I'm saying that this does matter, because PIPA and SOPA are not the problem. The problem is what they let the copyright holders do: Take down whole websites for hosting user uploaded infringing material. They just showed that they can do this even without SOPA and PIPA. They did this to emphasize that they are in control of the internet, and people should just obey. They possibly did this to show off their power. That's an old trick used by oppressors to prevent protests. How could this not matter?Originally Posted by Darkseid
I believe this is even more important than the SOPA and PIPA. Because people could object to those, but no one can object to this. It is already the law. A law that gives the copyright holder power to put people in prison for the crime of providing communication services to people. This means any communications provider on the internet who doesn't spy on all the users and actively monitoring every single post for copyright infringement could suffer.
Heck, they could just barge in into any forum, say "admins knew people were talking about piracy but did nothing to stop them", then seize all their assets and put them in prison without giving them a chance of being heard, Effectively killing free speech. What's worse is that they can do it without SOPA.
It's good that SOPA is almost gone, but to me, SOPA wasn't the start of it. To me, it was when they charged PirateBay founders for "enabling people to infringe copyrights". Just what the heck does "enabling" mean? All they did was that they provided torrent users a communication tool and did not actively self censor themselves.
To make this more understandable, consider this hypothetical situation:
Imagine someone asking you where he can find the nearest bank. You tell him it's just down the road. The man says thanks and goes away and you go home. The man enters a bank, pulls of a robbery, and leaves. The police can't find the bank robber, so instead they come to your house, arrest you, and put you in prison for "enabling someone to perform a bank robbery". And to make thing even worse, you don't get to defend yourself.
Pretty crazy, eh? This is already part of the law, and it's called ProIP. They used this very law to take down MU. They didn't actually infringe anyone's copyright. They just provided a communication tool and did not actively self censor themselves, at least in MPAA's standards. That was enough to put people in jail.
If you read the wikipedia article, you can see that Lamar Smith was one of it's supporters, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation was in opposition. The difference is that back then no one cared, so this became a law.
I think governments having enough power to take away the freedom of speech and take down simple communication tools in name of protecting copyright holder's rights defiantly falls into the category of "important".
