many content providers (music industry 
notoriously) have not tried to address the changing business climate 
until absolutely forced. The music industry did not see music 
downloading as potential revenue source for many years. They apparently 
felt listeners would always go to record stores and buy the CD when 
listeners wanted to sample and select what they wanted. The later is 
very easy to do online and at a $1 a track could even be more profitable 
- no physical media to handle.

One issue that is hard to prove or disprove is there actually a loss due 
to piracy or does, counter intuitively, the piracy actually lead to 
increased net sales over time. Another way to understand it, is the 
pirate never going to purchase works from the creator or will the pirate 
turn out to by a very loyal and consistent customer over time.

The proposed legislation allows for frivolous attacks, no due process, 
or legal recourse about false claims and in some versions compromising 
the DNS system. Also, it forced content aggregators (YouTube, Facebook) 
to monitor all posted content or face having the entire site shut down. 
Say someone posted copyrighted pictures on their FB page the legislation 
could be interpreted to allow shutting down all of FB, not just removing 
offending content or suspending the user account. Even when someone is 
trying to be conscientious about copyright, attribution, and royalties 
it is easy to err without any malicious intent.

--
Jay Lozier
jslozier@gmail.com


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