The Spoony Experiment - Because bad movies and games deserve to be hurt back!

Anonymous

Dang.

http://twitter.com/SirTobbii Tobbii Karlsson

Reading it sort of feels as if he really wants to get you out of the way and just forget about the people hurt by SOPA and PIPA, but does so with the nicest words possible. Annoying.

Anonymous

Wow. It’s amazing how so many words could say so little of value. Or intelligence.

http://twitter.com/SteveJones313 Steven Caulfield

In other words it’s a basic pre-written bullshit letter where all they do is change the name. Anyone else not surprised?

Jamie Sheil

bad actors?

What does that even mean? Is it legal talk? What do they have to do with stolen works?

wiegeabo kilijabob

He probably does mean ‘actor’ in the legal sense. As in ‘a person who does something, a participant’. Poor choice of word in this case.
- http://pulse.yahoo.com/_HHYFDN44YXT3H6LDT2YCO34HCY Brian
  
  Not exactly, just too much by way of legalese. Basically a “bad actor” is someone you know has done something illegal but you can’t come out and name them as it would prejudice a future case.
  
  Of course this deflects from the whole point of this being a bad law for so many reasons, some of which being:
  1) Piracy is not the entertainment industries’ problem, bad products, high prices and bad delivery or trial systems are. I could think of a hundred ideas that are better than the current system. But then again the whole point of modern capitalism is that companies maximise their returns in the short term, meaning shitty products made by underpaid employees sold as dearly as possible.
  2) Piracy does not affect sales (except maybe positively). People who pirate are in two categories, a) those who’ll never buy and b) those who’d like to try before they buy (who are actually more likely to buy after pirating as it’s only a temporary thing anyway).
  3) Why hurt legitimate business when going after illegitimate? We all know pirates will circumvent this (about 5 miliseconds after it comes into effect) easily and the only users hurt will be people doing things legally. But of course we also know goverment at the moment (here in Ireland even more so!) is “government of the poor, by the rich and for the rich” to mangle the Gettysburg Address quote, so this has been bought and paid for already.
  
  I could go on like the energiser bunny, but it’s getting late over here.
  - Anonymous
    
    Your 2nd point is excellent and I haven’t even thought of it. These estimated losses assume that the person who illegally downloaded something would have bought it were the download not available. In a lot of cases that’s not the case.
    
    As for point 3, it just illustrates that the federal government is looking to seize more control and they’re just using the whole piracy issue as a backdrop so people give up the control willingly.

http://twitter.com/KNTAbridged Berethead

$10 says I get the same message.

Nagneto Lives

i’ll bet 58 million John Mccain never even saw that letter.

alecfisher014

So in other words “Spoony i’m real happy for and imma gonna let you finish, but SOPA is one of the best bills of all time!”

http://twitter.com/Kiposaurus Nick Kipouros

This seems like a long way of saying “don’t worry about it bud.”

Anonymous

More like a really, really genteel way of saying “Shut up, I know what’s best. But it’s cute you’ve formed your own little opinion about it.”

Anonymous

yeh ……………… i read, “la la la i’m not listening, i can’t hear you!!!”

Anonymous

Of course, that implies he cares about what Noah has to say in the first place. Unless he gets an overwhelming amount of opposition (enough to threaten reelection), he’s going to do things his way.

http://twitter.com/R4Z0RV1N3 Michael Smith

Ahh yes, the I didn’t really care about your thoughts, but we had to send a letter to you to appease you letter. Classy…

Anonymous

lol very true. the UK government are really good at that too, i’ve seen mp’s here give interviews, then a question they dont like comes up, you see them panic for a second then, they pull a huge speech out their asses but still dont answer the question. also if the interviewer realizes they haven’t answered and presses the issue i’ve seen them walk away.

http://twitter.com/kasded .

$58 Billion? Do they have legitimate proof of that?
Notify a website owner? what they gonna notify a guy in Russia that he sells on his Russion located website illegal american intellectual property ? WTF? It seems like John McCains staff doesn’t understand the bill.

http://twitter.com/AprilVonLon April Von Lon

“The Internet, which has delivered so many benefits to our economy, has
unfortunately also allowed bad actors to steal and sell these stolen
works.”

Wait what? “Bad actors”? Is this a weird way of saying “people who have acted badly, i.e. done bad things”, or are they just saying Pauly Shore has a black market trade in illegally downloaded movies?

Anonymous

kinda what i was thinking when i read that XD

http://twitter.com/justinvasquez Justin Vasquez

$58 Billion?! My ass.

Just because someone downloads Britney Spears entire discography doesn’t mean they were going to purchase it. That cannot count as lost revenue.

This is why the record industry is so past tense. They just do not get it.

http://twitter.com/Greenboy2004 Anthony Harper

Sorry to see this Spoony kinda feels like we’re getting letter-bombed by our government

http://twitter.com/tpayne8888 tpayne8888

58 BILLION? i hope u die in a whole McCain.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jeremy-Satcher/1033380360 Jeremy Satcher

McCain would die inside of a whole McCain? Like die inside of his own body? Don’t we all do that?
http://twitter.com/JustinHormann Justin Hormann

and I thought these things smelled bad on the outside…

http://sbkmulletman.deviantart.com/ sbkMulletMan

From what I’ve seen, Bad Actors only bring in the money. Halle Berry alone probably cancels out the “58 billion” loss (my Bullshit-to-English translator nearly exploded on that one).

Unless he means “people who do bad things” in which case cut it out with the vague language, already!

Colin Tougas

What were we expecting here? What would have satisfied us in terms of a response?

The most important thing I can see is, “Please rest assured that should these bills come to the Senate floor, I will keep your views in mind. Thank you again for sharing your thoughts on this important topic.”

Are we expecting anything more than this? Something more like ”Please rest assured that you’ve convinced me that SOPA need reformation. Thank you again for sharing your thoughts on this important topic”

Personally, I don’t know how to interpret this 90% generic letter.

http://sbkmulletman.deviantart.com/ sbkMulletMan

Here, let me interpret it,

“What is this? What the Hell is an “Ant Whiler”? Gracey, YOU deal with this, I have REAL work to do! I dunno, just say SOMETHING and slap my name at the end of it, I’M HUNGRY!”
- Anonymous
  
  OH U.
  
  You’re silly.
- sanktmikael
  
  What? What is this? A letter. I hope this is not… Spoony’s letter.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000627098834 Chepi Shikoba

Even if those statistics are correct, we will probably lose the same amount or more if the bills pass.

Nagneto Lives

In other words “WE DON’T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT YOU NERDS. TROLOLOLOLOL”

http://twitter.com/fatalrob0t Ehren Hatten

Pretty much that.
Anonymous

Dude. The entire letter is innocuous, safe-worded nothingness.

What could they have said that would NOT provoke this response from you? I mean really.

http://twitter.com/fatalrob0t Ehren Hatten

Fuck you, McCain. You’re no conservative and you sure as hell lost all your common fucking sense long ago.

Anonymous

“Conservative” and “Common Sense” are two words that should never be in the same sentence together, under any circumstances.

McCain is an excellent conservative. That’s exactly why his reply letter sucks so much and he himself is a terrible person.
- Anonymous
  
  You obviously have confused ‘Republican’ with ‘Conservative.’
  
  McCain’s an excellent Republican. He’s no Conservative. As Ehren noted.
- sanktmikael
  
  You just put them in the same sentence. Shit, bro!
- Anonymous
  
  “Conservative” and “Common Sense” are three words.
- Anonymous
  
  I’m a conservative and I have common sense. They go together like bread and butter. I find it almost amusing that you would say such a thing, but then I also find it very annoying as well. McCain is no conservative. He has no common sense. If he had he’d pay attention to what’s around him rather than suck the establishment’s cock like many others do. Rush is right, we need to take the Republican party back from the establishment.

Darkscar

he means by contacting him; talk to his lackey and maybe listen to what u have to say….

http://twitter.com/petey0707 Kris

$58 billion is nothing compared to the TRILLIONS this man has supported in warfare, not to mention the countless lives lost outside our borders to support a corrupt nation like Israel. His neoconservative agenda may appear somewhat sincere, but rest assured, once they pass those powers will be abused. I hate Mccain, don’t be naive and believe in his lies.

natalie jones

So,wait,Tom Cruise is now stealing his own movies and pirating them?

http://twitter.com/LadyKaguraX Natalie Norment

McCain, what are you doing? Please help defeat SOPA!

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_MIUZXLQ4I3NPIWELZWVYJ4WKCI Devon

This looks suspiciously close to the letter I got when I emailed my State’s senator. l8C

http://twitter.com/HeartOfTheDark Naomi Latham

*sigh* I hope this shit doesn’t spread to the UK. It’s bad enough that this is going to cripple some of the biggest international sites around as it is.

http://templeofthehut.blogspot.com The_Hut

There’s only one answer if you really want a government that works for the voters: a constitutional ammendment that says very specifically that candidates for any office cannot accept private donations of any kind. We have to get money out of politics.

Anonymous

But then only people who had money in the first place – the rich – could actually run campaigns. So, no, I’m sorry, that is a HORRIBLE idea. I hate corporate influence on politics as much as any other sane human being, but that it just a really, really bad solution.
- http://templeofthehut.blogspot.com The_Hut
  
  I was thinking public financing laws. No private money at all. Not even your own.

Mike Bankes

Most people don’t understand all politicians are bout and paid for by big corporations. They help fund campaigns and get them in office and in return they get favors such as this bill. It’s hard for something like this to get defeated grass roots style, the way channel awesome personalities are going about it. The only way this will lose is if they get on tv and radio and bring it to a broader audience. I appreciate the fight but they are going about it the wrong way.

Robert Avnet

mccain is a piece of garbage anyways, if he is such a strong supporter of NDAA why would you expect him to support civil liberties, piece of crap

Anonymous

He is, of course, wrong. SOPA and PIPA don’t simply codify existing powers, they add new ones and remove a significant amount of judicial oversight.

Bully to you for helping protest these horrible, horrible laws.

Andreas Persson

With a $58 billion loss (wherever they get those number I have no idea, but my guess is that they’re severely exaggerated seeing as how they come from the same corporations McCain is talking about) and a profit of $67.6 billion (music industry only, not counting movie sales) in 2011, I have a hard time believing that the entertainment industry would be the victim here. Actually losing money to such a degree that your books have a “-” at the end of the quarter, and not making as much money as you potentially could is far from the same thing.

Anonymous

No surprise there, McCain has always been big brother friendly. Might I recommend you send an appeal to the office of Sen. Rand Paul. If you can have the TGWTG team put together a comprehensive packet as to why these Bills are dangerous he might be willing to present them when it comes time for a vote.

Anonymous

Is McCain calling Spoony a bad actor?
I hope our government’s inability to get anything done will mean that these laws don’t come to pass anytime soon, but since corporations with a lot of money to throw around there is a real chance that something like this will come to pass, at which point a lot of online freedom will be lost. Either that or new search engines will pop up that allow you to search through the delisted sites, which will make a sort of internet underground. Weird things are on the horizon people.

Anonymous

Such a cookie-cutter response. Good luck, Noah.

http://twitter.com/ZJohnson1982 Zachary Johnson

i didnt even get that when i called state rep form my district in ohio

http://mechatomicisland.weebly.com MechatomicIsland

Regardless of how stupid some politicians are about this issue, I think they are starting to realize that, if passed, it is going to cake their fan in an unpleasant brown goo.

http://twitter.com/Altabane Alta

Since he said you can ask him about any issue in the future, could you ask him why John Cena still hasn’t turned heel?

akihiko18

I don’t know about you guys, but I’m convinced the saying ”Whoever wins, we lose.” Will be a VERY accurate description. All the canidates sucks. Over the years I have lost faith in politicians they’re sincerity. Let McCain say what he wants. You know his concern is a load of bull. He just wants the almighty $.

http://twitter.com/Tar_robot Lennie Leuridan

yeah dont even bother with the $1,292,792,729,905 war bill and lets push another lobbyist bill threw.

Erich Williams

And this is why I’m still ticked about Hayworth not winning in the last Senatorial run. Not only was he much more charismatic, but he was a staunch defender of free speech and frequently spoke out against internet and radio censorship.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_UZVGF6TEDAWMXHHKM6FNM5Y324 Jacob B

Dear so and so,

thanks for writing us even though we didn’t take time to actually read
your letter. let’s be real for a second, corporations pay us lots of
money to see to it that bills that benefit them get passed regardless of
how it effects anyone els. you see we don’t care about your freedoms
because we here at the tip top are too busy with all your money to care
about things like decency or freedom. sorry you had to find out this
way, maybe jesus will one day make you one of us if you pray hard
enough.

Ta Ta,

Senator (greedy F&%K)

http://twitter.com/RaeAngel07 Rachel Baker

“Please rest assured that should these bills come to the Senate floor, I will keep your views in mind.”

I have just one word to describe what McCain said both in the quote above and the response to your letter to him.

Bullshit!!!

I’m sorry but I just think McCain is a slimy assclown who deserves to be fed to a pack of rabid wolves. Everything he said in the letter is complete and utter bullshit (I especially call bullshit on the fact that he said that the U.S economy loses $58 billion annually because of online piracy. I mean, is there any evidence of that or did the Hollywood studios pull that out of their asses?).

Spoony, if it’s any consolation; I think you did all you could to inform anybody who would listen about SOPA judging by what you and everybody else at Channel Awesome did in D.C and by writing a letter to McCain (even though all it did resulted in that shitty response).

I’m going to be keeping my fingers crossed that SOPA doesn’t pass and that all the petitions I signed in opposition of SOPA would help in getting it killed.

Renaissance_nerd

Keep fighting Spoony, now they know we won’t roll over and take this and that has them scared.

Sarah Zaccardi

…Well, that’s a form letter if I ever saw one. :|

http://twitter.com/TheSlorg Doug Collins

If any legislation like this passes, just vote for Ron Paul for president. He is thoroughly against the government interfering with stuff like this.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jonathan-Pelikan/100000903137143 Jonathan Pelikan

He’s also for letting the poor and sick die in the streets. I have more in common with Paul than any other Republican in the race, but I still can’t support him in good faith.
Andreas Persson

To be fair, every republican is against the government governing over it’s people. It’s the governments job to interfere (or govern and control society so that it works optimally) and if you take that away from a government you eventually get chaos. Republicans are never good for the US and they’ve shown this time and time again. Too bad the people are too stupid to think further than the curb outside their own little lawn.

Anonymous

Bad actors? Doesn’t he mean deranged Hong Kong bootleggers? Seriously, this reply is so generic that it might as well say “You wrote me a letter. This is a reply to your letter.”

Anonymous

Don’t take it personally. I wrote to Barack Obama (among other Congressmen) when he was still a senator for Illinois concerning an issue where I agreed with his intended vote, and the response I received was similar to the one you received. The response starts by thanking the writer for expressing their opinion on the issue, then goes on explaining the issue from their perspective and basically outlining how they are going to vote. The responses are usually impersonal (due to the high volume), so much so that I wonder if the secretary/some worker for the senator prepares a stock letter for every issue and simply changes the name at the top of the letter. You should expect this type of letter if you write to your representative or senator a lot.

More importantly, it shows how the senators/representatives are relatively inflexible in changing their minds regardless of the amount of letters they receive.

gravityBomb

Wait. Did I seriously just read $58 BILLION? As in nine 0′s?

What a crock of shit. And I thought that the idea of a particle going faster than the speed of light was unbelievable.

Keep fighting the good fight Spoony. Form letters are just politicians saying to their secretaries “But do I HAVE to? I don’t waaaanna….just make something up! They’ll believe it.” :/

http://twitter.com/KreatorRage Manuel

McCain is a moron anyway, Ron Paul would never let shit like this happen.

Eliot Wolf

I got this same letter from my house representative.

avery cawley

online piracy isnt as much of a big deal. most people steal stuf for one of two reason.
1. there just interested in it but they have no interests of actually buying it.
2. they dont have the money to buy it now. so they steal it to buy it later.
the statistic of online piracy does not show this. it simply shows the amount of people that download tornets from sites like pirates bay. The number is bull shit and is alot lower than $58 billion a year.
They want to pass the bill to boost the economy. the real criminals who steal everything and pay nothing can still go around the ban with the IP.

http://twitter.com/JJJMMM1 JM

Sincerely,
Reply-bot
United States Senate

Anonymous

That’s… a rather unusual usage of “actors” there. Technically, it’s the first definition that Webster will give you but it’s not the one that people are going to think of first – especially with “bad” in front of it. “Bad” is such a mealy-mouthed adjective too. Not “malefactors” or “malfeasants” but “bad actors.” Such a strange thing to get hung up on too but it is kind of annoying.

Beyond that, this is really just the most creepily mass-produced bit of correspondence. I know the guy is nominally busy but c’mon. This isn’t just a form letter, this is a paint-by-numbers form letter. Anyone who isn’t actively massaging the grapes of some crooked ass special interest group or another can tell that SOPA is the worst idea they’ve had in this arena since the Digital Millennium Copyright Act apparently gave a civilian organization representing multi-millionaire recording artists the right to peek in my hard drive without a warrant.

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/articles/matt-briner Matt Briner

Don’t be silly, everybody! I’m sure Sen. McCain wrote every word of that!

……Twenty-two years ago.

http://twitter.com/Fiddlewheel fiddlewheel

its obvious, this whole thing is about money.
and yes, I sound like an ass for saying that, but just look upon the facts here, they just see the money loss, they don’t see the loss of jobs, the loss of freedom or the loss of innovation.
they see “We lost 58 billion dollars, so that means the internet is bad!”
yeah, sure the loss of 58 billion dollars are a lot of money, and i’m not against people getting paid for what they have done, but when making money is the ONLY thing people try to make, then there is something wrong here…
money is important in this world, but it isn’t more important than the humans who made it!

Anonymous

Well, thank god he finally explained what SOPA was to you! After all, it’s clear that you obviously have no grasp of it whatsoever.

* obligatory sarcasm-doesn’t-always-work-in-text-form footnote: see name of footnote

Anonymous

aw McCain the old maverick he had his grandson write you an email to send over the interwebs

Gabby B

wow *eyeroll* they used your name and everything…

Anonymous

By which you mean they only used his name.

Anonymous

58 billion dollars annually? And people only realize this now?

Fuck this shit. If we were actually losing 58 BILLION dollars annually, specifically to piracy, this would have been a red-alert issue over five years ago. But guess what: it wasn’t.

Also, that statistic is a complete fabrication. The FBI has come out and said that it’s utterly impossible to verify that estimate.

http://twitter.com/JJJMMM1 JM

The 58 billion is obviously total bullshit. I’d love to see their calculations. I bet they’ve just used the formula

Loss per product = (number of downloads)*(price of product)

thinking it makes sense. They may think that if a thousand people downloaded a torrent of, say, Mission Impossible 3, it means that if it couldn’t be downloaded the same 1000 people would buy the DVD online. This is of course not the case. Those people watch the film because it’s free entertainment. It doesn’t mean they’d pay 20 bucks to see it.
- Anonymous
  
  That’s a good point. The government is forgetting that some people who pirate wouldn’t have bought the thing anyway, so while what they’re doing is indeed illegal, the loss in that particular case would be zero.
  
  Not only that, but some people torrent movies just to get an early watch, but actually buy them when the DVD is released. This is probably more likely with anime, as fans torrent subbed stuff so they can watch and appreciate it, but will actually buy the DVD when it finally becomes available here.
http://boorat.deviantart.com/#/d4c9c3t William “BooRat” Blackshire

Wow if that was true wouldn’t a lot of production companies long since been out of business!?
- laugther_drengen
  
  True, but it might at the very least make more people, (especially those outside the US) obvious of the problem.
- laugther_drengen
  
  My former reply was not meant for this comment so please just ignore anything i just said
- Anonymous
  
  Yeah, almost certainly. We’re losing the cost of the WAR EFFORT every two years? Uh, I don’t think so.

Anonymous

I think this is one canned response from a very old and foolish man! We have to stop this now! Join my Facebook Group: End SOPA Now! and lets all fight censorship and oppression!

Anonymous

Joining a Facebook group won’t help solve a fucking thing.
- Anonymous
  
  If enough people join it goes from grass roots to a movement so zarrotsu I will just assume you are a splib that has no idea how politics works in America and please do not comment on my posts again for your stupidity is so profound you make Sarah Palin look like a genius!
  - Anonymous
    
    You’re an idiot.
    
    PS. Cry some more.

Anonymous

So…essentially the greedy bastards in charge are patting us poor little ignorants on the head and telling us not to worry? Oh big brother when aren’t you there for me to take away my basic freedoms? yes please, keep feeding me absolutely vile lies in order to make me feel as though I am contributing to the corruption of my government.

…I’m moving to Canada!

Anonymous

Welcome to Canada.

Did you know that downloading music isn’t illegal? It’s the upload of music that’s considered an act of Piracy, at least up here in Canada last I chose to inform myself.

Also the legal age of consent is 16. It was actually bumped up from 14.

But I am sorry, you’ll have to deal with a premier (think the equivalent of a president) who’s a George W Bush fanboy and who was elected mainly because of the central provinces who’re benefiting from it because of all the oil they have to sell…

But hey, maybe you’ll be able to help us vote for either the Liberal or the NDP.
- Anonymous
  
  *sighs* ….I don’t want to live on this planet anymore. *starts building the spaceship* This is only further cementing my belief that the Earth is just an alien science project gone horribly wrong.

Anonymous

58 billion? Who is this benefiting? The bottom 30% of the country are only worth 69.7 billion combined. http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2011/12/05/the-few-the-proud-the-very-rich/ This is just an excuse to shut down websites without due process

Kintarius Dreamscape

Whatever happened to free market? Adapt or die.

Anonymous

Because the Invisible Hand of the Free Market only applies when it works the way they want it to. When it doesn’t, all semblance of Free market goes right out the window.

That’s why I tend to prefer the Liberal View of the Free Market: Constant but as little as possible interference as possible. The Conservative version is akin to stopping a hi-speed chase by putting a reinforced concrete wall in its path.

I used to watch/download copyrighted material all time time, either through US sites, or through foreign sites. I did so for free, not just because it was free, but because every other means of access was either too expensive or too convoluted and time consuming. Now, I pay $8/month for Netflix. I now HAVE the majority of both the access and ease that I wanted. This is what happens when the Invisible Hand of the Free Market works as it’s supposed to.

The Librarian of Congress already shot down Apple’s case about jailbreaking iPhones, because it was based on protecting a business model. This is little different. It always boils down to the true cultural divide in the end; The Have’s, and the Have Not’s.
http://www.facebook.com/people/George-Rosenbaum/100001387887487 George Rosenbaum

Free market capitalism assumes that people always make the most rational, best educated, optimum decisions in every given economic situation.

That’s crap, because I know PLENTY of people who I wouldn’t trust making their own decisions.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_AW3VX7HGVPJFFLYOQGRTPWDVFQ Joseph

Hah! Shows you how much McCain really knows about online pirates! They give all their media copies away for free! Why? To quote a bumper sticker I saw a couple years ago: “BitTorrent: because FUCK YOU HOLLYWOOD!”

http://twitter.com/TheSierraThree Sierra Three

It sucks having old man McCain as your senator. He probably doesn’t even know how to use the internet. I bet his grandchildren are going to hate him.

Anonymous

I got a very similar letter from Betty Sutton here:

Dear Mr. Black,

Thank you for contacting me regarding H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy
Act (SOPA). I appreciate you taking the time to express your thoughts and concerns.

H.R. 3261 was introduced by representative Lamar Smith on October 26th, 2011, and was referred to the House Judiciary Committee. This bill seeks to protect online intellectual property rights by authorizing the Attorney General and private persons to seek a federal injunction against domain names that facilitate property right infringement. This injunction would require internet service providers to stop doing business with and prevent access to, the infringing site.

As you know, a variety of concerns have been raised by critics of this bill including its potential impact on free speech, the effects domain name blocking might have on the integrity of the internet, and that increased legal action will make compliance difficult and stifle internet innovation. As the internet continues too grow in importance to the economy and our personal lives issues regarding how best to regulate it are becoming increasingly important. Please know that I recognize your concerns regarding the regulation of the internet and will keep your thoughts in mind should legislation regarding this issue be brought to the House floor for a vote.

Again, thank you for contacting me, and please feel free to do so in the future if I may be of assistance.
                                                                                    Sincerely,
                                                                                    Betty Sutton
                                                                                    Member of Congress

http://twitter.com/Shada67 Shada67

That’s very close to what I got:

Dear Ms. XXXX,

Thank you for contacting me
regarding the protection of intellectual property on the Internet. I appreciate hearing your views on
this matter and welcome the opportunity to respond.

U.S. law enforcement agencies
may protect against violations of intellectual property rights when perpetrators are acting within the
United States. However, the Internet provides a way for businesses to expand across borders, and poses
a challenge for the enforcement of intellectual property rights when violators are acting outside the
U.S. Currently, U.S. authorities cannot reach foreign websites offering pirated or counterfeit goods
to U.S. citizens.

In response to these concerns,
Senator Patrick J. Leahy (D-VT) introduced the PROTECT IP Act (S.
968) on May 12, 2011. This legislation would authorize the Justice Department or an intellectual property
rights owner harmed by an Internet site “dedicated to infringing activities” to pursue a cause of action
against either the registrant of an infringing domain name or an owner or operator of one. Moreover,
the bill allows the Justice Department to pursue such actions against registrants, owners, or operators
of foreign domain names as well. The bill has been placed on the Senate Legislative Calendar for consideration.
Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX) introduced the Stop Online Piracy
Act (H.R. 3261) in the House of Representatives on October 26, 2011. This legislation would also
authorize an action by the Justice Department against registrants, owners, or operators of foreign infringing
sites. Though both bills would increase the criminal penalties for those that sell counterfeit goods
of certain categories, like counterfeit medicine, the House legislation includes military equipment as
a special category.

Promoting and protecting innovation
is critical to U.S. businesses remaining competitive in the global economy. Many industries, from pharmaceutical
companies to recording studios, depend on intellectual property protections. These industries contribute
greatly to the U.S. economy and serve as significant job-creators. At the same time, some have expressed
concern that this legislation goes too far, and would lead to government overreach resulting in the chilling
of free speech online and the stifling of innovation. As a result of these concerns, Senator Ron Wyden
(D-OR) and Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA) have released an alternative proposal, called the Online
Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade (OPEN) Act, which would authorize the International
Trade Commission to investigate, and if necessary, take action against foreign websites involved in the
advertising or selling of counterfeit products. This proposal is based on the premise that the International
Trade Commission would be better suited to investigate such issues because of its current investigative
role in determining whether certain imports into the U.S. violate U.S. property rights. Rest assured,
should this legislation come to the House floor vote a vote, I will be sure
to keep your thoughts in mind.

Once again, thank you for taking the time to get in touch
with me. Your interest and input are valued and I hope to hear from you in the future regarding
other matters of importance. I encourage you to visit my website and sign-up for my monthly e-newsletter
at http://reichert.house.gov

to learn more about other issues impacting the 8th

Congressional District and our nation. You can also follow my work online and receive frequent updates
on legislation being considered in Congress by visiting me on Twitter (www.twitter.com/davereichert
)
and Facebook (www.facebook.com/repdavereichert
).

Sincerely,

David G. Reichert
Member of Congress

Noah Leavitt

“loses more than $58 billion annually” I’m sure some wizard expertly applied a (number of downloads * MSRP) formula, then magically assumed each was a lost sale. Piracy does NOT equal lost sales. This is because most pirates only want cheap / convenient entertainment and if they are cut off, they’ll find an alternative. This could actually HURT movies / games / music because you’ll lose a lot of word of mouth FREE advertising.

tl;dr piracy =/= lost sales. piracy == cheap entertainment. therefore, you cut pirates off from their cheap, convenient entertainment and they’ll find an alternative.

Anonymous

the issues is that no amount of piracy will effect the outcome of how well a movie does. The movie and or product will do well only if it does not suck. Games are the only thing that really gets hurt by piracy. Because a person that did not show up in the first place before there was piracy is the same after. All they are doing is wasting our time and money. The internet as a whole is beyond the comprehension of any of these people writing the bill and or are for it.

Gregory Bogosian

I am by no means a legal expert, or any kind of expert in fact, but I think I just found a passage from SOPA that you and the other Channel Awesome people could use to defend yourselves in court if you can get a good copyright lawyer on your side.

Here it is “(2) RELIEF.—Relief under this subsection shall
be proper if the court finds that—(A) the foreign Internet site subject to the
order is no longer, or never was, a foreign infringing site; or
(B) the interests of justice otherwise require that the order be modified, suspended, or
vacated.” It is on page 23 and if I am reading this monstrosity correctly it is referring to the injunctions that prevent search engines from listing infringing websites, so you guys could go to the justice department and try to convince them that your websites are legitimate.

I know that this is not much and I have not even read the bill in its entirety yet, but that does not mean that you and us fans and anyone who cares should not be doing everything we can and discussing this bill.

Remember what Bruce Wayne said to Terry McGinnis “There is always a way!”

http://twitter.com/MCInzanity Scott Gerry

My Senators were more than agreeable that this whole SOPA thing is bullshit… unless they were bullshitting me… huh. Well unfortunately that’s the way this political idiocracy works. They smile and wave as they call you a moronic fucktard. Well Spoony I emailed my senators about the issue both responded agreeably. But like I said they could be full of it. Anyway I support you and the movement to stop Internet Fascism 100%!

http://twitter.com/DarkstarDrago John DW McMahon

Dear Mr. Antwiler, I know you are one of the few people whom dare oppose my opinion on this matter and most assuredly I will bend and manipulate the already vague and easily manipulated SOPA and PIPA bills in my favour regardless of circumstances and/or if they contradict previous circumstances, don’t take it personally, it’s just business

Anonymous

McCain is a a big government, pro-regulation guy, always has been. He just acts like a free-market guy when he’s up for election. Mark the doutchebag as a yes for this bill without a doubt.

Anonymous

Translation: Screw you, you’re going to jail!

Renaissance_nerd

anyone get a “thank you now fuck off” vibe from this letter?

James Dodd

“As you know, online piracy is a major issue facing the American economy…” What a load of horse shit.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_CGGNQ44FLU5DKTVWVZ5WHME4UI Aria Ceen

I got a few mass-produced e-mails from Whitehouse.gov’s online petition program. They’re all basically:

“The petition you signed in regards to a violation of the constitution has been duly noted by the government. However, we don’t care that this issue is in clear violation of the constitution, because this infringement has been going on for over 150 years and is therefore a part of our nation’s historical heritage.

Hope you keep participating!

Sincerely,

Reply Bot
White House”

I don’t know why I bother trying to participate by communicating with my government. They just say, “Duly noted. Duly disregarded. Fuck off.”

Anonymous

Wow. Can this reply sound anymore patronizing?

With a country whose GDP is 15 trillion dollars, how can 58 billion dollars cripple ANYTHING besides the pockets of Hollywood and big gaming companies who make shitty remakes of the same game, over and over again?!

They need to stop piracy yes, but not at the cost of our god given freedoms.

Anonymous

Not to mention that 58 billion dollars…ANNUALLY…is ludicrous at best. I’m legitimately impressed that someone suggested “58 billion annually” with a straight face.
http://profiles.google.com/xens.pineapple Xen Xander

Well we don’t have ‘god given freedoms’ because god doesn’t exist. We do have a list of temporary privileges, granted by a piece of paper that can be suspended in a moment’s notice. When you research just how flimsy that ‘given rights’ list is, you realize how scary the system really is.

J G

this so freaking piss me off! So to gain 4% of the economy (most likely just to gain more tax revenue for them to piss away) they shit on all creativity and expression that the internet created. Someone needs to get these lifetime politicians from both parties out of our congress because it obvious that they have been bought out by corporations

Lance LeDuc

don’t you love how cookie cutter this letter is?

matt schneider

and this is why I am sad to be an american now. we have no freedoms or anything. yes piracy is a problem but putting people out of work, crippling the internet, and basically becoming china/iran/korea is just fine. why not just go communist since we want to be like china now. lets control our population, kill children. I cant believe that in a country founded on freedoms and rights we as americans have lost basically all of them as the people “representing” us in the senate just dont care about keeping the american tax payer happy/free but more about what can put more money in my pocket and crush america even further. I just want to say at this rate I hope everyone is ready to have the government dictate what we have in our lives because we might as well just become a complete communist nation with how the politics are in this country. Someone I work with said if these acts/bills pass we will have a revolt/revolution on hand and after reading that letter from McCain I am thinking it might not be a bad idea anymore.

Anonymous

Dear Mr. Antwiler:

I’ve been watching your site over the years and I noticed that you USED to make video’s now you only post long winded Vlogs. The Sopa act shouldn’t effect you.

Sincerely,

John McCain

United States Senator

Asger Egelund Nielsen

OOOOH SNAP!
- http://profiles.google.com/mecha.manson Ben Rush
  
  well its been 4 months since the last “review” and 6 months since the last “Story Review” guys got kinda a point

Anonymous

Funny numbers. But hey, if some lawyer sends you our version of a cease and desist it boils down to “we caught you downloading some movie, so if you pay $1000 and promise to never do it again, we won’t take it to court”. It’s pretty much legalized black mailing and the amount is based on the supposed damage.

How can a percentage of the damage be 100x the price of the DVD? By arguing that while you downloaded via torrent (or whatever sharing network), tens of thousands could download it from you. So 10000 x sales price = insane number.

Here’s a funny concept. DSL usually has much slower upload than download (here it’s about 1/10). So even on a good day, while you download a movie, a total of maybe 1/5 of it was uploaded. The “damage” is ergo the price of the DVD, minus production cost (and shipping, storage, etc. etc.) times 1.2. This is most likely way LESS than the sales price.

After that, SOMEONE should finally start figuring out a rough estimate of the percentage of people that would have actually bought it, if they couldn’t get it for free. I bet you that is one study no company will ever pay for. Guessing in their favour it’s maybe 50%, what’s left? $4 * 1.2 * .5 = $2.40

But no lawyer will waste his time for 20c if outrageous claims and ridiculous “math” can have him make a fortune by sending a form letter to thousands of people saying “pay me off or I’ll sue you”.

Some publishers even had their own company to track file sharing networks for IPs, had the attorneys burn lots of time getting the addresses for each IP, then dropped charges to send them what I described above. It’s a brilliant strategy and allows making money with a game so utterly bad nobody would ever buy it.

http://twitter.com/DoodTheMan Dante Alberti

They probs just wrote 1 letter and copy-paste names.

Ryan Wraight

I’m not an American citizen but I’ve been trying to fight this. Is their any way I can make a bigger difference? I’ve been signing petitions right and left.

Anonymous

Translation:

Dear Mr. Antwlier,

Please kindly go fuck yourself.

Sincerely,
John McCain
Old Rich White Guy

Chris Kirch

That’s exactly what I got from reading it. They don’t care at all and act the same way as if they had to defend their opinion against a political opponent. It’s not their job to defend their own (or a companys opinion), it’s their job to defend the people’s opinion.

Zach Lewis

Gosh, I wonder how long it took his secretary’s secretary to mail that stock letter to you. It’s times like these I think back on McCain’s “Joe the Plumber” shtick and laugh. I wonder if anybody even read the letter you sent, or if they just sent this generic piece of garbage right back. Our government is so screwed up…

http://twitter.com/BunkerAnon Bunka

I’ve been hammering these goons for years about this sort of legislation and any other sort that smells of abuse and the curtailing of free speech especially when it attains to control of the internet. I stopped opening letters a while back since I don’t care for claptrap only actions. But for those interested in actually getting to your rep is to A.Personalize it as much as possible and B.Double Barrel it with two topics that are precise that way the aide that goes through them first cannot get away with the standard form letter. I really hope that Issa and the others can keep hammering at this in the House and that people like Rand Paul can destroy this in the senate. And for those that have a hard time understanding this in this form look into the articles dealing with site seizures they do now under “Operation In Our Sites” which is run by Customs enforcement and is rife with problems. Torrentfreak torrent news site has some good articles about a man who’s website was accidentally taken. Took him A YEAR to finally get his name back. Yea this is some very dangerous stuff.

Rand Pauls petition against these bills

http://dontcensorthenet.com/kill-sopa/

Sign it tweet it and spread the word.

Anonymous

this letter confuses me a little bit, I’m really sorry. The letter is just basically saying what they already told you when you went to d.c.?

http://boorat.deviantart.com/#/d4c9c3t William “BooRat” Blackshire

That the point I think!

Anonymous

Did John McCain just call you a bad actor?

Anonymous

Hey, if the shoes fit…
- Anonymous
  
  Your previous comment mentions you never coming to this site ever again. Way to be consistent there champ.

http://damnfox.livejournal.com/ DFX

Uh, what a load of crap, i don’t know where to begin…

1) “Stealing” and “infringing licensing terms” (copying & sharing without copyright, copying & selling without appropriate contract, copying & using multiple copies for yourself/your company, etc.) are NOT fucking same thing !
In order to “steal” something that something should become no longer in possession of its owner or, at least, be a secret and not having any licensing terms to begin with.

2) Number dropping ? And, of course, they just assume that if not provided with handy way of acquisition and/or free/cheap/affordable price, people will, unquestionably, run off and buy same things in any form, via any source and by any price copyright holders are came up with. Riiiight…

3) “Notify”, huh ? It reminds me some draconian proposed legislation Russian lawmakers wanted to pass that would instruct Federal Security Service (“FSB”, CIA analogue) to “notify” anyone (mainly various site owners) about their “potential” or alleged crime. You may imagine how gruesome CIA/FSS “notification” may be…

4) First they “Notify” and immideately after we talking about court determining if site is legitimate or not ? That some powerful “notification” there. And site’s DNS entry will be ceased for an entirety of “determination” time, right ? Well, if it were legitimate it will be also dead then. And if not, it will get new DNS (see #5) and notify its registrants about name change, this is how biggest Russian torrent site, torrents.ru, became rutracker.org.

5) They apparently trying to stop unwanted sites from getting a [new] DNS entry by interfering into logistics of DNS registrars (including foreign) and holding them accountable for their customers actions (idiotic, unlikely but possible) or/and by forcing all country’s ISPs to filter (read: “censor”) all DNS traffic, breaking principle of Net Neutrality and compromising (tampering in any way with someone else’s traffic is an ‘attack’ in networking terms) all domestic Internet users. Talk about “Cyberwarfare” and “Cyber attacks”…

6) “Counterfeited goods” ? Literally it means fake stuff with phony labels but, of course, it’s always nice to redefine terms and include something unrelated which does not poses health hazard or any other properties of random fake shit, especially, completely immaterial things like byte sequences. Yeah, those byte by byte copies are so fucking “fake”, just because they were not “verified” by a copyright holder who’s authorized to get revenue from the same thing. Right, riiight ?!

7) “Selling of counterfeited goods” ?! Not only we not talking about real counterfeit (yeah, counterfeit been counterfeited by governments ;) but this shit spans across any unlawful copying AND introduces general-purpose global censorship mechanism with the potential to compromise any DNS data and, therefore, any Internet user it applied to.
And it’s only about DNS for now (what you call “delisting”), wait for when they decide to force ISPs to filter traffic based on actual addresses, or worse, to modify it at will or to send automated reports about your “undesired” activity (this is what real, hardware firewalls can do, no problem in repurposing them to “protect” Internet end users of your country).

8) “Due process”. What a joke. After all that, after analogue of installing/arming nuclear ICBMs to fight locusts, they dare to say that.
Any laws against licensing breaches were already doing all that, you didn’t even needed DMCA and shit like that, you bastards !

9) “These basic protections”, “not at risk for inadvertent violations”, what ?! What “protections” ? DNS poisoning ? It is “a protection” now ? For legitimate sites ?
There is a “risk for inadvertent violations” ? When STOP VIOLATING them, you techno-rapist fucks !

10) It’s not even a real answer for anything, just an automated, what you, Americans, call, a “Russian salad” of “factual” sentences mixed together.

And i thought Russian government officials are evil for implementing such shit even though constitution explicitly says “censorship is forbidden”. At least they don’t try to impose it on foreigners.

http://www.facebook.com/people/George-Rosenbaum/100001387887487 George Rosenbaum

Also, people can get ‘notified’ (read: ass-raped) for ALLEGED illegal activities. They don’t need a warrant, they can just drag you in court and stall until you can’t pay the legal fees and go bankrupt.

Anonymous

impeach john mccain and all who are 4 the SOPA to pass

http://boorat.deviantart.com/#/d4c9c3t William “BooRat” Blackshire

I don’t speak political talk but I do understand the basics of the English langue and he just gave you a good ole fashion run-a-round! He doesn’t say in there anywhere that he is or is not going to vote against it.
Well, we’re screwed if this is the average letter or response you got from DC!

http://boorat.deviantart.com/#/d4c9c3t William “BooRat” Blackshire

“The Internet, which has delivered so many benefits to our economy, has unfortunately also allowed bad actors to steal and sell these stolen works.”

Well, when he writes it like that that could mean this bill could stop “Bad Actors” from making movies! So, no more Twilight! YAY!!!

http://www.facebook.com/people/George-Rosenbaum/100001387887487 George Rosenbaum

“It is estimated that our economy loses more than $58 billion annually as a result of online piracy.”

I would like to see your sources, McCain. Oh wait, you don’t have any sources. Your just talking out of your wrinkled old ass.

Anonymous

“The Internet, which has delivered so many benefits to our economy, has
unfortunately also allowed bad actors to steal and sell these stolen
works.”

“Lolwut” comes to mind.

Christian Gurtner

Just a basic mass-response letter from someone who doesn’t have a clue about the Internet.

We’ve seen how little fair use is taken into consideration on youtube. SOPA is bascially the same, but for the entire internet.
Then again, I think the internet will just respond by being restructured in a way that the US Government won’t be able to interfere so easily.

And yes, those 58 billions are just the entertainment industry blaming any and all reduction in sales revenue on the internet.

http://twitter.com/Racecarlock Racecarlock

You’ve got MCCAIN as a senator? Wow. All I can really say is good luck with that, since sorry would sound insincere.

Anonymous

You know, I gotta say, I’m almost impressed with how much text is used in that letter to say *absolutely* nothing. Absolutely nothing was said as to his actual opinion or whatnot

Anonymous

So in the summary, ” I see You point Noah. Now look how much i don’t give a fuck about it.” It’s amazing how he’s still manages to slap You in the face a copy-pasted message. ” Bad actor” ? What an asshole. You should respond to that because it’s fucking insulting man !

Anonymous

It is not about literal actors, it about people committing acts…. It’s politicsish

http://twitter.com/daddy_shelton Cameron Nelson

60 billon dollars, or, roughly 71 hours of US government spending. Money supposedly “lost” to internet piracy is a drop in the goddamn bucket.

Anonymous

What… “bad actors” stealing movies? Is he talking about Spoony? Are you talking about Spoony McCain? All right, that is it. Johnny, you did it. I have to put a US Senator on my “list of people I am going to cockslap”… AGAIN! I don’t even live in your country! Why does this keep happening?!

Anonymous

So in the summary, ” I see You point Noah. Now look how much i don’t give a fuck about it.” It’s amazing how he’s still manages to slap You in the face a copy-pasted message. ” Bad actor” ? What an asshole. You should respond to that because it’s fucking insulting man !

http://twitter.com/moofers_mufa Matthew Clarke

I hope John McCain dies in a fire full of cancer for a copy and paste job. SOPA and Protect IP if passed will block anything they don’t like. WikiLeaks, Facebook, Google, Tumblr, Twitter and anything that has Free Speech in it.

SOPA and Protect IP will and should not pass, its to protect to wealthy and destroy the poor.

Anonymous

So in the summary, ” I see You point Noah. Now look how much i don’t give a fuck about it.” It’s amazing how he’s still manages to slap You in the face a copy-pasted message. ” Bad actor” ? What an asshole. You should respond to that because it’s fucking insulting man!

Aleksander Adamkiewicz

I have a way to save america, for 5 years we will switch its complete population with europe, so the citizens can fix politics, legislation and all that good stuff.

Just see it as a really long renovation where you temporarily need to sleep over at your cousin.

When we are done, we will call you and let you back in.

Anonymous

hm.. are our politics really “better” in europe?
Its pretty corrupted by the corporations. Oh well, thats the same in the US.
Imho they are just different.. like a different kind of illness or poison
- http://twitter.com/OttoRosenlund Otto Rosenlund
  
  Well, as we europeans know (which the americans often forget) “Europe” is not a country. There’s good politics and there’s bad politics on the continent. Corruption can be mainly found in the south and the east, while the north is practically void of it.
  - Anonymous
    
    if by north you mean north of germany ;-) There is a lot of corruption in our country.
    - Spokojasne
      
      i am pretty sure he meant Sweden and Finland
    - Anonymous
      
      Hey. Im from finland and here is not corruption.Let just say we have politics who doesnt really know anything.We have stupid politics and powerless president,so pretty bad set up here.Some “corruption” is up,as most these budjet cuts are clearly made just raise politics paycheck
    - sanktmikael
      
      lol jotai politiikkaa
    - Anonymous
      
      Timo soinit ja veijarit
    - sanktmikael
      
      Kuka idiootti äänestää Soinia?
    - Anonymous
      
      thats exactly what I mean. Countries above the northern border of germany ;-) Because germany clearly is corrupted by corporations a lot.
    - http://twitter.com/OttoRosenlund Otto Rosenlund
      
      Yes, mainly nordic countries.
  - Anonymous
    
    Corruption can be found all over the continent. It’s just that now with the economy collapsing, the European Union simply lays the blame on scapegoats(P.I.G.S).
doresh

Is that such a wise idea? The European Union is anything but united, with different views and constant bickering. So is the eurozone. Hell I wouldn’t even call Germany truly united, thanks to this “great” federalism that leads to never-ending bickering between federal government, state governments and the individual cities and communes. Oh, and our politicians LOVE to waste tax money…

The only thing Europe has going for is that we don’t have a weird Two-Party-System in which one party is made up of batshit-insane lunatics who would do anything to protect their political beliefs even if this would lead to the downfall of their beloved nation. We Europeans prefer to spread out our lunatics over several smaller parties XD

http://www.facebook.com/people/Evan-Jacobson/601716960 Evan Jacobson

I was wondering today what the hell I was thinking when I voted for Obama. Your McCain letter here reminds me why I did and made me realize I made the right decision.

Anonymous

I’m confused–do you think that the office secretaries obama would use are going to have a better form letter? I feel you may be deluding yourself if you think that form letter replies are restricted to old guys. obama would never read your letter. Sorry bro.
http://twitter.com/fatalrob0t Ehren Hatten

and here I was wondering why I voted for McCain when he’s a spineless reject for not calling Obama out on his horrible ideas of destroying the economy. They’re the same people with different labels. Once you see that, you’ll see the futility of that statement.

Pawel Archipow

Makes me wonder whether the “bill” has already been bought and paid for, with the rest being trivial formalities.

Sigur Squrrl

The part about “bad actors” really makes me think that the underling who set up this text in the name of the senator really has no idea what this is about. My guess is that there is a great number of representatives who only know “on the internet everybody keep stealing our money. It’s an evil series of tubes with pirates on them.”.

The more I think about it the more infuriating it gets. Almost sounds like a political sketch. The thing about “bad actors” kind of implies that bad actors steal better actors’ performance over the internet to use for themselves.

Our lovely interweb is going to shit. First the collection of data by a ton of evil corporations, the simplification of everything that you do, the colourful and “easy to use” UIs and now the national states asking for their cut. Of course, piracy isn’t cool but there must be other ways. Copyright law HAS to be reviewed in a major way.

Anonymous

Wait… ”
counterfeited goods”?

http://twitter.com/CraigAA CraigAA

Well atleast we know the copy and paste buttons work at McCains house.

Anonymous

Wow, so many words to say “sit down and shut up”.

http://twitter.com/OttoRosenlund Otto Rosenlund

I’m pretty sure the congress and other governmental bodies know a bit more about the internet than that they just steal and it’s bad. Just because the person who wrote this made a mistake doesn’t mean he’s an idiot.

As far as I can tell from this text, it’s overly exaggerated to say that this would mean that sites could be shut down for just infringing material in one comment or such. But I guess overreacting is how you instil panic and scare masses to act. Quite democratic, really.

Jakub Tucholski

After the “bad actors” part, I was half expecting the bit about the estimate to read “We were told that our economy loses a hundred million gazillion moneys anually”…

skalathan

“It is estimated that our economy loses more than $58 billion”

estimated by whom exactly? just because something gets downloaded on the net doesnt mean that the person who downloads it would buy it if it wasnt there. the opposite is actually true. then again who cares this is a law made by big corporations for big corporations and will be accepted by bought politicans. “democracy” at work.

http://twitter.com/PureRok Ryan

Also, some people who download things end up buying them later. Illegal downloads aren’t a 1:1 correlation to sales lost. The US government is full of idiots.

Christian Ström

Oh wow.. This just convinces me more that the legislators don’t know what the hell they’re doing..

MetalNick

They know exactly what they’re doing. That’s the scary part.

http://twitter.com/Enerccio Peter Vanusanik

Man, I can wait for these bills to pass! As a citizen of europe, I can’t wait for companies like google or yahoo to pack their things and go to europe to escape those laws. Now Mr. McCain would see how many $$$ would he lose from the economy, $$$ which were not imaginary by some stupid corporations, but real hard $$$.

Spokojasne

one small nitpick – as european – not citizen of europe, there is no such thing,
as europe is not a country… ok i am cool now, cheers
http://www.facebook.com/people/George-Rosenbaum/100001387887487 George Rosenbaum

Maybe the government will experience a little law-passers remorse, and try to undo the bill.

Even if it DOES pass, the effect the American public will feel will be sharp enough to encourage their senators to remove the bill as well.

This might be wishful thinking, but I don’t think this bill will last long once it’s passed. In addition, everyone attached to this bill can basically kiss their careers goodbye. Again, this is wishful thinking, considering what they have ALREADY done so far without getting sacked or attracting too much negative attention.

J.G. te Molder

John McCain is an idiot, actually more likely he’s lying through his teeth.

1. Most things that are pirated are not sold, they’re given away for free.

2. Anyone who has ever looked up the statistics will find out the following: those things that are given away for free, whether legally or illegally, actually sell more items, than those that can’t be gotten for free. What? You say, YES, unlike the CEOs that are vile inhuman beings, most normal people aren’t; when they get something for free, they usually can’t afford it, would never buy in the first place, or don’t know yet whether they would buy it; you’re not losing any money on them, because the last case, if they do find it’s something they want to buy and they can afford, they usually buy it.

3. What says about the bill makes it sound like it requires court orders, when the bill is such you don’t need court orders. That’s exactly why everyone has a problem with it; so either he himself doesn’t know the bill, or he’s lying. Take a guess.

If you think this is about on-line piracy you’re deluding yourself. This is about being able to shut you down when you say something they don’t like. There’s a reason why at the same time as this bill, they’re pushing through another bill that gives the military the power to lift you out of your bed, and throw you in a prison somewhere without a trial indefinitely; also known as: for life.

Anonymous

Only $58 billion annually?

Did you know that hospital costs due to rising obesity rates incur an annual loss of over $150 billion?

Did you know over 20% of adolescents who graduate high-school, whom don’t continue education, end up severely unemployed afterward?

The United States has the highest teenage pregnancy rates in the world and 1/3 of those pregnancies end in abortion?

I think the system has bigger problems to worry about. This internet piracy stuff takes place on an international level! The US should get it’s own S together before wasting congress on that.

You know what the sad part is? I’m not even American! Yeah, I’m Canadian and I know these stats!

Anonymous

also take into account that even the 58 Billion is an estimate from the corporations making it likely that it is a lot less in reality because there way of calculating is like:
“Someone downloaded 50.000 Songs. He would surely have bought them all if he didn’t have the opportunity to download them. The damage is 50.000 times x.”
- Anonymous
  
  FBI probably followed the purchasing/piracy patterns of a representative population and based the annual loss on it.
  
  Still, I think bills like these are contingency plans. They’re primers. They’re setup so that if a serious crisis occurs, the government can setup interventions as quickly as possible. I sincerely doubt this bill means serious business on an Internet fanbase such as The Spoony Experiment, but it’s like Spoony said: Maybe that’s what they want us to think?
  - Simon Werngren
    
    Well how would they “follow purchasing/piracy patterns of a representative population”? Did they ask: “hi I’m from the FBI and I wonder if you partake in the illegal act of piracy?” Probably not. There really isn’t any way of knowing how many people download stuff illegally because people who do try not to divulge such information.
    
    Even if you got that information you can’t really tie it to any real population (which is easy to demonstrate since if it could be, there would be way less people who get away with it). So even if we follow the patently facetious argument that one pirated movie/game/whatever equals one lost sale we still have no idea what piracy costs (probably less than what the lobby groups tells you it does tho).
    
    And no this is not a primer nor a contingency plan this is giving the government the ability the censor the internet. Even if we ignore all the really scary implications of this what we have is a system where all it takes is one company to convince one governmental official to ruin a site, more or less over night. Even if most companies are filled with well intentioned people free of malice and questionable ethics, it only takes one bad company to ruin one site and it only takes the fear of a potential one to essentially ruin the internet. The fact that this is even considered also makes it pretty clear that if a company wants to bring a site down the government is not going to stand in the way, it’s only going to ask for a tip.
  - http://twitter.com/BunkerAnon Bunka
    
    Nah, that number is taken from a “study” by the MPAA…yea that is reliable.
  - MetalNick
    
    You actually think the government did any fact checking? It’s all hot-air. Haven’t you seen the newest anti-piracy commercials? They’re rife with inaccuracies and logical fallacies. Congress is rapidly turning the US into a police-state (see NDAA, SOPA, Protect IP, etc.). It’s all out in the open now – they’re barely trying to hide it.

http://twitter.com/totem91 Totem of Low Bap

Bad Actors as in Hayden Christensen and Chad Michael Murray?

Anonymous

‘Sigh’ Ok kids, time to start building our own version of the Internet

http://jlandl.blogspot.com Jenny Creed

The key words are “economy” and “loses”, here meaning “most powerful corporations” and “imagines they could potentially additionally gain”, respectively. Looks like RIAA are dictating terms to US senators directly now.

Ineedballs

So, in other words of this whole letter, it’s practically an already made letter, with just the Dear *enter name here* different. They practically don’t give a shit about what you told them, Spoony.
Fucking McCain and the fucking government…

http://twitter.com/BudFisk Glenn Karlsen

If it turns out in the end that your site has to be shut down because of the use of copyrited material, you should try to ask them for one last option, and that could be that you pay a small fee each month or once a year to use anny copyrited stuff. Kind of like spotify.

Anonymous

Like rapidshare or torrents would have to close because of an inefficient ban that every grandmother can circumvent. They aren’t based in the US. Everyone who WANTS to download something WILL eventually.

All it takes is a moron like Tommy Wiseau, or someone else who’s butthurt because the Nostalgia Critic cracked a joke about him. Everyone will know they can shut down tgwtg with no justification, so someone will. These people are insane, they sue toddlers for singing two lines of a copyrighted song.

Radosław Hołdys

Just…What the f**k? I mean I could not come up with a more insulting response in…Ever. This guy is just a complete d*ckhead

Anonymous

we need to get more internet dudes/dudettés into politics

István Tölgyfaszegi

I live in Europe, I learned English more over 18 years, but this I can’t understand… somebody get me Angry Joe’s BS-translator ASAP!

Seriously, this is the ANSWER they give you???

Andrew Collins

Oh really. a whole $58 billion dollars? Wowee Mr McCain. That’s a rounding error compard to the money the government is currently wasting every year. How much is that annual debt hurting the economy your thundering moron!

Why don’t you go work on that instead of trying to regulate everyone’s lives. God, and people wonder how we ended up with Obama.

MetalNick

As if this is a surprise to anyone. People really should realize by now that, for the most part, they [congressmen] don’t care about us. Corporations can give as much money as they want to a candidate and they can do so in secret. Companies are considered “legal persons” when its beneficial to them. The U.S. is on the steep decline downward, folks.

Anonymous

Translation:

Thanks for the letter Noah,

I don’t care what you think. You don’t pay for my campaign re-election.

That is all.

Sincerely, (lol jk)
John McCain

mckaysproductions

$58 billion. Wow that’s a load of rubbish right there.

Anonymous

so, he told you what you already knew, and then said “don’t worry.” LOL

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_CL5LGLTLDSGXW73WU7OFUXTGIA stephen

I TOTALLY SAW THAT TOO! He called you a BAD ACTOR! And he accused you of stealing movies by putting Highlander 2 clips on your site.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_CL5LGLTLDSGXW73WU7OFUXTGIA stephen

So less than 1/10 of what the government spends and refuses to even take a look at. Why do we pay these idiots again? This isn’t the system that was set up by our founding fathers. It really isn’t.

HuneyMunster

How is the “estimated that our economy loses more than $58 billion annually as a result of online piracy” calculated? Yes there is too much piracy in this medium, but are these figues based on international sales revenue lost? If say $58 billion revenue is lost from priacy in the US, this revenue would have then been spent else where on other goods and services in the US. If this revenue is not spent then it would be held in a bank account and used as revenue in the financial sector for morgages etc.

You could say $58 billion lost in the media sector for film, music, books and software etc, but not the overal economy. Also some of those that used pirated products and services may not have had any revenue to spend on the products and services at all. An example of this would be a 10 year old child downloading a pop song as they have already spent their pocket money on candy. No revenue is lost in the economy as it has already been spent on candy. The money has not gone anywhere, just transfered to a different vendor.

To just mention a large number and say that is the reason without gving the calculations that came up with the figure makes it look like its just been plucked out of thin air. Anyone that has had to take an exam will know that when you provide your answer you must also give how you came to calculate the answer that you have given.

Darke Mayer Goulart

They collected data from their asses; isn’t it good enough?

Man, you guys complain too much.

http://twitter.com/CasWegkamp Cas Wegkamp

$58 billion is obviously a joke… The entire USA movie, music AND DVD industry put together isn’t worth that much. ($43 billion in the USA total for 2008, now let’s add a HUGE 10% annually then you would get $56 billion this year and since there is a reccession we can safely assume that hasn’t happened…). In fact, the music and movie industry globally put together don’t get up to that number…

For the rest the letter just says:

Dear Mr. Antwiler,

Fuck you.

Sincerely,

John McCain

Anonymous

Who is John McCain? Anyways, a politician responding to a famous internet entertainer is very effective PR. Oh wait, it was just a bot right?

I see America still use a senate and not a tripartition. Tsk tsk.

Robert Quinn

fucking copied and pasted responses.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ICDHG7TLTN6JVK6JMK3TKQFXKQ Mike Wallace

Dear Mr. Antwiler, I’m a crotchety old man who stopped living in the real world shortly after the Reagan administration, instead existing in a realm of moon-logic and Foxygen that tells me your Series of Tubes is bad and probably homosexual and must comply with laws that were written before the phone was invented and/or accept Jesus as his one true savior. The interweb is a terrible place. Did you know that the terrorism can learn how to make bombs there? It’s true! I’m glad we had this chat. Vote for me in 2008!

Love, John McCain (no homo)

Craig Pierrot

Oh, God, your Senator is John McCain?! You’re fucked! lol! You should move to Tuscon or something…I mean, even someone who’d been SHOT IN THE FACE would make a better representative than John McCain! lol!

http://twitter.com/TheShal Shal

How the hell can you estimate how much revenue was lost to piracy?

Are they assuming that if a person didn’t pirate something, then instantly they’d go out and buy it?

Christian Demmler

Pretty sure they’re referring to the yearly Piracy Study done by the Business Software Alliance, which is quoting a global piracy volume of 59 billion this year. Their methodology: Ask business people what sort of programs they run on their computers (OS, Word processor, virus scanner etc.), find out how many computers got sold, then estimate the average cost of those programs in their commercial form (i.e., products of the BSA members like Microsoft and Adobe), then compare that to the amount of BSA member software that has been sold in the country. If a company uses free software instead of buying commercial, in this study they basically contribute to piracy. If they buy a product from a company that doesn’t belong to the BSA, they’re contributing to piracy. If they lie when asked about having a Firewall and Virus Scanner installed on every PC, they are contributing to piracy. Basically, as you can see, the absolute figures are more than highly doubtable.

Craig Pierrot

Everybody go to http://fightforthefuture.org/. On there is a form you can fill out that will have a machine call your actual phone number w/a recorded message giving you talking points about the bill, and then actually AUTOMATICALLY CONNECT YOU with your representative OVER THE PHONE.

Think like the way Google Voice works…only for Congress! lol! Like, you know how when you make a call from the web version of Google Voice, Google first calls your phone and then connects you to the number you actually dialed? Well, kinda like that…only for bitching at Congress over SOPA. lol!

Or you can go to http://americancensorship.org/ for the e-mail version of basically this same concept, but I think the phone messages would send a MUCH more effective message.

Oh, and if anybody needs any cheering up, lol, just look at these! http://www.getyourcensoron.com

http://twitter.com/Punky_neko_chan Borislav

damn i’m not that good at the English language and still i see that this is bullshit

http://twitter.com/Bobzenub Daniel Kovács Rezsuk

Do people need to be retarded to qualify as politicians over the USA? Or they just have to be malevolent?

Anonymous

Neither. They just have to obey their corporate taskmasters.
Seeing how the bill was given the “No Oppositional Testimony”, it’s obvious this is going to pass no matter how many complaints are filed.

Say goodbye to the Internet as we know it, people.

jjamespp

lol McCain’s your senator. i feel bad for you

http://twitter.com/jjflash572 JJ Flash

The guy has repeatedly admitted to never using the internet! His opinion on anything younger than the telegraph is glassy at best.

http://twitter.com/Aqluro alex minor

The irony of this is, if these pass, it does zero to keep me from downloading anything i want illegaly.
It may help to stop legions of shitty internet reviewers though, which is a nice change.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_2LVXTKGSYYKOQEQ2UI7AICIEGY M

Could please someone point out the diffrence between a reply bot and an todays politican?
I don’t see any.

http://twitter.com/WolfCoder 狐・小百合

I love how the letter doesn’t actually say anything about anything, gotta love politics

http://twitter.com/MagiGold Anthony Melpolder

Your Senator is McCain? dude you’re screwed XD lol

That whole letter was written by an Aid. McCain can’t figure out how to his cock much less the internet. That letter means NOTHING.

http://smellslikegeekstink.blogspot.com Jenny

I had the same reaction.
PixelJustice20XX

Atleast it isn’t Cheney? He would have just shot spoony in the face :P
http://twitter.com/MagiGold Anthony Melpolder

To PixelJustice: Yeah know what… I think I would take Cheney over McCain. At least being shot in the face… I could possibly die a swift death. With McCain… the aneurism might take a while to come on.

To Jenny:

Which part? To the fact McCain can’t figure out how to use his cock or Spoony’s screwed? XP
- http://smellslikegeekstink.blogspot.com Jenny
  
  Spoony being screwed, but to be honest the rest of it is probably true as well.

Anonymous

Wrote to my senator as well. His response was similar:

Dear Ryan,
Thank you for contacting me about S. 968, the Preventing Real Online Threats
to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property (PROTECT IP)
Act. I appreciate hearing from you.
I understand your concerns about expanding intellectual property
protection and value your input on S. 968. As you may know, Senator
Patrick J. Leahy (D-VT) introduced this bill on May 12, 2011. Among its
provisions, this measure would allow the U.S. Attorney General or
qualifying plaintiffs to pursue legal action against registrants,
owners, or operators of nondomestic Internet sites that infringe upon
intellectual property rights. The Senate Committee on the Judiciary, of
which I am not a member, favorably reported S. 968 on May 26, 2011. The
legislation currently awaits consideration by the full Senate. Please be
assured that I will keep your thoughts in mind as this measure awaits
further consideration.
Thank you again for your correspondence. Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future if I can be of assistance.
Sincerely,

Pat Toomey
U.S. Senator, Pennsylvania

http://twitter.com/Yuoaman Nick Burns

Bad actors are stealing works? DAMMIT ACTORS.

http://twitter.com/GamesSaveLives Games Save Lives

So he basically defined what the bill is supposed to do (which you already know), and said that he will “keep your views in mind.” Why do I get the feeling that most of this response was copy and pasted from the wikipedia article on SOPA?

Anonymous

I’m sorry, when did the USA start electing robots as politicians?

Mitchell Bandes

Since back when Dick Cheney was Vice President.
- http://sbkmulletman.deviantart.com/ sbkMulletMan
  
  That wasn’t a robot, that was a sock puppet. Not enough moving parts in the head to qualify as a Robot for a president.
Anonymous

Precisely around the invention of television. Every election since then has been a tightly controlled pageant focus-tested into oblivion. As a result, the politicians themselves have been little more than blank slates because anything else might “cost them” in the polls.

Anonymous

goodbye, Americans, it’s been nice to learn your language and your culture.
Good bye forever, rest of the world.

I’m happy I lived in this time, when everyone could use the internet to speak his mind, to communicate freely with the rest of the world.
I guess all this freedom just couldn’t last forever, could it?
Too much information that we can’t handle to us common people.
Back to the Dark Ages, when I read “Nintendo Magazine” to know about new videogames, and I bought paper magazines to read reviews of films.

If you have talent or a message to share with the rest of the world, you can always spray it on a wall somewhere.

Everyone back to your seat in front of the TV to watch whatever’s on tonight. The show is forever over.

Anonymous

Dear Mr. McCain:

Thank you for contacting Noah in order to tell him shit he and I already knew, regarding the PROTECT IP Act and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). I appreciate reading your generic automatic response letter that you probably send to anyone that writes you.

As you know, these pieces of legislation are a major issue facing the American public, so I’m not gonna waste your time explaining it to you. Thank you for the criticism you offered Mr. Antwiler (bad actor), I appreciate hearing your views, but one thing that isn’t appreciated is accusing him of stealing and selling stolen work. It is estimated that Spoony costs the economy $0 annually as a result of his “piracy”. As part of an effort to fight back against these accusations, I have introduced two gestures, the middle finger in my left hand, and the middle finger in my right hand, respectively. In fact, in many cases he actually encourages us to see many of these movies, either by buying them or paying money to go to a theater and see them, which, as you know, actually stimulates the economy. I myself recently purchased “Mazes and Monsters”, a movie I never would have even heard of otherwise, much less paid money for.

Please rest assured, that should these bills come to the Senate Floor, We will keep your “support” in mind. Thank you for sharing your secretaries thoughts on this important topic. Please do not contact me for this or any other issue.

Insincerely,

A fan of the Experiment

lol I had a little too much fun with this. Not sure if he was really trying to say something about Spoony with the bad actor comment, but that’s how it really came off to me. I mean, why would ACTORS, specifically, be a huge cause of piracy? That just sounds completely ass-backwards. Are they pirating out their own films to cost themselves money?

Kyle Rybski

‘Bad actor’ is law jargon from the 40s for a mischievous person. Nothing to do with the acting profession.
- Anonymous
  
  …Well. Now I feel foolish.
  - Anonymous
    
    Don’t. It just shows how out of touch he is with the world of today using language from sixty years ago.
    - PixelJustice20XX
      
      McCain gets his lingo from the speak easy down in dumpsville, where the no gooders, and cool cats jive up the place. Well, off to have a hair of the dog that bit me, have a swell evening fella’s!

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ZFDITNEU2RBT3JMSNUIGHMO73E RedFox

I received the same exact letter from my IL Senator, Kirk. interesting….

Radosław Hołdys

I think it was already said in the comments below but I just want to see the look on their faces when Google , Yahoo among many other will just pack their stuff and move out of the USA . Bet you that will be beneficial huh? How do you think this’ll work?

Anonymous

I received the exact same response in IA

Anonymous

I wonder if this could be brought down by exposing all the pedophiles in Hollywood.

Anonymous

My representative gave me a form letter, but it was of the, I don’t think this bill is a good idea, we’re studying the issue, thank you for you comments, variety. I think the form letters are just based on what your rep has already decided to do.

http://www.wix.com/enveracomics/ecs/ Julian Moretti

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Renaissance_nerd

Bad actor is the term they have given to pirates/infringers. Mccain wasn’t calling Spoony a bad actor, so chill on that point guys.

http://www.facebook.com/people/George-Rosenbaum/100001387887487 George Rosenbaum

Probably not, but it’s entertaining to think that a stuffy old senator is giving an Internet celebrity a passive-aggressive insult.

Danielle Greengart

[Mine was similar, though my senator gave me a handy-dandy link to a video of a hearing. I understood about three minutes of it.]
Dear Danielle,
Thank you for contacting me regarding S. 968, the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property (PROTECT IP) Act. I appreciate hearing from you.
As you may know, S. 968, which was introduced by Senator Leahy, would authorize the U.S. Department of Justice to take legal action against Internet sites dedicated to infringing activities in order to combat online piracy and counterfeiting. This legislation was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 26, 2011, and awaits consideration by the full Senate. Related legislation, H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act, has been introduced in the House of Representatives.
You may be interested to know that the Senate Judiciary Committee recently held a hearing relating to this matter titled “Oversight of Intellectual Property Law Enforcement Efforts.” To view this hearing, please visit http://go.usa.gov/50R.
Please be assured that I will keep your thoughts in mind should the full Senate consider S. 968, H.R. 3261, or related legislation.
Again, thank you for contacting me, and do not hesitate to write, call, or visit my website, http://www.reed.senate.gov, in the future for information regarding this or any other matter.

Sincerely,

Jack Reed
United States Senator

Anonymous

its funny how obvious it is that this is just a form letter :P they arent even trying.

piracy also doesnt damage the economy, at least not as badly as they say… if someone downloads it he or she never planed to actually pay money for it.

anyway, i hope for you that this doesnt pass. obama said he would veto SOPA but he said that before and signed the laws, anyway…

Darke Mayer Goulart

Man, do I feel better about Brazilian politicians now.

Yeah, they are a nasty bunch of liars, thieves, corrupt assholes who steal public money, both legally (raising their own paychecks, passing laws granting themselves huge benefits, etc.) and illegally (plain good old corruption). But since 1988, they never tried to pass laws like these.

We’re sure act as a Banana Republic sometimes. We elected an functional-illiterate president, and he ended his second term more popular than when he started (but, hey, even Obama gave thumbs up for Mr. Lula da Silva). But even our failed politicians know better not to go and censor the internet.

I think you guys in US are very screwed with those guys running your country. And, next election, what are your options? Between Mr. “I have no balls” Obama and Rick Perry/Michelle Bachman/another crazy Republican pundit, things look very ugly.

Christian Demmler

Didn’t they turn Counter-Strike illegal in Brazil, just out of curiosity?
- Anonymous
  
  They did, but then legalized again. And please do not bring that up. Appreciated.
- Leafwine Idklint
  
  Supposedly yes. But there is no use, since every Lan House has Counter Strike and we can buy from Steam anyway. And stores DO sell CS in physical form. So yeah… No banning, really.
  
  Sometimes some crazy religious person will come out and say that videogames are violent and shit like that. But no one will listen to these assholes other than some grannies.
- Anonymous
  
  They did. But legalized it again recently, but please do not bring this up anymore.
- Anonymous
  
  Why, they did. But then legalized it again. Could you not bring this up anymore, please? Appreciated.
Colin Roche

We could always vote for a 3rd party….. yeah I know, not going to happen.
- Darke Mayer Goulart
  
  I think you guys need a 3rd party that’s both amoral and is always part of the government. Here we have PMDB: they are part of the government for the FIFTH term, 2 with PSDB (center-right) and 3 with PT (left), and they are as strong as ever. But the guys just want power to steal money. Any kind of censorship bill that somebody might try to put on vote, they will shoot it down because they don’t want to be unpopular. It’s strange, but it kinda works, if you don’t look to how much money those guys make disapear.
  
  In short: in US, corporations buys the representatives to defend their interests; in Brazil, the representatives steal public money, so they don’t need lobby’s money (that much). I used to think that your system was better, but now, hey, our way seems to be less toxic.
  
  @Christian Demmler: Those are judges making decisions; the Senate and the Congress actually do little to censor anything (because people will scream “Dictatorship! Like 1964 again!” at the faintest sign of a censorship bill being voted). Courts actually censor newspapers, books, videogames and TV shows sometimes, but the Supreme Court is (kinda) trying to make judges to stop doing that.

Darke Mayer Goulart

But wouldn’t be much more funnier and reassuring if McCain watched Spoony’s videos to the point that he could make an opinion about his acting?

http://www.facebook.com/people/George-Rosenbaum/100001387887487 George Rosenbaum

Jon McCain: “EH-hee-hee-hee *hack*! Oh, what a fine young man, what a jokster. Those SWAT soldiers just can’t seem to stay out of Spoony’s way. He’s such a delight. I can’t let the bill get rid of THIS. I’ll change my stance, that’ll show ‘em. Hey guys, come see this video!”

And that was how the SOPA and PIPA were simultaneously in the span of 20 minutes.
- Geoffrey Brummett
  
  if he can figure out how to click the button to run the video…

Anonymous

Senator McCain is a senile plastic asshole who subsists on pity and his wife’s wealth.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_NM3GOPSR4QGNPGPJMJHYCO2CJM Mark

It just now dawns on me that you’re in Arizona.

I’m pretty sure I saw you the last time Video Games Live was out here, but I figured it couldn’t be you.

… I COULD’VE SHAKEN YOUR HAND. FFF-

Anyway, that’s generic and lame. I’m actually surprised McCain knows how to copy and paste though, so points to him for that.

Anonymous

Automatic respond messages are funny especially when they contain phrases that ain’t used in many years.

Anonymous

Or McCain could just say: “Talk to the hand”.

http://twitter.com/ClanCrusher Patrick Wilson

Dear
Mr. (Censored),

Thank
you for contacting me about the internet streaming of copyrighted material.
I appreciate hearing from you on this issue, and sincerely regret the delayed response.

On
May 12, 2011, Senator Leahy (D-VT) introduced S. 968, the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic
Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property (PROTECT IP) Act. Under
current federal law, U.S. law enforcement officials and holders
of copyrights, trademarks, and patents, have limited legal remedies available to combat internet websites
that are registered in foreign countries but operate in the United States by selling products, services,
and/or content that violates U.S. intellectual property law. If enacted, the proposed legislation would
create an expedited process for the Department of Justice and intellectual property rights holders to
shut down through a court order these websites by targeting, the owners and operators of the Internet
site, if known, or the domain name registrant associated with the Internet site.

The
proposed legislation would require the Department of Justice to demonstrate to the Court that the Internet
site accessed by the domain name is “dedicated to infringing activities.” Such a website would have no
other significant use other than engaging in, enabling, or facilitating infringing activities. Once a
court order is issued, domestic
operators of domain name servers would be required to effectively prevent online users from accessing
the infringing Internet site. Providers of online information location tools would be required to take
technically feasible and reasonable measures to remove or disable access to such an Internet site, including
not providing a hypertext link. Finally, financial institutions involved in online transactions and Internet
advertising companies would be prohibited from doing business with any Internet site subject to a Court
order under the legislation. Intellectual property rights holders can take Internet payment and advertising
companies to court if they believe these companies are not complying with the law. This
legislation was reported out of the Judiciary Committee on July
22, 2011, and is awaiting action by the full Senate.

While
I am supportive of the goals of the bill, I am deeply concerned that the definitions and the means by
which the legislation seeks to accomplish these goals will hurt innovation and threaten online speech.
Please be assured that I will keep your thoughts in mind should I have the opportunity to vote on this
or similar legislation regarding intellectual property rights.

Thank
you again for contacting me to share your thoughts on this matter. You may also be interested in signing
up for periodic updates for Washington State residents. If you are interested in subscribing to this
update, please visit my website at http://cantwell.senate.gov.
Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future if I can be of further assistance.

Sincerely,

Maria Cantwell

United States Senator

http://profiles.google.com/mecha.manson Ben Rush

Wait wait wait, the Washington Senator gives a shit? where was she when they made the tunnel in downtown bremerton that the entire town voted against or when Gregoire proposed that god awfully hug shitty freeway off ramp?
- Reece Simblet
  
  She was pirating movies at the time.

Anonymous

The Internet, which has delivered so many benefits to our economy, has unfortunately also allowed bad actors to steal

Hes calling you a bad actor and a thief (maybe he watched your D&D video after all).

wiliamsn

Hold on a second…
Is this what I think it is…?
Oh god… it is…
He’s droning on and on trying to make you stop giving a shit…

COUNTER-SONG!!!

…………..FUCKING COUNTER-SONG!!!

“He’s trying to enchant us,
He’s trying to enchant us,
And I think he called you a bad actor”

http://sbkmulletman.deviantart.com/ sbkMulletMan

Shit, I thought I felt a bit Neutral after reading all that…clever bastard.
Anonymous

I know one way to learn if he’s on our side or not.

JARATE.
Craig Pierrot

Ladies and Gentleman, I think we have a new internet meme! ^_^ lol

Anonymous

Fuck that evil bastard!

http://twitter.com/FleacyTheSheep Desiree X

Aww isn’t that sweet. He’s friends with Snookie too you know n_n

Spoony your only one degree away from Snookie now, yay!

Craig Pierrot

Eww…I hope he’s wearing a condom! lol I would too if I was only “one degree” from that nasty ho! lol, I mean, seriously, that bitch doesn’t even know her own fucking SENATOR when she LITERALLY bumps into him face first in an elevator!

Anonymous

My Facebook group is to show that there are a lot of people that do not want censorship to invade the only free place left in the world. The more people that join the louder the voice gets and the louder it gets the more congress will hear it. If you are opposed to a group that is fine but please don’t flash me with your glaring ignorance over it thank you. Group name: End SOPA Now!

Anonymous

Wow, wow, wow… back the hell up! Are you saying that… John McCain is still alive?

http://twitter.com/MagiGold Anthony Melpolder

Sir Orion Lukas… You have made my day XD

http://twitter.com/ravenwoodwitch angela

Man I hate Auto-messages like this. You take time out of your life to put your thoughts on paper and you get a soulless response that several other people got. It’s just not fair.

http://profiles.google.com/danvgeg Daniel vigil

Well fuck… he clearly doesn’t care.

http://twitter.com/Jezzy54 Jesse WilliamsFuller

What the hell do bad actors have to do with piracy? Are they going to crack down on Tommy Wiseau?

Anonymous

seems like just a generic letter from a senator. i have got those before as well.

http://twitter.com/Spokavriel Daniel Thomas Stack

Once again John McCain shows that he either has not read the bills or he honestly is a progressive that believes in Social Justice and putting restrictions on law abiding people to attempt to control criminals. You know the people already breaking laws. He honestly doesn’t seem to understand that outlaws don’t care what the laws are.

Anonymous

Oh cool, a canned letter response. I love those. Means their secretary didn’t even pass the letter on.

Anonymous

Got to love copy-paste responses, my letters to my Canadian representative about the CRTC’s internet regulation policy got a similar response…but in French.

Geoffrey Brummett

It’s honestly a shame that these bills even appear.

sure, online piracy can be considered a problem, but putting up anything like this isn’t going to stop piracy, it’ll just make the pirates use other sources. the only people who really get screwed are guys like Spoony and NC (remember that fiasco with his review of “the room”?)

http://www.facebook.com/people/Drain-Blut/100001687703474 Drain Blut

I say “he”, but it’s probably someone that just copy/pasted a text and sent it to you. I doubt the man himself had anything to do with it or even read anything you sent him.

But assuming he did type that(At some point, even if not just for you) He failed to mention or even grasp ANY point complainers have against the bill. He failed to realize that the piracy websites are over seas, and thus the only websites these bills should target. He failed to realize the abuse any company could perform using the bills vague wording to easily have any website shutdown. He also failed to point out how legitimate websites would be protected.

It’s basically just another “take our word for it, we’d never abuse this”, which is BS because many movie/music companies abuse any and every power they can get their hands on. You give them a bad review? Guess what, your site is now gone. Hell I read an RIAA article about how they tried to take a 12 year old girl away from a poor single mom because she(the girl that is) pirated stuff when shown by school friends how, but had no idea what it could mean or that was even illegal. You going to trust THESE people with the ability to shutdown any website they so please? People that already take down harmless Youtube videos every single day just for the songs playing in the background?

Craig Pierrot

Imagine what Tommy Wasseau’s response to the NC’s review of “The Room” would’ve been under SOPA! One day we would’ve just seen a DOJ banner on his site saying “THIS DOMAIN HAS BEEN SEIZED BY THE US DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE OF COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT,” instead of just seeing the review taken down and popping up EVERYWHERE on YouTube.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Drain-Blut/100001687703474 Drain Blut

If you want to go after pirates, then target over seas websites ONLY, which is where all such websites are. No need to target websites on our own soil with these new bills… because you already have the ability to shut those down anyway with DMCA! This right here is why it’s all just a sham for control and oppression. If it was “just” vs piracy, as they claim, then they wouldn’t affect USA websites one bit.

http://twitter.com/Toernis Andreas Törnqvist

And with what right would the USA shut down foreign servers? I think it’s bad enough that US spies has been caught spying here in northern Europe just a while ago. Not all countries have the same opinions about piracy, especially not since the politicians outside the US who are the strongest preachers for anti-piracy laws are pretty much in the pockets of big companies. Not to mention that the companies are basically lying, considering they’re NOT loosing money but gaining more. They just want control over people’s lives, as always. If they were really interested in making reasonable anti-piracy laws without messing up a huge culture, then they’d start releasing movies for reasonable prices (just like games have started to become much cheaper on a number of websites, at least in Sweden) or help create some sort of downloading service that isn’t unreliable or expensive.

No offence meant of course. :)

/Andreas
- Anonymous
  
  I agree. Also how long does copyright protection last? I read that it last for authors life plus 70 years after death. It’s ridiculous! They can charge you for product that they produced over 70 years ago! Even if they erned 1 bilion $ form screening their movie, they still can charge you with a crime for watching it for free. Greedy bastards! Also by this definition of piracy I’m criminal because I own library card and I read books without paying for them.
Inuyasha Sajutu

Allow me to just fix this letter for everyone

Dear Mr. Ant:

BWAH! HA! HA! HA! HA! Do you have any idea how much I’m getting PAID to push this through?

http://twitter.com/TypicalKiri Who really cares

Dear Mr. Antwiler:

We’re in the money, we’re in the money;
We’ve got a lot of what it takes to get along!
We’re in the money, the sky is sunny;
Old Man Depression, you are through,
You done us wrong!

Sincerely,
John McCain
United States Senator

Anonymous

Something just occured to me: When they were voting on the specifics of the bill, the senators didn’t vote No or Yes, they voted No or Aye.
THEY’RE PIRATES!!! Voting Aye = opposing the bill!

I think all political no-or-yes-votes should be replaced by arrr!-or-aye!

http://templeofthehut.blogspot.com The_Hut

Dear Mr. Antweiler,

The best things in life are free,But you can keep ‘em for the birds and
bees.Now give me money. That’s what I want.

Sincerely,
SOPA

Anonymous

The funniest part is that Spoony/most of you here think that reply is actually coming from McCain himself when really it’s just one of his many many many aids sending out generic replies to the many many many many many letters he’s probably getting.

Anonymous

You’re-uh-not serious about that are you? Do you even know what a form letter is and why Spoony called it that in the first place? Also, I’ve been following this thread for a while now and most comments I’ve read seem to realize that it’s definitely not from the man himself and either a machine/computer or a secretary/aide wrote it instead, which they deem insulting to their intelligence.

I will admit that there might (underline-MIGHT) be a vocal minority that I can see that do
believe that it’s from Senator McCain himself. But simply because you see one or two does not equal one hundred or two hundred posts. Where are you getting this “Spoony/most” crap from? Are you even reading any of the posts fully?
- Anonymous
  
  Woa, Calm down there internet warrior.
https://me.yahoo.com/a/3u8Wl2Q1hIZeZZdrbJZEI2yPBYaZOlSIvA--#b7015 Jackson

The fact that the title clearly states “Form letter” would indicate that, at the very least, Spoony knows that.
- Anonymous
  
  Sure, and does he know the winning lotto numbers as well? I think you give your messiah Spoony more credit than is due. Spoony just posted this up to start more controversy much like you see in the other 200+ posts.
  
  The truth is the Sopa act is already in practice, Actually passing a bill declaring it just makes it easier for companies/individuals to put a stop to 3rd parties using their material. At at the same time people that steal games,music,other peoples video etc. etc. do actually hurt company profits. I’m kinda of glad they are doing something about it. Maybe people will start buying stuff instead of just dl crap and making companies jack prices up on goods to compensate for their losses.
  
  On another note people that post up other peoples music,movies etc. are supposed to have them cleared to begin with that’s always been the rule but people don’t follow it. How would you feel if you dumped your hard work into something and some random reviewer out there wanted to use your material just to piss all over it? Youtube was for people to share their original videos, now it seems like a place to upload movies,songs, etc. of other people work and it’s gotten out of hand. So much so it was almost begging for something like this bill to be brought into action.
  
  People want to go off about censorship on the internet, That died the day dial up did and IP’s were actually traceable for once. Now you can get blocked barred banned or whatever for whatever reason someone feels fit to do so. Whens the last time you went on a forum and didn’t see someone(moderator) censoring the content? Deleted statements they didn’t like and banning people for not agreeing with them? That’s your first amendment right being violated. That still won’t stop that kind of “censorship” from happening.
  
  SOPA didn’t kill the internet all of you piraters killed the internet. First you stole programs then they started adding all those keys and security measures and crap to games.
  
  Then you started stealing music then they started going on a rampage shutting down your websites and suing the hell out of people for stealing songs you people almost bankrupted the music industry (which was saved thanks to Itunes) and now you’re mad they’re trying to protect their content.
  
  You want to really protect the net and your online freedoms? STOP STEALING SH*T!

Anonymous

Who gives a flying FUCK!

How about you start working on some new videos you lazy bum! And non of that vlogs shit!

http://twitter.com/Saronard Leo Schrey

A Spoony-Vlog > Universe

Anonymous

Let’s face it, Channel Awesome is doomed because Liberty is dead. No longer is there a United States of America, no, she’s long gone. We now live in the newly restored National Socialist German Workers Party. Get ready for taxation without representation next!

redscores2

Seriously… stop talking about socialist germans, germany is pretty much democratic, you should watch what you are talking about. Seriously, slowly I think americans are really as short-sighted as told in germany.
- http://twitter.com/Saronard Leo Schrey
  
  Er hat nur gesagt, dass die USA immer mehr zum 3. Reich werden, nicht dass Deutschland heute noch nationalsozialistisch wäre.
  Und Deutschland ist sozialistisch (siehe Sozialdemokratie), was aber was völlig anderes ist als nationalsozialistisch, vorallem im heutigen Wortgebrauch.
  
  Und Deutschland ist momentan eines der am wenigsten rechten Länder der Welt, allerdings ist repräsemntative Demokratie in fast keiner Weise Demokratie. Aber das ist wieder ein andere Thema, jedenfalls hat er nichts schlimmes über Deutschland, wie es heute ist, gesagt.
  - Anonymous
    
    Danke, mein Freund!
- Anonymous
  
  I wasn’t refering to modern day Germany, dude. I was just saying that AMERICA is TURNING into the new Nazi Party.
- Craig Pierrot
  
  Yeah, dude, only a minority of Americans actually believe what they hear and see on Fox…just that the ones who ARE stupid enough to believe it are loud, vocal, and large in number. But they still don’t make a majority.
  
  Don’t let the worst of us define who we are. That’d be like saying Israel should be wiped off the map due to its Zionist policies, even tho 70% of that country’s electorate is against Zionism and for a 2-state solution along the original 1967 borders.
  
  Speaking of which, anybody see the front page of USA Today Friday? They displayed a Gallup poll of 1,0005 adults from Oct. 26-29 asking the question “Should Marajuana be legalized?” The results? 50% FOR LEGALIZATION, 46% OPPOSED, and 3% “don’t know”. Stoners finally have the majority! w00t!!!
  - Anonymous
    
    Hey idiot, not everyone who wants to legalize marijuana is a stoner. Some people just believe that the war on drugs hasn’t worked, mostly because of selfish law breaking idiots who think that giving money to criminals so they can kill policemen is okay. So thanks for contributing to crime and murder. You are what is wrong with the general populace.
- MasterSeijin
  
  I’m talking about America. It’s fastly becoming what Germany WAS from ’39 to ’45
Anonymous

Uh… pretty sure we’ve already had that already. They already pass unwanted and uncessary taxes without representing the people (Cigarettes are a prime example). It’s been around quite a while… Surprised you’re just now noticing it.
- MasterSeijin
  
  Well fuck my donkey!

http://twitter.com/Fiddlewheel fiddlewheel

you know, this whole thing reminds me of “Animal Farm”, how the goverment of america is slowly changing the laws so that the top 1% get everything, and the lower people get nothing.

Craig Pierrot

#OccupyTheInternet? lol

Daniel Chadborn

This is nearly word for word the letters than i received from both Senators and my Representative.

Craig Pierrot

So stop sending letters start CALLING them instead! I’m sure if their switchboards lit up like a Christmas tree, they MIGHT take more notice. Follow the link to see how: http://fightforthefuture.org/

Craig Pierrot

Fuck WRITING your Congressman, CALL THEM OVER THE PHONE!

Here’s the link w/the instructions: http://fightforthefuture.org/

Spoony, please add this link to your post. It would help GREATLY in the effort.

Fraser Stewart

Are American corporations really that fucking retarded? Guess what fuck brains, people like watching movies online and downloading them directly to their hard drive. All you have to do is make it EASIER for them to PAY and download a LEGITIMATE COPY, then the number of illegal downloads will go down.

I mean for fucks sake. You know why they don’t want to do that though, because if they sell their movies online, instead of getting $0 for every illegal download, they’ll get $1 for every legitimate one.

Here’s some basic economics, something is only worth as much as someone is willing to pay for it. Translation, the vast majority of people who download your movies illegally for free think they are shit, and aren’t worth the $20 per DVD that you charge. Either make better fucking movies, or lower your prices.

Anonymous

While overall what the American corporations are doing now IS in fact retarded, they have been very intelligent and resourceful in their takeover of America.

They do research into their products to make them as appealing as possible, while making it as cheaply as possible. The commercials they put out are everywhere and while the common person learns to tune it out, they always find themselves remembering that product when it comes time to make a purchase because of that advertisement. In reality, this entire thing is not entirely the corporation’s fault, it’s also lies withing the government AND especially the American populace; which do you think is more threatening as a whole? An army trying to enforce the law or a person beside you telling you to trust them and they’ll make everything better as they take your wallet from your pocket?

However, illusions can only last for so long until people grow more intelligent and begin to realize they’re being manipulated. I’m assuming the government enforcement is their second to last card in their hand, with the final card being a “abandon ship” card.

So, bottom line: These guys are highly intelligent enough to have manipulated the system for as long as they have just beneath the ignorant eyes of the American populace, do not mistake their methods for control as being anything but intelligent or else you’re underestimating their true potential. However, like I said before, their current decision now (having the government pass the SOPA NDAA, and PROTECT IP) is ultimately retarded. More people are going to become frustrated with the government AND the corporations, which ultimately will lead to one thing in the end…a repeat of history.

Fraser Stewart

As someone who lived in China for 10 months, I am well acquainted with a censored internet and a dictatorship for a government. Unless you’ve experienced trying to use the internet in China or any other country that censors it, you have no idea how fucking horrible it is.

Online piracy may be bad, but it’s a small price to pay for a free and open internet, and I pay it gladly.

http://twitter.com/paburu Juan Pablo Lomeli

since this guys only understand the language of money, i’d say that if the bill passes stop going to the movies and stop buying music, let’s see if that makes them lose more than $58 billion annually

Joe_the_robot moe_the_robot

I’m all for that there. Fuck hollywood anyway why priate for their crappy movies and music?
Fraser Stewart

Totally dude, they’ll soon rescind this bullshit law if we all get together and have a mass boycott of the movies, buying music, dvds and all the rest.
http://twitter.com/Fiddlewheel fiddlewheel

but you are forgetting the kids, they are regretfully gulible as heck, and therefore it will be hard to make them stop buying their shit, since after all, its popular for a reason, and that is that kids are being pandered to in the entertainment business.
I dont hate kids, I just want to point out that boicotting would be rather difficult seeing how there are those that are completely into the shit hollywood and other ilk are mass producing.
seriously America, rise up against these pigs that are toying with you, liberty is dead in your country, and therefore you should just delete and rewrite of your laws anew, based upon your constitution, unless its outdated.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Drain-Blut/100001687703474 Drain Blut

I already don’t go to the theaters. It costs too much money for one. You money away to watch something ONE time just so you can also tolerate cell phone conversations, people that won’t stfu, annoying kids, and anything else in the theater you don’t want. No thanks. I’d rather take my Dvd or rental that I can watch as many times as I want, in the comfort of my nice home without all that annoying unwanted BS. We also have Demand, and while the movies on there aren’t brand new, they are still far more money conservative and convenient to use.

The theaters is for suckers and critics. Unless I was paid to review stuff or had an interested following like Spoony… I won’t go. The only other exception would be if I had a date that forced me to go.(Like that’ll ever happen.)

Fraser Stewart

Dear Hollywood:

I recently downloaded “Captain America: The First Avenger” for free from a torrent site. I just want to say fuck you. I wasted 3 hours of my life waiting for that turd of a movie to take up 1.2 GB of hard drive space on my computer.

I am hereby suing you for damages to my computer, since I don’t think my hard drive will ever recover from that having shit on it.

Therefore you owe me for one Macbook Pro 15″, about $2000 dollars, plus $10,000 dollars in psychiatrist bills trying to extract that shit from my brain. I believe that not only you should you NOT be charging people for that shit, but that you should be banned from making movies altogether.

I’ll be expecting my $12,000 dollar check in the post.

Sincerely yours,

Everybody who ever watched any movie produced by Hollywood in the last 10 years or so.

Anonymous

Can I counter-sue you for the ownership of the computer-equivalent of the Communist Party?

Ok seriously, I love that idea.
- Anonymous
  
  Yeah, like Apple is the bad one when it’s about computers. ‘Cause Micro$oft doesn’t throw their shit in your face with (annoying) ad’s like everywhere and every friggin’ minute.
  
  Or was your PC shipped with Linux installed on it?

Anonymous

The problem isn’t necessarily the bills or the piracy. The problem actually stems from the businesses themselves. Piracy has existed since almost the beginning of time. Getting something for nothing. And honestly, SOME of the piracy charges make little sense. It’s NOT illegal for DJs to play music for anyone with a radio to hear, FOR FREE and WITHOUT CHARGE… But if an individual plays it strictly for themselves… it’s illegal? It’s not illegal to record music off of the radio either. It’s also not illegal to burn CDs and Rip music to make your own compilation CDs… Yet it’s illegal to simply have them as digital copies on your computer? To download them for free? I can go to my friends house, grab a CD he purchased, and rip it to my harddrive, and put the songs in compilations for burning later… Why is it illegal to download them when it’s not to borrow them from friends? See what I mean about the laws making absolutely no sense here? Besides, the artists get practically ZERO from the sale of CDs. They make MOST of their cash from doing tours. It’s only the label owners who hurt from piracy.
Now here’s the fun part… The video game industry has been LARGELY SUCCESSFUL in stopping piracy of their products. Yes, their stuff is still pirated… But nowhere near the rate that music and movies are.

Movies tend to be pirated because… Well… Let’s face it, nobody wants to pay theater price for what they show these days. Nobody wants to spend $20 on something they’ll watch ONCE or maybe ONCE IN A WHILE. Movies like “The Thing” (the Kurt Russel version), and Aliens and even Donnie Darko are movies people WOULD pay to own. Because those movies would be watched quite a bit.

You also run into the other problem of… Well, people want to use their computers for a lot more these days. I want to watch movies on my computer or portable devices. I don’t want to be glued to a chair to watch them. Unfortunately, things like “Netflix” fall short in this regard. Selection is often EXTREMELY limited, and the better titles just CAN’T be found on it. Would I pay for each individual viewing? No. Would I pay a flat monthly fee to watch what I wanted? Yes. If I could watch any movie I wanted, I’d gladly pay a monthly fee equivalent to what I spend for basic cable. Commercial free no less. Uncesored, no less.

However, these industries haven’t been listening to their customers for some time. And really, the customers (who are largely “instant gratification based”) have decided to take the matter into their own hands.

There is a MASSIVE potential market in both outlets. I would determine “market price” for songs and open a website where you could pay either a flat monthly fee for a set amount of downloads… Or where you could opt to pay per song at a much lower rate. Where in the first plan you’d pay $20 a month and be allotted something like 25 downloads that month… And the second plan would charge you something like 55 cents a song with unlimited downloads as long as they were paid. The website would also work towards having EVERY SONG THAT EVER EXISTED on the website in order to negate the point of some piracy (no albums can be found of that music within the borders without heavy shipping fees). You could likewise do the same thing with most movies. Unpopular movies could be viewed for MUCH CHEAPER than some of the more popular ones, with sales periodically to reward patient customers. You could stream the movie once for a modest fee or download it permanently to your harddrive (maybe even with options to make it a legitimate copy should you burn it to CD later, so it would have easter eggs and menu options as well) for a bit larger fee.You know, it’s stuff like this, and most of the commercials on TV and the internet that make me wonder WHO is in charge of marketing. Whomever it is, they’re absolutely brain-dead on how to get something to work for them. How to get and KEEP customers.I’m not going to get in on the whole “Stop SOPA!” thing. I’m really not. It wouldn’t do any good. Look how many people were AGAINST Obamacare. They passed it anyway. They used a tactic to get it passed without the votes. No guarantee they wouldn’t do the same thing here. “Resistance is Futile” as they say. The policy of the American government has always been “you don’t want it? TOO FUCKING BAD!!! WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO ABOUT IT?! PROTEST?! Ha ha. We’re out golfing and taking your donations and membership dues from your worker’s unions. No matter what you do, we still rule and make the rules.”

And honestly, they are right. All we can do is vote them out of office and hope the next jerkwads aren’t as bad. Even though they ALWAYS END UP BEING worse.

Nature of the beast. The good guys in politics get forced out and the uncaring jerks get free reign over your life.

http://twitter.com/pocketheresy Raymond Adkins

You need to brush up on your copyright law. Radio is not free. They pay dues to play those songs, dues which they pay by using advertising. While there is no direct monetary cost to you, that does not mean that eventually, somewhere down the line, someone isn’t turning a profit because of it.

Technically, recording a song off the radio is a copyright violation, though this is probably contained within the same gray area as TIVO or using some other method to record your TV shows for future viewing.

While it may be legal to borrow a CD from a friend, it is not legal to rip it for your own use. It’s also not illegal to have digital copies of any media you own, so long as you didn’t break the law to get them.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Drain-Blut/100001687703474 Drain Blut
  
  As I said lol, he needs to do his research. Just because no one notices you burning your borrowed CDs illegally, doesn’t mean it is legal.
  - Anonymous
    
    Actually, I submit that if burning CDs or ripping them were “illegal”, most computers would not have the technology to do it, and it would likewise be “illegal” to sell and market such technology. But, since it’s not…. Well, you can infer the rest. And since no motion has EVER been made to make a law against said devices… You know that the companies simply don’t give two shits about borrowing and burning/ripping. If they had as much money as you claim they did, why aren’t they attempting to sue computer companies and hardware companies for helping the populace rip off the music industry?
    
    I’m just saying. You know, use a bit of logic here and there. It goes a long way.
    
    As for radio stations… They play the music to get you to listen to the commercials. They are also there as an “outlet” to get artists HEARD. And there IS radio you pay for. XM, anybody? The standardized model is for most radio stations “provide content that gets people to stay and listen to the advertisements, where we make money”. Radio Talkshows even do this. They provide CONTENT to make advertising on their station viable. Yes, they pay to have music. But parts of the music industry also PAY RADIO STATIONS to play their music. You don’t hear about it as much anymore, but it does still happen. The music industry uses it to gain a fanbase for whomever they’re pitching at the time, and to get the public to go out and buy their product. Newer stuff isn’t often “charged” to the radio station simply because it’s a new product. The song or songs is designed to be advertising for the artist and album. After a while, if the music and artist is a hit, they start charging stations to play it (who WILL pay it to provide content for their program in order to get an audience in order to collect their confiscatory advertising fees from people who use their airtime to advertise their products). See where I”m going with this? Logic? Common sense? Yes?
    
    As for the video game industry being more heavily pirated… Well, I have to doubt that simply because of the ninety bazillion (exaggerated number, but you get the point) complaints about DRM and other such anti-piracy measures in existance. You also hear of players getting their XBOXES BANNED FROM LIVE for pirating games. Maybe Playstation users don’t (but Sony doesn’t give two craps about what their players do anyway… Unless you’re putting windows OS on your console, then they sue) have to worry as much, but Xbox owners do. Perhaps piracy of COMPUTER games is more rampant… But honestly, with all the new features that basically DETECT you’re using a “cracked copy” if you take said game online… I seriously doubt the number of “pirated games” is as high as you believe it to be.
    
    You tell me that I haven’t “done the research”, yet your claims don’t even produce a single number for any of the industries. I’d say you’re complaining about the very thing you’ve just done.
    
    Also, blaming “shitty games” on piracy is outright idiocy. Yeah, Call of Duty seriously sucks because people PIRATE IT. Oh no, it couldn’t POSSIBLY be that every new iteration of the series is the same as the LAST iteration, could it? Nah, that’d make too much sense! Or, it couldn’t possibly be that the game coding is so complex and they simply ran out of production time/money to correct all the bugs and glitches in their games. No, couldn’t POSSIBLY be that. It also couldn’t POSSIBLY BE that maybe there was behind the scenes executive meddling or piss poor programmers to blame for such a boring game! Why, that’s just CRAZY TALK! Yeah, games like “Spore” totally suck because people Pirated that one like crazy too! I bet! It couldn’t possibly be that a game was overhyped and couldn’t compare to the hype, could it? Nope, it must’ve been pirated. Only logical and rational explaination. Games suck because they got pirated.
    
    Also, the video game industry seems to be in much better shape than the movie industry these days. Ten or twelve games this year that were “big sellers” with “record sales” and the accruement of tons of wealth on RELEASE DATE… Meanwhile, you have like what, three movies that did WELL at the box office? These same movies that have done POORLY once they went to DVD?
    
    Also, if pirating Hollywood movies actually has happen what you’ve STATED HAPPENS… Why aren’t torrent sites shut down more freqently? They hardly ever at all. You can do a standard search in any search engine for free downloads of a movie and without even a P2P program, obtain the movie. If it were really enforced like you’d like us to believe, just finding DISTRIBUTORS for these movies on the net would be impossible. Your searches would even end up turning up “no results” like some things on Google or Yahoo do.I think you grossly overestimate the power of the film industry, and overestimate how many people pirate video games.Well, unless you want to count PC Gamers… But only PC gamers (and developers with their infinite ineptitude for stopping some of their piracy) really care about pirating a game to begin with. Some companies stop it so fantastically that you have to be SEVERELY DEDICATED to pirating a game in order to do it.But hey… What do I know? I only sit on the internet and use it for its intended purpose. There’s no way I’d ever LEARN anything on here. Like say, how often people are prosecuted or even sued/fined for these kinds of infringement laws.I mean… It’s not like there are message boards and websites where that kind of information is readily available. I mean… It’s not like the Newspapers or Six o’ Clock news would tell you about such things, right?Right?
    - Anonymous
      
      “Actually, I submit that if burning CDs or ripping them were “illegal”,
      most computers would not have the technology to do it, and it would
      likewise be “illegal” to sell and market such technology. But, since
      it’s not…. Well, you can infer the rest. And since no motion has
      EVER been made to make a law against said devices…”
      
      Actually… while not on that exact item, there has been many lawsuits and attempts to block similar. 1998, RIAA files suit against Rio to kill PMPs. (Portable Media Players, ie: iPods). Then of course, there is the older case of Sony defending the Betamax against the MPAA’s claims that home taping was illegal. There were many talks about getting DVRs banned through the court systems, and of course, the anti-circumvention clause has allowed attacks against REAL MEDIA for DVD ripping programs. Oh and lets not forget the legal arguments about how recording satellite radio needs to be declared illegal. So, your statement is only technically true for CDs, but likely only due to a timing issue.
    - Anonymous
      
      But again, these are all court cases with attempts to sue. These aren’t attempts to create a new law that automatically declares such things are illegal. Created law and frivolous court cases are two different things.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Drain-Blut/100001687703474 Drain Blut

Actually piracy is a much bigger problem for the video gaming industry, and is part of the reason why most publisher’s often can’t even afford to even finish the games before releasing them. You wonder why games suck? Because you steal them. Games are released in a buggy unfinished state as a result.

But why is it a bigger problem for them? Because they can’t afford to stop it. Movies bring in 100x as much money, and Holywood makes even companies like Blizzard look like a hotdog stand by comparison.

The movie industries send out hundreds of thousands of infringement letters every year, on top of lawsuits. Anti piracy for video games is nearly non existent, because it can’t be afforded. If you pirate a new hollywood movie, you can bet on having an ISP complaint letter in your mailbox mere days later. If you pirate a game? Nothing happens at all. Almost every game released has 0 anti piracy behind it.

You really should do your research before spewing out walls of text.
- http://twitter.com/Phryj Daniel Sullenberger
  
  Anti-piracy for video games is non existant? Have you tried playing a PC game from the past 5-6 years? Practically every game from any major publisher has Safedisc, Securom, StarForce, or some other DRM crapware the game forces you to install. These programs behave like spyware, create drivers that bog down your system, make all kinds of changes to your registry, and more often than not work like rootkits, including being able to survive completely reinstalling windows. Then you have BS like having ‘activate’ the game, being forced to install Games for Windows, Steam, Origin, etc. FOR A GAME YOU BOUGHT IN THE STORE, and even making you stay connected to the internet the whole time in order to play an offline game. Not to mention when crap goes wrong and you can’t play a game you legitimately purchased because your internet connection isn’t perfect or the DRM has some stupid bug. Oh, and to top it all off, this crap can leave your registry and/or system folder corrupted too.
  
  As for consoles, why do you think you can’t just make backup copies of game you own? Console makers make it so only their specially made discs will work. They also lock out unsigned code and do everything they can to prevent homebrew from running on their machines.
  
  The video game industry has been forcing all kinds of anti-piracy crap down our throats for years.
- Anonymous
  
  I am sorry, but really? Piracy is killing the VG industry huh? Right, I remember this! “Don’t copy that floppy” or the game industry won’t be around in ten years. Of course, that was in 1992, piracy has been on the rise… as have the profits of video game designers!
  
  Okay and… movies bring in 100x as much money? Halo 3, 170 Million in 24 hours. Domestically. Opening week killed the box office champ of Spiderman. (http://articles.latimes.com/2007/sep/27/business/fi-halo27). Yes, Microsoft Games looks pathetic compared to Fox…
  
  What is the movie companies getting for their endless lawsuits? Is piracy going down? No, they claim it is going up and up and will kill them. Unless we give them another law. I mean just look at the horror that the VCR wrecked. Why, the industry had to go to court just to open the eyes of people that it was to movies, what the Boston strangler was to women! (Nearly a real quote too) I mean, if the courts didn’t kill the VCR machine, we would have no movie industry today! … Oh wait.
  
  What about the Music industry, it has been suing people, so clearly music piracy is gone… nope we need even more laws or they are doomed by home taping. (Home taping is killing music. If people continue to record the radio on these audio cassettes, the industry will be gone as we know it before the end of ten years..)
  
  But the last bit… oh the last bit! “Almost every game released has 0 anti piracy behind it.” Yes, THAT is why I have a stack of games I can no longer play on my new computer! No wait, the reason I can no longer play them is the DRM doesn’t work with friggin’ Windows 7. DRM is the video game industries attempt to self-destroy their legitimate user base. How much money is the industry dumping into DRM, and for what? Jee, I can install and play this game… oh wait, the DRM sever has gone down. I have to wait until the day after release. Oh look the PIRATES ARE ALREADY PLAYING. OH well lets play an Ubisoft game… oh look, I have to be connected to the server 24/7 without any timeouts… while the PIRATES CAN PLAY WHENEVER THEY WANT. (Granted, they have time and time again relented, and disabled or pushed back the implementation of THAT one but still). Or hey, I can install this game here on three machines, and screw me if one has to be rebuilt. The PIRATES can install it on unlimited machines. I have to juggle CDs when I decide to play an older installed games and the filthy dirty PIRATES… don’t! They install once and just play whenever they feel like without a goin’ CD hunting. PIRATES, more then the legitimate consumer, own a game. DRM not updated for Windows 7? A PIRATE doesn’t have the DRM and can play anyways. Us legitimate consumers? Well guess that is why it is not a sale, but a license, and I guess the license just ran up.
  
  Now look, you are going to accuse me of being a pirate, and I am and am not. I do not download new games, I have stacks of games I purchase, because I want to support the people who make them. I love video games, and only want success for the industry. I love music, and want the artists to thrive, and make music. I like movies okay enough that I want them to be created. (But come on guys… something original might help. You need new laws to create new movies, and then you give us SMURFS, and A-Team, and a flood of sequels, and re-shot for Americans because the foreign languages are weird, originality people, at least try it.) Sorry tangent, I do not pirate, and I would encourage anyone who plays a pirated game and enjoys it to spend their money on getting a release copy, but the road the industries are on are so bloody anti-consumer it is reaching new lows. It has been at the point for a long time now, that the pirates, which download the games and infringe on copyrights (not steal, we are better then using terms like that) are getting the better experience.
  
  The game industry (and in some lesser ways movies and music) in its manic zeal is giving us less reasons to buy, and more reasons to pirate. If you want anything to point at, and say ‘THIS is why piracy exists’, it is that simple reason. To the industries, we are all criminals who need to fork over more money. The pirates get ease, the pirates don’t have to worry about the DRM server being hacked, or going down, or being retired, or the DRM not working on new versions of the OS. Face it, the industry has pretty much made piracy the better choice.
  
  I am sorry for the wall of text… but your post just got me really, really riled up, and I just had to say something.

Anonymous

58 billion? Prove it, show me the receipts, the logs, all of it, prove there is any grain of truth to your satchel full of salt and show me speicifically who is effected and how in vivid detail.

and Mccain this is further proof that you are not fit for command in any sense of the word, nor are any of your fellow senators in support of this bill and others like it as this is a knee jerk reaction to something from 10 years ago and this whole thing is certainly nothing relevant now and you only care about the money the MPAA and everyone else is bribing you with via the lobbying system.

this whole thing should not be in the senate, it should not be in the legal system AT ALL, none of this is relevant to what is going on now and what is causing the econmic trouble of this goverment and everyone under you.

it is your incompetence and the incompetence if your fellow govement officals that has lead to the decay of this economy by allowing our jobs to be outsorced to outside of the country and letting cheap illegal labor in, not piracy in any form or percent as the internet is self policing to begin with as people have what’s called a conscience and will pay for anything they like even after aquiriing via means of online piracy and given the option between piracy and supporting someone they like via itunes they will usually do the itunes route to begin with as its a small, reasonabile amount of money to pay and it supports the artist

basically your looking to turn control of the internet over from the people to the FEDERAL goverment, not even the state goverment and this is insane on the most basic of logicial levels for any number of basic reasons

may god help your dumbass and everything your about to destroy with your incompetence and you have CERTAINLY lost my vote and I will make sure to vote against anything you and your fellow sentators try to pass from now on in regards to this matter.

and you wonder why the tea party is gaing ground.

Darke Mayer Goulart

Man, you guys are really screwed. Mr Obama proposed a MARTIAL LAW, did I understand it that right? Section 1034 of NDAA bill?

Wow, America. Nazi much?

http://twitter.com/Spokavriel Daniel Thomas Stack

Not quite, Oh don’t get me wrong Obama is a definite and proven by his own actions Marxist, but he hasn’t gone down any ethnic purge paths yet. I think he’s trying to be more of a Mussolini.
- Mike Socarras
  
  Anyone who calls Obama “Marxist” doesn’t know what that term means. Call me when Cesar Chavez becomes president, then we’ll have a Marxist.
  - http://twitter.com/Spokavriel Daniel Thomas Stack
    
    Read the Communist Manifesto Marx was one of the authors on and look at what Obama has done. I don’t really want to go in listing point by point but he’s got most of it down.
    - Anonymous
      
      Come on now, don’t be ridiculous. Obama is nothing like a marxist, he is a moderate center-left politician by American standards, by the standards of the rest if the western world, he would likely be a center-right politician. His biggest achievement, the health care reform bill, is basically what the REPUBLICANS proposed in the 90s, and what Republican Mitt Romney passed in Massachussetts. What else is this about?
      
      His stimulus bill? That is a keynesian idea, and keynesian economics are NOT marxist economics, not even close. Keynesianism isn’t socialism, it is a capitalist economic theory, just one that sees State intervention in a crisis as a possible positive. Even there, his stimulus was mostly tax cuts, not more spending, which is why economic politicians like Paul Krugman have been disappointed in him since early 2009 (as keynesian theory says that government spending is better at supporting demand than tax cuts in a severe recession)
      
      What other bill did he spearhead? The financial secor reform bill was actually led by Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, hence its name. It only turns back the clock a bit by reversing some recent deregulations of the financial sector. Was the USA marxist in the 90s and 80s?
      
      Time to start listening to other news channels than Fox News and to stop being prisoner of the right-wing echo chamber. Join us in the real world, please.
    - Anonymous
      
      Uh… Dude… People who escaped marxist countries SAY HE’S MARXIST. Seriously, go look up marxism. You have no idea what you’re talking about and obviously have never cracked a book. Try reading Alinski’s book on radicalism.
    - Anonymous
      
      Have you read the Manifesto of the Communist Party? I have. So, which of the vital Marxist ideas do you think Obama subscribes to?
      
      The idea that history is an endless class struggle? Historical materialism? Abolition of private property? The inevitability of communism?
      
      I’ll answer the question myself: no on all these accounts. I see also that you bring no evidence of the affirmation, you just make a weak appeal to authority, saying unnamed people who “escaped marxist countries” (as if that gives perfect insight on the theory and ideas of marxism) say that he is.
      
      What you wrote was but a repetition of something you hold to as an article of faith (ie, belief held without, and not requiring, proof).
    - http://twitter.com/Spokavriel Daniel Thomas Stack
      
      Have you actually listened to Obama once since he took office? Class Struggle is in Every speech he has ever given. Materialism, Read the Stimulus act and then the Jobs Bill Both are geared to materialism which is a big part of why they have failed. Same with QE1 and QE2.
      
      The last two are harder to simply point at. So I ask you to take a look at the public actions of OIRA the Office of Intelligence and Regulatory Affairs. They are even trying to remove the legal right to ownership of food plants.
      
      That’s not theory that is fact. Heck that is what keeps getting defeated in the Food Safety and Modernization act over the past 3 years but OIRA is now trying to write into law without congress.
      
      But this has gone on the tangent long enough. Please do more research you aren’t dumb but you aren’t getting enough of the picture.
    - Anonymous
      
      Class struggle is not in most of his speeches. Wanting to re-balance a situation where wealth is insanely distributed is NOT class struggle. It is merely common sense, something that even the US’ founding fathers agreed to. Thomas Jefferson for instance spoke in favor of a geometric tax so that the rich would pay more as a portion of their income as the poor, and he wasn’t the most left-wing of the group. Even Bill Gates has spoken in favor of increased taxation for the rich, is Bill Gates a marxist? By the same definition you use to call Obama one, he would be one.
      
      You don’t understand the marxist theory of “historical materialism” at all, you just demonstrated that. The materialism you talked about is irrelevant to marxism and is shared amongst the ideas of capitalism (that increased material welfare is the goal of an economic system). “Historical materialism” is a theory that human ideas are derived from the economic system in which they live, and not vice versa, and that historical developments are shaped by the means by which humans produce the necessities. Obama doesn’t demonstrate this at all.
      
      BTW, QE1 and QE2 are decided by the Federal Reserve, which is independent of the government. The president of the Federal reserve cannot be removed without “cause or malfeasance”. Bernanke has not done anything qualifying to that, so he cannot be removed, unless the law defining the statutes of the Federal Reserve are amended to allow it, which would likely be disastrous for its credibility on the markets.
      
      I have seen nothing proposed by the OIRA that would attack the right of ownership of anything or of private property… unless you think food plant owners have the right to serve contaminated food to unsuspecting consumers.
      
      I am getting the correct picture. You are believing the fear-mongering from extremist right-wing news media and propagandist. Wake up.
    - Anonymous
      
      So… it’s fear mongering when we have history, facts, and rational thinking on our side… But you never ONCE consider that maybe it’s YOUR side of the argument that has the fear-mongering? It’s not plausible at all to you that maybe it’s YOUR SIDE that has the propoganda? The fact that you probably haven’t thought of these factors means you’re a close-minded individual who probably believes everything he sees/reads and never does any actual research for himself.
      
      He’s right, you AREN’T stupid. You are incredibly ignorant however. And you’re adamant about clinging to that ignorance at any cost, even if what you post sounds like a laundry list of Democrat talking points. Your responses have been only to try to discredit the people opposing your point of view. That is to say… You can’t oppose them intellectually, so you try to discredit the person citing the facts in the hopes that idiotic people will see a discredited person as equivalent to discrediting the ideas.
      
      And while I’m not going to cite sources on here, I do invite you to go looking for yourself. Go google “Marxist escapees say America is turning Marxist”. Or maybe other similarly worded things.As for me, I can’t cite actual physical sources because the information I get on that largely comes from anecdotal evidence. However, I’m more inclined to believe someone who has left Russia or China or even Cuba on whether or not Obama is being Marxist because they would honestly know. They left those states of affairs, they lived them. You haven’t. You’re still living the illusion of “Marxist is the best! It creates Utopia!”. No, it only creates “Utopia” for those at the top.
      
      Also, why should the rich be taxed at a higher rate than the poor? They EARNED that money. What if you made $100 a week, and then I came along and took $35 of that in income taxes and then came and took another $20 or more simply for operating costs for your business. You see what that does to your paycheck?
      
      “It’s unfair that they were smarter and got more money than the poor lazy people! They should have to give that money to the poor lazy people!”
      
      I’m under the poverty line and yet I hold the view of conservatism. Amazing, ‘eh? I don’t want rich people to be taxed more. I don’t want their wealth distributed to me. I want to earn my own wealth someday. I want to maybe make it to $80,000 a year or more. And when I get there, I don’t want MY hard-earned money taken to feed some poor shlubs kids because the parents are too lazy to get a job and work their ass off to provide for their children.
      
      It isn’t the rich’s responsibility to take care of the poor. It also isn’t the responsibility of the government to do this. It’s the responsibility of the individual to take care of themselves. Take responsibility, own up to mistakes, and work hard to better their lives.
    - Anonymous
      
      I’ll post my reply as a reply to Daniel Thomas Stack, because I’ve feeling a bit squeezed here…
    - http://twitter.com/Spokavriel Daniel Thomas Stack
      
      The Federal Government trying to Balance anything aside from the Federal Budget or interstate commerce (Business that crosses state lines) is socialistic redistribution. The government picking winners and losers and penalizing those who have too much.
      
      Please give me a source to where that proposal for a Geometric tax came from. I have read more than 80 books of Jefferson’s writings and have not found that in any of them. I have found where the original proposal for national income tax be capped at 7%. It was laughed off with claims it would never get that high.
      
      Bill Gates and even Steve Jobs have proven themselves to be Progressives. They want the Government taking care of everything in stead of allowing individuals the freedom to take care of themselves. So yes he is leaning that way.
      
      So blatant materialism is irrelevant if it doesn’t fit a single definition… I’m sorry there is nothing to debate you defeat your own point in your comment.
      
      There are so many parts to both QE digitizing of money it would take longer than I care to go through it all but the simple summation of the matter is that the money supply can not be increased without government approval. Which still leaves responsibility on the President and Congress.
      
      Read the Food Safety and Modernization act along with what gets published of the regulations from OIRA. Its the details and not some idiotic notion of propaganda. They go so far as to claim plants grown on land that has been crossed by animals at any time is incapable of being uncontaminated.
      
      I repeat. Please read the bills. Read what is being added to the laws for yourself. If some idiot in the right wing media sounds like me then I guess they were at least smart enough to also read the documentation coming out of DC.
    - http://twitter.com/Spokavriel Daniel Thomas Stack
      
      The American Left before 1910 was Large Government Right was Small Government. In Europe the Left has been Communism while the right has been Facism. Both Large Government. The only way you can put Obama in the middle is to have him in a European frame work. He is more big government than even Ted Kennedy was.
      
      If you have actually followed anything Obama has done in office, unless you are taking MSNBC as gospel and not actually reading the stories on the events, I honestly can not see how you would come to any of these conclusions.
      
      In the Stimulus look at where and how the money was spent. It comes down to the idea that Government is the solution to problems and can make things better weather you want government in that aspect of your life or not. Its been a program to grow government and strip power from both states and the people while at the same time spending money at the fastest rate in recorded history.
      
      The only Tax “Cuts” Obama has touched or accepted are continuing the current tax rates imposed by the previous administration. He has NEVER cut one cent more! How in the world do you see keeping the same rates as a cut that somehow is meant to stimulate anything? No change means no cause for effect. He has also even on the campaign trail before becoming president called for higher taxes on the “rich” who already pay the majority of the taxes actually collected.
      
      Nearly every dollar sent out of the United States while Obama has been in office has been without strings to show that it is still benefiting American interests. Nearly 1/4 of the Stimulus money was sent out of USA that way. Another 2/3 was given to companies with facilities outside of the united states with no conditions set to ensure that the funds were used locally. All of that Spells the Marxist ideal of Redistribution of wealth.
      
      Please look at the results of his actions and read the bills. If you continue with blinders of any kind. Accepting any line, be it Glenn Beck or MSNBC you won’t get the whole picture and be left following whatever spin you find is easier to accept.
    - http://z13.invisionfree.com/Broken_Future Zuiyo Maru
      
      MArxism: the overthrow of the upper and middle classes, or bourgeois, by the working class, or proletariat. Not even close to Obama.
    - http://twitter.com/Spokavriel Daniel Thomas Stack
      
      At least you are working from a definition. But I believe he is accomplishing that overthrow through quite a few policies added in those thousand page bills. Results verses overt action. But like I said before I’ve had enough of this tangent and have clearly stated my side of it. No one has to agree I just hope people take time to do the reading. The information is out there. Why the Press seems to be pushing an agenda in line with it…. That’s for conspiracy theorists to guess about.

http://twitter.com/VirtualAlex VirtualAlex

Al Frankin sent me the same reply -_-

Renaissance_nerd

he got almost 900,000 to not give a shit about what you say

http://reporting.sunlightfoundation.com/2011/legacy-media-bankrolling-campaigns-of-SOPA-consponsors/

N C

http://www.infowars.com/andrew-couts-internet-titans-fight-sopa/

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ZA5FKMNFHLRPT64MNFCQ3VIV7E Kenshiro Three

Guess who is supporter of SOPA & 1.99 MILLION in campaign
contributions from the backers of this bill? Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., $1,996,470

http://reporting.sunlightfoundation.com/2011/legacy-media-bankrolling-campaigns-of-SOPA-consponsors/

Yeah I’m SURE he will “Keep your views in mind”

Renaissance_nerd

This just in! John McCain got the biggest piece of the pie to sponsor SOPA/PIPA, at nearly 2 million dollars, no wonder he didn’t give a shit about what you had to say Spoony.

http://reporting.sunlightfoundation.com/2011/legacy-media-bankrolling-campaigns-of-SOPA-consponsors/

Anonymous

Wu wu wu wu woooooow.

Piracy doesn’t pay huh. I knew that.

Dartannian -

Hmm…what if these politicians are just taking truckloads of money from these corporations, but the bill was only worded so broadly, so that it WOULD be unenforceable? The politicians please the corporations by thinking they’re actually doing something, but pleasing the common people by not actually enforcing the bill? I like THAT conspiracy!

Alex Brinkman

So, basically all that wrinkled up old nutsack did was reiterate what the bill does, and then say “I’ll keep your views in mind.” at the end. Yeah he gives about as much of a shit as Donald Trump gives for the homeless; as long as that walking corpse can make some extra bucks off this bullshit then he’s going to do whatever the highest bidder asks of him.
In other words, you wasted your time writing him Spoon dog. Then again, what else would you expect from a Republican.

Dartannian -

“Then again, what else would you expect from a Republican.”

Yeah, ‘cuz last time I checked, people were really pleased with Obama, too.
- Anonymous
  
  Let’s also not forget that McCain is a MODERATE. Or, as we conservatives and republicans know them as: RINOs. People who don’t keep up with politics really shouldn’t make comments on them. Any idiot can be a member of any party. It’s the ideals that make them one or the other.
  - Anonymous
    
    Not that moderate. McCain has always been a conservative, but he did break ranks with the party on a few subjects when he needed to cultivate his reputation as a “maverick” to win the moderate independents in elections. The result was that he was rated slightly less conservative than the average Republican senator in most years, but still very far from even conservative Democrats.
    
    Since the Tea Party rose, he had no problem recycling himself in one of the, if not THE, most conservative senator in the Senate.
    
    That being said, due to the absence of controls on political donations (due in part to the tremendously stupid Citizens United ruling), most politicians have to pander to deep pocketed donors to stay in power, so rare are the really honest politicians, especially in the Senate. Bernie Sanders is about the only one that has my respect 100%… but you’d hate him, he calls himself a socialists (not the USSR kind though, more in the European social-democrat/labour/socialist tradition). However, Democrats are still much, MUCH better than the totally insane average Republican politician.
    - Anonymous
      
      I don’t know, I just can’t subscribe to socialism in any of its forms. No matter how good people have claimed it to be, it has lead to ruinous lifestyles, massive taxes, and even more massive debt. You can see it happening all over the world these days. Even countries like the UK and Greece with their “socialist views” are quickly running out of options. They’re resorting to reinstating capitalism and getting rid of a lot of their socialist policies just to make their budgets work. And what is the public doing? Instead being happy that they’re not ALL GOING TO BE POOR… They’re in the streets rioting and protesting the fact that all their free stuff is gone.
      
      Socialism fails everywhere it’s tried. It really does. History has a myriad of examples and a plethora of politicians and rulers who have tried it. It never works, and only leads to ruinous disaster.
      
      The main problem is that “socialism” assumes all people are equal. They are not. There is no such thing as “equality”. Equality is the word they use to get their destructive policies passed. You know, in the name of “good will” and “compassion”.
      
      Simple fact is… It stops people from planning for the future. It stops people from thinking for themselves. It stops people from working for themselves (after all, why make millions if the government can just take it from you and give it to some poor slob who decided that work is too hard and they aren’t ever going to do it?).
      
      As for McCain… In Conservative circles and among actual conservatives (myself included), he’s simply a Moderate. He’s nowhere NEAR being a conservative. Conservatives don’t wet their fingers and put them in the air to see which way the wind is blowing. Conservatives don’t stand idly by and not attack a political opponent or their ideas simply because the candidate is a different skin color.
      
      Conservatives believe in the betterment of all by virture of EMPOWERING THEM ALL. A government handout doesn’t do any such thing. Being given free money doesn’t empower a person. It doesn’t motivate them to be better, to work harder. It’s just free money.
      
      The only proof you need that such policies fail and are terrible ideas is to look at your neighbors “spoiled little brat”. See what all that free money and “not having consequences” does to a person? Now, think of that on a larger scale… Say… Nationally. Now consider that there’s an entire political party that buys its votes in this way.
      
      I’d rather my political party take money from corporations or businesses who have WORKED for their money instead of poor people who have money handed to them so they don’t have to work.
      
      Maybe you disagree, and that’s fine. It’s just my idea of it. McCain has never been a conservative. Sarah Palin was the closest thing to one in that entire campaign and look what the media did to her. Look what McCains own staff did to her. McCain is a moderate (which is like saying he’s a Democrat, but playing for the wrong team). Nothing can change that.
    - Anonymous
      
      Your understanding of Europe is simplistic and wrong. Greece’s problem originates in the Euro, not in its public debt. Greece’s government is smaller than Germany’s, which is considered the most solid economy in Europe. The UK were doing relatively well (because they didn’t have the Euro) until the Tories got in and started austerity policies. Spain and Ireland are also in trouble, and their governments had low debt levels and small deficits prior to the financial crisis. Sweden is much more socialistic and its economy is doing much better than even the US’. For instance, 72,7% of its 15-64 population is working, versus 66,7% for the US (putting the lie to your affirmation that if social programs are generous, people will not work).
      
      If McCain is considered a moderate in conservative circles, it’s testament to how extreme the conservatives have become. That’s what happens when people are in an echo chamber, where dissenting voices are evacuated and banned. Without anyone able to voice reasonable criticism from the center without being discredited as “RINO”, as not “One Of Us”, positions become more and more extreme.
      
      You’re going to blame the media for what happened to Sarah Palin? Really?! Come on. She deserved everything she got, she couldn’t answer easy questions and demonstrated an ignorance that is scary for a VP. Should conservative politicians be isolated from criticism? Should the media only show their good side?
    - Anonymous
      
      I’ll let you have your points and from this point on simply ignore you. You have your views and I have mine. I’m honestly just sick of trying to use logic on you and you completely ignoring history and reality in order to stay in your state of mind. I know I’m not going to change the way you think. I don’t hope to. You’ve yet to even shoot down a single thing I’ve said without trying to “discredit” me as a human being instead of “proving the idea wrong”. If you’re going to cite numbers and percentages, at least include the place where you got them, so others can determine if your sources are CREDIBLE or if you’re just pulling numbers out of your ass.
      
      You know, just saying.
    - http://twitter.com/Nanikure ファウラー　ピート
      
      lolumad
    - Anonymous
      
      Whereas you have no figures at all, hence the “I’m sick of you not agreeing with me, so I’m bailing on the argument.” move.
    - http://twitter.com/SorceressJackie Nila Alksnis
      
      While I’m all for empowering people, the whole “free money” thing is a bit simplistic in how you stated it. Now I’m saying this only in reference to the US. Yes, there are slimeball people who abuse the systems put in place to help people. But what about the hard-working people trying to get through tough times with little to nothing coming in despite how much they bust their ass? The pregnant mother working two jobs and putting her unborn child at risk so she can have money to keep a roof over her head and food in the house? If we could find a way to actually punish the leechers and slime who pretty much steal from the programs in place, we could free up a lot of money.
    - Anonymous
      
      I’m not saying SOME program shouldn’t exist to actually HELP the downtrodden. They DO exist. However, such programs should be a HAND UP and not a HAND OUT. I just have a problem with your example. Yeah, that single mother is having difficulties… But it was HER CHOICE (99% of the time) to have sex. Have sex irresponsibly. And bring a child into the world without the help of the father or even her own family. Why isn’t the family helping her out? Why isn’t she trying to get him to pay for child support? I’ve actually gotten kind of sick of that cliché to be honest. It’s far too prevalent as an argument, and is easily slapped down by logic and common sense.
      
      Now, there are people who need help. I can’t and won’t deny that. Sometimes unexpected expenses just murder your finances. There are options for dealing with these outside of government assistence, but sometimes it can’t be avoided. Those people SHOULD be able to recieve help. However, the number of THOSE people are far fewer than any of the poverty numbers would have you believe.
      
      In all honesty… I would support a system that rewarded anyone who wanted government money, WITH government money. The only condition I would have with such a thing is… If you’re on a government program, you can’t vote. You get off the program and stay off of it for two years, you get your right to vote back.
      
      If such a thing was instituted, I wouldn’t mind “government handouts”, because at least then, you know politicians can’t buy votes with these programs.
    - Anonymous
      
      “Socialism fail everywhere it’s tried” Wut? Ever heard of the Nordic Countries??
      
      Better get your facts right before you present such claims.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_LEYCQEBPOD3USSCLOA5UFYMBI4 PatrickB

I’d like to amend that last sentence… “Then again, what else would you expect from a politician?”

Anonymous

Anti-piracy systems in games have become more common and more annoying. However, I’m not going to blame the companies for them. They invest tens of thousands to millions of dollars to make these games, only to see entitled jerks download cracked versions for free, thinking that it is within their rights to do so. They are trying to make sure that they make enough money to pay their employees’ wages. It is the honest consumers who are caught in the middle of this war who have to deal with irritating anti-piracy measures, but the ones to blame aren’t the game companies, but those who pirate these games and make them available for download free of charge.

I also oppose SOPA and those new laws that are way too intrusive, but this doesn’t mean that the hackers are right. They are not. They are thieves and they result in games for PC becoming rarer and rarer or with more and more irritating anti-piracy systems.

Anonymous

I have a much more long winded post further down, but let me just say, the game industry as much to blame as the pirates. In their zeal to stop all piracy, they hurt the honest consumers more and more. Eventually, those honest consumers will stop buying. Some may turn to piracy since they want to still play the games with DRM, others ditch for consoles, yet others just get out of gaming entirely. No DRM on a successful game has lived more then a month, and hell, most are broken before they go on sale if the game is anticipated enough. It is a money sink, a ‘war on piracy’ that does nothing but hurt those who want to just buy the game, and play.
- Anonymous
  
  OR everyone pirating the games means the companies don’t get the money to KEEP making games, so they stop. and NOBODY gets them, honest or pirate. And again, anti piracy is a RESPONSE to piracy. hence, the pirates made the first move. so really, it’s the pirates hurting the honest consumer, getting raped by the game companies as they panic in terror about falling sales is just a symptom of the larger cancer of self entitled schmucks.
  
  remember in elementary school, where there were always a couple complete pricks in the class who always got in trouble and played pranks and sure we all giggled as they shot spitballs at the teacher’s back or made fart noises the whole time. it was cute at first, but they invariably got in so much trouble that the whole class would get screwed when the teacher would lose their shit and cancel recess or give everyone detention or say there won’t be a field trip until she finds out who left the tack on her chair. Sure, you’re mad at the teacher for being a bitch and punishing all of you, but really, is it her fault, or is it those two little giggling shits in the back who think their so damn funny and see no reason to own up since after all, no one can PROVE they are the only guilty ones and it’s your word against theirs. They’re in trouble all the time, why should they care if they drag you down with them?
  
  i don’t mean for this to sound as dickish as it does (i’m pretty hungover so i always sound like an asshole) but we need to stop kneejerk blaming the game companies or the movie makers, when we really need to stop and blame all the smirking little neckbeards that are enjoying a game you spent 60 bucks on for free and laughing at you the whole time. as i said in response to another guy, while i’ll happily let you make the comparison that the corporations are an unfair and oppressie king john, that does NOT automatically make all the thieves and pirates robin hood, know what i mean? i ain’t saying i like getting screwed for someone else’s mistake, but i see no reason to smile and let the pirates have all the free stuff i was stupid enough t get one of the crazy JOBS to pay for AND tell them their heroes for doing it too.
Anonymous

I can safely say that I think a good majority of the people who are commenting are aware of the fact that stealing things is just generally wrong, but sharing things is right.

That’s where corporations and the file sharers are currently at an impasse; on one hand you’re right that corporations ARE losing money and that, as a whole, is affecting how much revenue the corporations bring in to the government via taxes as well as how much they are charging for each product unit they put out and how many employees they can maintain. This in-turn causes more people to turn to pirated items, so the only logical thing to do is to try and put a stop to it by eliminating the option of being able to pirate it. To be honest, if they are doing it for the sake of their workers and the economy, then it’s morally good.

However, consider the other side: a man is financially struggling and really has NO funds to be able to put out for entertainment purposes (or maybe very rarely can purchase a song, movie, CD or game). So, his friend, who has a CD he wants, decides to share that CD with him by lending it or even copying it for the struggling man. Wouldn’t that be also be morally good? Or, if you want to go the internet route: Someone who CAN afford those entertainment items decides “I’m going to share this with those who can’t afford such luxurious items.” (very Robin Hood-esque, if I would say so myself) So, they upload it to the internet, the struggling man finds the CD and is able to enjoy all of the music made available to him thanks to both the file sharer and the internet.

You see, both sides are morally good in their own ways, but each side has their own argument against the other. On the corporation’s side, they’re complaining that they are losing out on money through pirated software and have to let employees go because they cannot pay their wages because of the pirated items; ergo, the government is losing out on tax money. On the file sharer’s side, they’re saying the corporations are overcharging for the products they put out that have a quality that does not fit the prices (example: cars that have to be recalled for safety issues, movies that have shitty plots with massive amounts of 3D and CGI, games that only last 5 hours most, or CDs with maybe 10 tracks on it.) and that if their friends can share it with them, or they with their friends, they should be allowed to do so.

My support is unsurprisingly with the file sharer’s side: consider the fact that you’re the financially struggling guy (which I’m assuming most American middle to lower class families are at the moment), would you still buy a CD/game/movie/song if you had NO other choice but to purchase it (aka, after the SOPA, PROTECT IP, etc pass)? No, right? My argument is this: if people are not going to buy the product anyway, if they were never given the option of piracy; then isn’t the matter of piracy irrelevant?

In fact, I would almost dare to argue that piracy actually inspires people to buy more often. How? It allows for people to try out CDs/movies/games fully before being able to purchase it, that way they can tell if the product is worth their money or not. Wouldn’t you agree that it’d be much better to try out a product fully and then purchase it, rather than buy the product and be upset at its poor quality?

Bottom line: While both corporations and file sharers have their own argument against and for each other, I would have to say that the corporations are fighting a losing battle. These bills aren’t going to do anything in the long run but delay the inevitable. The invention of the internet has changed things not only on a communications level but also an economic necessity level.
- Anonymous
  
  I’m sorry but there is a world of difference between lending a CD to your friend and ripping it and putting it for anyone on the internet. Namely, if you lend one CD, only one can use it at one time, if you rip it and people download it, a limitless amount of people can use it at the same time. In other words, in one case there’s one copy of it, in the other, there’s an endless amount of copies possible. Hence the name COPYright.
  
  People are not entitled to own new games/music/movies. If they are so constrained by funds that they cannot pay for them, then they shouldn’t buy them. That sucks, but that’s the way it goes. Your description of file-sharers as “Robin Hoods” forgets the essential part of the character of “Robin Hood”, he was stealing from the rich whose fortunes were made by stealing what money the poor had, hence he was stealing from rich thieves to give back the money to the people they had stolen from. Is this the case with file-sharers? Do game companies make money by stealing from the poor gamers? I haven’t ever heard of anything like that, they make their money by selling games to them, that people are free to buy or not.
  
  Can an argument be made that companies are screwing customers over with high prices? In an era of 10$ CDs (through downloads), frequent discounts on games so that only the newest, best made games are 50-60$ (I remember buying NES games at 99$ when I was a kid), where everyone can easily access reviews and videos of games to know what they are buying, I think that is a very hard position to take. Maybe that piracy had a role in getting prices down, I’ll admit that, but prices have gone down and piracy has gone up.
  
  As to whether everyone who downloads a game would have bought it otherwise, I know that’s just not true. If you pay tens of dollars for games, you will be much more reluctant to buy them and buy only a few of them. If you don’t have to pay anything, you may download all that are available that pique your interest. Still, this creates unrealistic expectations of value and price on the part of users. If users become used to downloading games at no cost, they are less and less likely to ever buy a game again. They have become so accustomed to not paying anything for their games that even paying 20$ for one will seem absurd to them.
  - Anonymous
    
    There’s no “world of difference” between sharing and file sharing. By your thought, one copy of a CD exists is true; but if that one CD is passed on endlessly (even if it’s in a fixed location), then your argument becomes null-and-void, because eventually it would reach that same level of “extreme” that file sharing is already at. The presence of file sharing simply makes that level of “extreme” easier and faster to reach, that’s all. The internet (and computers now thinking about it) has opened up a new world that closed that formerly “world of difference” between file sharing and sharing a physical CD. You may not think so, but it’s the way it is now until the time the internet is shut down and/or the American government forsakes the privacy of their populace AND international populace. If and when SOPA, PROTECT IP, and other bills pass, I guarantee you that you will NOT see any change in the amount of “pirating” going on, that’s because there’s nothing that could possibly be prevented by what the file sharers are already doing on multiple different levels. You know what WILL happen is that people in such smaller internet-based businesses and companies will be threatened by this bill. Are you really going to say “Well, it’s your guy’s fault!” to people who are honestly trying to work their assess off FOR these companies and buy their products only for the companies to turn around and ask for MORE money because they’re “losing out because of piracy”? Seriously?
    
    While I did agree with you over the fact that the corporations are losing out on money via pirating, I have not concurred that they weren’t still turning a profit through other means. That’s because people who enjoy songs, games, movies, etc, DO still buy and support them. Why? Human beings aren’t as stupid and ignorant as you think. They know they need to support their favorite artist to keep them alive, they know they need to buy their favorite game in order for more games to be made of that series, they know that they need to go to/buy their favorite movie to keep more movies of this caliber coming in. Do you know how many people go to comic cons, E3, anime-expos, music concerts, midnight showings of movies, IMAX movies, etc to support their favorite artists? The majority of these people are still going to buy these movies/games/CDs/etc REGARDLESS of the internet availability; what the internet availability does is simply remove the fear of bad quality merchandise for these people. THESE people are the ones who are the corporation’s targets for their sales and they know it. In fact, Jeff Raikes, an employee of Microsoft, and Bill Gates himself (taken from Wikipedia’s “Copyright infringement of software”, thanks to the neutrality of the world of the internet) have gone on record saying that the presence of piracy actually stimulates sales instead of stunting them. They have said “we would rather have them pirate our product rather than a rival company’s product”, because people will try out their merchandise and, should they find it to be of good quality, buy an official copy as opposed to “buying” a free product like Linux. Let’s see where do I remember hearing me say that…oh yeah, I already said that in my last post.
    
    Like I said before, the presence of the internet has changed the way things work, because not only can people transfer files over the internet, they can actually produce and run their own business easier in the face of these gigantic corporations. Since the internet has been made available to the general populace, smaller businesses are thriving and trying to provide a better quality and CHEAPER service than in most cases these gigantic corporations can. People like Spoony, Channel Awesome, Linux, Wikipedia, etc, who provide a high value of entertainment, programming and informational resource for a cheaper value than the corporations can provide currently, can thrive off of donations simply because the internet is available to them. Once these bills pass, the ONLY people who are really going to be affected is the smaller businesses that provide these high quality and cheaper services, because they can be now legally threatened by the fact they are infringing upon other corporations copyrights.
    
    But you know what, you’re absolutely right, they should go ahead with these bills/etc, because it’s not going to affect piracy at the least. All it’s going to do is kill off free and cheap sources of entertainment that are thriving on the internet’s neutrally free market and allow the corporations to grasp after those slim pickings of meat that they have yet to eat. What am I talking about greedy corporations for? They’re not greedy by knowing how to manipulate the American government into trying to give them more power to make more money. They’re not emulating the corrupt Lords of England who were manipulating the King through bribing his political aides to overlook what they were doing to their people. What am I talking about? There’s no Robin Hood analogy here for internet file sharers who are giving away what the corporations are charging 10$ upwards to 1000$ for something that may not even be worth their money for free. It’s not like the American or international populace isn’t going to buy these products if they weren’t already not buying them. You’re entirely right.
    
    Alright, enough satirical humor…
    
    Bottom line: You’re not going to “magically” get people suddenly buying items because they have no choice but to do so. In fact, many of the people who don’t buy those low-quality pirated items end up buying other higher quality goods of other type that are also taxed, which in turn stimulates the economy (which is what Robo-McCain is trying to argue that piracy/file sharing is affecting). These bills and any subsequent bills aren’t going to change anything in
    regards to the availability of piracy/file sharing or the economic situation, but rather they are going to take away the power of
    the smaller businesses like Spoony or ChannelAwesome. In these days, when a man can send a parcel across the world (see? another taxed higher-quality taxed good in the form of mail service) almost overnight or an email within seconds; you seriously think that passing these bills is a step towards eliminating piracy? Like I said before, the ONLY thing that I can see that would almost fully stop piracy/file sharing is the shutdown and/or full control over the internet, but that would be the political and international suicide of the US government.
    
    Oh and food for thought: it can be argued on a legal level that sharing a physical CD (burning or not burning it) IS file sharing/piracy on a different, but identical level to file sharing over the internet, since the files upon those physical CDs are copyright to the corporation and you did not purchase them yourself; so therefor you and your friend are at fault and must pay a fine to the corporation for file sharing that CD. If you think that I’m just being a dick, the corporations have been trying to stop that type of file sharing for years before the creation of the internet using a very similar argument. But there’s a very good reason why they failed…for now…”World of difference”, right? Not to the corporations it isn’t, it’s money they are losing for people providing an alternative source to purchasing their product. To be honest, I agree with the corporations, it’s the same damn thing and should be treated as such. Chalk that up to irony for you when I’m actually using an argument that the corporations are using to argue against the use of piracy for the defense of file sharing.
    - Anonymous
      
      yeah, except you’re still trying to make piracy sound noble. it isn’t. hackers and pirates aren’t heroes fighting for the rights of the people, they are selfish pricks who are too lazy or too stubborn to do it the right way from some underserved sense of entitlement. do i think SOPA is complete bullshit, absolutely, should it be crushed and ignored? completely. but should we be throwing pirates a parade for helping spread that smug sense of undeserved “gimme gimme gimme” attitude to the point that most people i know haven’t paid for a single song and most movies for years? uh…no.
      
      You pretty much ignored everything that guy said to go on a 1000 word reiteration of the tim robbins puppet from team america “the corporations are all up in their corporation buildings being all corporationy…” and not noticing he said he was against piracy, not for SOPA.   just because someone doesn’t agree with you does not automatically mean they agree with your opponent. and pay attention to that part, bcs while i think your robin hood thing is pretentious drivel and it makes my eyes water, i am no way in support of SOPA or anything like it.
      
      I am however in support of people taking personal responsibility. if you can’t afford to buy a new game every week, too bad. it may suck, but nobody OWES you a game or cd or a movie just bcs you don’t have one of your own. You got a nice car? i want one, you need to let me drive it.   i can’t afford one and that’s no fair, you bought one already so you just let me have it so i don’t have to.   you cook a delicious meal? give me half of it. why should you get it all just bcs you paid for the ingredients, cooked it and served it while i did nothing?   I want it and i can’t afford it, as “Robin Hood” aren’t you obligated to give it to me just bcs i can’t get my own?
      
      If you were an artist or and inventor or some other field that lets you create something to be sold as your living would you be fine with no one ever actually paying for it. would your sense of nobility for spreading your work to the people keep you warm at night or food in your belly?  it’s easy to feel like a freedom fighter by annoying guys rich enough to wipe their ass with 20 dollr bills every day, but the army of guy fawkes mask wearing cheetoh munching “keyboard rebels” don’t give two shits if it keeps food out of the less fortunate blue collar chaps that work for the same company as well, as long as they get their free copy of friggin transformers 3.
      
      Yeah, just remember nobody is OWED shit, they EARN it. if you can’t be bothered, you don’t get. do well to remember that, bcs maybe when it’s your stuff getting taken you won’t want to “fight the MAN” as much as you’ll want to fight the jerk who’s driving your car and eating your food bcs he decided he didn’t need to pay for his own since you were nice enough t do it for him.
- http://twitter.com/TheFinalEnding The Fallen One
  
  True, fair point, and to think, all of these issue could be fixed if the bill was to block the IP of someone who uploads something to a license it does not follow.

Anonymous

… I love this. In the comments there are back and forth arguments about how piracy kills games, and how DRM is needed to keep piracy in check and sales coming in, and how the industry is going to die from a thousand cuts… and the advertisement I see is for “Beyond Good & Evil” on GOG, GOG who has 0 DRM, and sells games so old that piracy of them is a snap of the fingers, and yet somehow, they see a viable business. Just… struck me, what exactly does that say about some of these behemoth companies?

Renaissance_nerd

Gabe Newell (the co-founder of STEAM)said it best “If you want to stop Piracy you ned to create a superior service to what the pirates can offer”. GoG is a superior service.
- Spokojasne
  
  that is very very true, allow me to give you all an example,
  look at cover of this gaming magazine:
  http://www.cdaction.pl/news-24103/zawartosc-cd-action-12012.html
  
  it is a polish, PC games magazine, it comes out once in a month and it gives you 3 FULL GAMES FOR FREE (by free i mean included in the price of the mag), in this month you will get Machinarium, Blood Bowl and Saints Row 2… i know they are old games, but for a price of 3 to 4 Euros it is a bargain.
  
  I own a lots legal copies of games that i did’nt even know existed, their creators get some small share from the price of the mag, and i guarantee that piracy of those titles (by polish gamers at least) have significally droped – how is that for a solution!
  
  granted it is not very effective in the grand scale, but this wasn’t designed as a tool to combat piracy, it just happens that it do, in some small amount.
  
  point is – piracy is a problem, to be succesful – you need to adopt not try to fight it

tim edgren

wow..McCain actually replied to you…nice…good to know there is some due process. I’m not pro-piracy (my better half kind of is mostly with avoiding the prices off of iTunes for one song that isn’t even ON a cd) however I don’t wanna lose my fav webshows.

Anonymous

I’m actually stunned that I didn’t hear ANYTHING about that in the German media, I mean sure, it’s none of our business, but it seems rather important to be not at least mentioned in international media.

Maybe I just missed it.

What I’m trying to say is, is it a big thing in the US media? Are the bigger portion of the US citizens actually aware of that, or do only those know who roam the internetz?

Walmor Carvalho

Its not just in Germany. Here in Brazil there is nothing on the media about SOPA. Maybe because local medias think this doesnt affect directly the global debate on Copyrighting and censorship or maybe because they think this is actually a matter between the US and its Corporative agenda.
- Maximiliano Afonso
  
  Walmor, i’m also from Brazil, fully agree with your comments.
HuneyMunster

Nothing as far as I know, nothing has been said about this in England. OK if I search BBC SOPA on google I get one article about it followed by two unrelated topics on Eastenders their flagship soap opera.
Kayla Anderson

It’s not just other countries. Most media in the US won’t mention it either.
http://twitter.com/SenorKaffee Michael Herzog

There is a little bit in online news, like SPON.
http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/0,1518,804532,00.html

http://danielj.se MaTachi

This doesn’t really guarantee or say anything. :P

Walmor Carvalho

Hey Spoony, you could also include the letter you sent him, so the folks that arent that informed in the case have a more abrangent perspective.

Brandon Wright

LOL… 58 Billion lost annually due to piracy. I’m really curious on how they came up with that number. How do you measure how much your stuff has been “stolen”, Especially on the internet…

Renaissance_nerd

yea I’d like to know too when even the FBI said there is no way of knowing how much money is lost to piracy. besides the GDP of the entertainment industry is only 34 billion a year.
Anonymous

http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/222638/bailout

This is how.
- Anonymous
  
  This right here is a reason why piracy exists. I would like to watch this but I can’t. Because I’m not in the US.
  
  If there is a movie I would like to watch, and it’s available on Netflix or my VOD service I’m not going to pirate it just to watch it because I have legal ways to do so. But when I’m blocked from not having that type of access to something simply because I’m not in a specific geographic location it just baffles me. It’s like they are telling me to pirate it, because they have some arbitrary reason why I can’t watch it legally.
  - Anonymous
    
    I’ve run into that as well when I’ve attempted to watch Dr. Who off the BBC, blocked because of geographical location.
    
    However, there’s plenty of other reasons piracy/file sharing exists; one of the big ones that I always tend to use for arguing in favor of file sharing is that it’s a form of quality control of digital media. Most companies, if given the chance, will try to do things as cheaply as they can to save money and therefor the quality of the product is put into question. No person wants to pay 15$ for a CD, 30$ for a movie, or 60$ for a game that’s not worth your hard-earned money.
    
    Bill Gates has gone on record to say that since piracy exists, they want people to pirate their programs; because if the people see their programs are of good quality, they are more likely to buy them as opposed to their rivals like Linux and other programs, who offer a similar service for free on the internet. Microsoft seems to know that the market has now changed from one of quantity to that of quality.
    
    There is plenty more reasons for the existence of piracy/file sharing, but the core fact of the matter is this: the internet has changed the world.
  - http://twitter.com/TheFinalEnding The Fallen One
    
    It’s a jurisdiction issue, although the content is nigh the same, the law of a country is what someone abides to, unless it’s Protect IP called. So getting foreign media would be ugly to work out in the courts, so they all have an anti-import setting, stupid idea [which now thanks to Protect IP can go], but logical

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_5W26L2W4J5OK3ZA6U327RG73LA Blaed

if mcain votes SOPA and IP down, i’ll eat my face. i have no trust in our leaders AT ALL.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_7LVODM4H4XNAD5YDXVXBYV3WLM Nai Reilavehc

There is one major problem with our Senators and Representatives now a days and it’s been a problem for a long time. Not one of them will admit they are wrong when in fact, THEY ARE WRONG, on a particular issue. That my friends is hypocrisy!

Kayla Anderson

Except when they do admit they were wrong, they’re called flip-floppers.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_5KRLHYRPXMNNLM2VEB2QGDQHU4 Heather Rh

McCain is such a bitch to whomever has his leash at the time

http://twitter.com/daddy_shelton Cameron Nelson

Oh, you wanna have fun? McCain says that business loses 58 billion to pirates. One of my senators (the one I DIDN’T vote for), Roy Blunt? He says we lose 135 BILLION!

And now for full mockery value, his entire response.

Dear Cameron ,

Thank you for contacting me regarding S. 968, the Protect IP Act.
Intellectual property industries employ more than 19 million people, making it an integral part of our economy. Rogue websites dedicated to the sale and distribution of counterfeit goods and pirated content are a direct threat to these jobs and to entrepreneurs growing and building legitimate businesses online.
Businesses have lost $135 billion in revenue annually as a result of these rogue sites. Customers have also been harmed by these sites; for example, online pharmacies that don’t adhere to U.S. regulations have been reported to cause a rapid increase in prescription drug abuse.
I am a cosponsor of the Protect IP Act which would cut off foreign websites dedicated to counterfeiting and piracy that steal American jobs, hurt the economy, and harm customers. It would allow the Justice Department to file a civil action against those who have registered or own a domain name linked to an infringing website. The bill does not allow the Justice Department to target domain names registered by a U.S. entity.
Innovation is a cornerstone of our nation’s economic growth. Proper intellectual property protections and incentives ensure that inventors develop products that benefit consumers. Without such incentives for innovators, we risk falling behind places like China and India.
Agai n, thank you for contacting me. I look forward to continuing our conversation on Facebook ( www.facebook.com/SenatorBlunt ) and Twitter ( www.twitter.com/RoyBlunt ) about the important issues f acing Missouri and the country. I also encourage you to visit my website (blunt.senate.gov ) to learn more about where I stand on the issues and sign-up for my e-newsletter .Sincere regards,Roy BluntUnited States Senator

Anonymous

He’s saying… without the Protect IP Act, America will fail on a global economical scale.

Well that’s… absolutely ridiculous. Also how does the misuse of online pharmacies apply to PIPA which is targeted at copyright and infringement?

Wait, I’m getting beside the point, 135 BILLION DOLLARS? WTF!

Dear god, if this is what United States Senators actually think then I’m really really glad that I live in a country where our politicians actually know how to look up economic analysis and use, you know, common sense.

You have my deepest condolences, good sir, for having such a senator.

Anonymous

I imagine this is just a copy an pasted email sent to everyone that contacts them about the bill. And if so then I guess Spoony wouldn’t take that “bad actors” bit as a potential insult aimed in his direction? Just popped out at me though anyway.

But yeah I hear McCain was firmly behind the bill anyway so probably doesn’t do much good contacting him. All you can do is remember it come election time.

http://twitter.com/daddy_shelton Cameron Nelson

At least McCain’s only 1/3 as misinformed of the figures as my senator is.

http://twitter.com/xaer0knight Jason Hicks

well Thanks Noah for contacting a Senator… Also, i heard the last SOPA act discussion the senate/congress floor and it was filed with “Uhmmmm” and “Ohhhs.” so they don’t fully understand what is going on with this SOPA act.

wiliamsn

You know how John McCain is spearheading this?

I JUST remembered…
In 2008, John McCain was in a little hot water for…

Wait for it…

Using unauthorized songs in his presidential campaign!!!

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1596540/foo-fighters-slam-mccain-unauthorized-use-song.jhtml

On an aside, I wonder if Al Franken blames piracy for the commercial failure of “Stuart Saves His Family”…

Ghislain de blois

I found this blog after seeing your video reviews of the Ultima series.

SOPA will cripple the internet, that much is obvious.

Of course, the major problem is that it’s difficult to monetize anything that can be copied and digitized. But here’s an idea…

You can copy the entire Ultima series, but you can’t copy the packaging, the cloth maps, etc. I see copies of Ultima IV being sold on eBay for hundreds of dollars. Presentation surrounding a hard copy could be improved to motivate people to buy the product.

The iOS and Android model of paying a small fee for ‘apps’ seems to circumvent this piracy trend. They make it more convenient to pay for software and music rather than going through the trouble of looking for the stuff on torrent sites.

http://www.youtube.com/deathwing107 deathwing107

Discussions regarding the SOPA bill in Congress, and hence the vote, have been delayed until next year…

http://kotaku.com/5870064/hearings-on-controversial-internet+regulating-sopa-delayed-to-2012

thehiddensith thehiddensith

This is a load of bullshit, John McCain, the same one who passed the National Defense Authorization Act which allows the U.S Gov’t to arrest anyone as a terrorist and give them a military trial and effectively is ‘Guilty until proven innocent’, is blowing smoke up your sodding ass so his old cancer-stricken ass can get elected again by the windbags that inhabit the lovely nation I reside in. It’s an insult to the highest degrees that a bunch of 50-70 year olds who can barely use a keyboard are able to pass legislation that would effectively silence the internet forever unless you bent over and allowed the big corporations to F*** you six ways from sunday. It’s unconstitutional and WRONG. It would add additional people to the unemployed masses and halt all creativity.

It would also allow Corporations to remove entire websites just for being dissenting!!Bad game review? SOPA!!!! Fanfiction that doesn’t make Star Trek win? SOPA!!!!

Everyone of these ass-hats that supported this need to be voted out of office.

Anonymous

Oh make no mistake. These legislators know PRECISELY what they’re doing.
Why would they put a block on oppositional/expert testimony if they were being honest about it?

Canned responses like these basically state “We listened to you because of protocol, but we simply do not care.”

SOPA will pass, barring a miracle.

tyler oakley

No. Just No.

Evil Paul

I tried writing in opposition to the craptacular IP laws in the late 90′s/00′s like the DMCA and SSSCA and got the same form letters back. It’s a waste of time Congress is owned by corporate interests and doesn’t give a fuck what their constituents think.

Anonymous

Canned responses from a canned politician. I doubt this SOPA crap will pass and, if it does, I look forward to seeing how the US government handles the impending DDoSing of all of its Internet related activity.

Anonymous

McCain… you BASTARD!!!

Anonymous

Next time, give him a $50,000 campaign contribution Spoony. Make sure it’s in cash, small bills.

Anonymous

Stop spending money on war instead, maybe?

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_IZ5BM5GNLA54OADSWGSXAMA7SY Jay

No, piracy does NOT cost $58 million dollars to the economy! That’s a misnomer formed by Hollywood!

Here’s the Cato Institute’s recent dispute on the numbers:

Only $58 billion! We’re making progress! So where does that figure come from? The source here is a paper released by the Institute for Policy Innovation, and authored by one Stephen Siwek, an MBA and principal of a consulting firm called Economists Incorporated that produces economic analysis for hire on behalf of (among others) businesses seeking to influence policy makers. That does not, in itself, invalidate the research, but we should at least begin with the recognition that we are not dealing here with impartial academic studies produced by a university or government research agency.

What does invalidate the “research” is the inappropriate use of “multiplier” effects to double—and triple—count loss estimates that were dubious to begin with. As the GAO report notes in its typically understated fashion:

Most of the experts we interviewed were reluctant to use economic multipliers to calculate losses from counterfeiting because this methodology was developed to look at a one-time change in output and employment.

The estimated losses were $6.1 billion, but the research for this number can’t be verified. The number in the article above was then reduced to $446 million, where piracy losses are the same as Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeekuel.Someone needs to call out the BS that is the Senator form letter…

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_Y4ZTXG637TRGZRCV2WE33GFWD4 Mario

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d10423.pdf

Located also in the GAO estimate on the effect of piracy.

Bottom of page 23 and top of page 24
“The Institute of Policy Innovation has commissioned three studies in the audiovisual industries using economic multipliers; the most expansive of the studies covers motion pictures, sound recordings, business and entertainment software, and video games for the year 2005.24 This study found that losses in the U.S. economy due to piracy accounted for $58 billion in output, over 370,000 jobs, and $2.6 billion in tax revenue. It was calculated by taking industry estimates of loss revenue and applying the RIMS II multipliers to these figures”

http://twitter.com/TheFinalEnding The Fallen One

As far as I see it, 1.These just lay out the copyright jurasdiction the American Government has over the net, not too much an issue. 2.If they go mad with power, as the developers, us Brits can slam the American Government with defamatory use of our creation, i.e. they go copyright mad and ignore fair use, we hit them with the same thing. Can someone point out 2 to your government, please.

http://twitter.com/TheFinalEnding The Fallen One

Sorry for double post, but Protect IP, is an extension of SOPA to give them Non US internet jurisdiction, and SOPA has fair use as a viable defense [H.R.3261 Section 104, fair use=contractual right, right?]

http://twitter.com/JackKonEl J.P. Tull

“Dear Mr. Antwiler,

“Thank you for contacting me regarding Internet anti-piracy legislation, specifically the PROTECT IP Act and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). I will now tell you what you already know about this rather than give you a straight answer like we need to deliver exposition to the audience.”

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_GWZPDCHNGDWATF3VPAGTYYJI3I Genali Harmon

I occasionally pirate as well, but when I find that the game or movie is good, I save up money, go to Wal-Mart or Gamestop and buy it. I played Assassin’s Creed through the internet by pirating, then I bought it because I really enjoyed the game and decided that it was a definite keeper in my game collection. I don’t want to spend $40-$50 on a game and find out it’s a piece of crap that shouldn’t even be worth $1.00. One game I bought, Dawn of Magic, was the crappiest game I ever played. The graphics was shit, the character creation was crap, the keyboard response was slow and the fight style was awkward and stiff, and I paid $45.00 for it. I still have it, it’s just in my closet somewhere because no one buys PC games. >:
I just think that piracy, though it’s bad, is also good in that if the product is good, people will want to buy it.

http://smellslikegeekstink.blogspot.com/ Jenny

Why not just rent?
- http://twitter.com/rkarl10 Ryan
  
  rent where?
  Blockbuster is bankrupt, and clinging to life by a thread.
  GameFly can’t possibly have the inventory necessary to please most of the audience of a new AAA title.
  Mom and Pop rental places are either gone, or don’t carry many games due to the high per-item purchase cost for rentals.
  
  Also, RedBox game rentals are a joke.

Anonymous

Our founding fathers must be rolling over in their graves. If only they knew what would happen 200 years after their time, they could’ve prevented situations like this by adding more to our constitution. But instead we have politicians like John McCain, that lie through their teeth when they say they are proud and grateful of what men like Washington went through, and just end up pissing all over our amendments, and ended up throwing away amazing enlightenment inspired political concepts like laissez faire, by separating state control from businesses like hollywood and so forth, as well as making what was already a government experiment in a two-party system even more unbalanced. Democrats and republicans only came together now just because they are a bunch of corrupt douche bags that just want to take away our freedom to feed their corrupted power. Pretty soon guys we our going to have to salute and “heil” our commander-in-chief, in what is going to be an American Empire.

Rebecca Erdmann

I did my part… though the response I got was thankfully more optimistic.

Dear Rebecca,

Thank you for taking the time to contact me regarding the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act.

These bills attempt to prevent foreign-based websites from pirating American intellectual property by allowing federal courts to issue orders against websites that are “dedicated to infringing activity.” The court order can then be served on search engines, payment providers, and other third parties, thereby enlisting them to prevent transactions with the infringing website.

I understand the positions of those on both sides of this issue. The internet has been an amazing vehicle for business creation and the dissemination of information because it has provided a free-market environment with minimal regulatory burdens. On the other hand, authors, artists, and inventors should have the ownership of their creations protected, especially in the international forum of the internet. In sum, we must jealously guard the freedom of the Internet while protecting copyright holders, keeping the internet both free and prosperous.

In view of these important competing interests, I totally support the Senate’s decision to take a step back from these two pieces of legislation and seek a proper balance. I do not believe that balance was struck by either piece of legislation as they are currently written. The best way to balance those interests may be to more actively enforce existing laws. Through targeted enforcement, we can shut down the worst actors using the authority of existing laws.

Thank you again for taking the time to share your thoughts. It is important for me to hear the views and concerns of the people I serve. Since taking office, I have received over 300,000 pieces of correspondence and have had over 150,000 people participate in live forums and telephone town hall meetings.

Please feel free to contact me in the future if I can further assist you or your family. It is an honor representing you and the good people of Wisconsin in the U.S. Senate.

Sincerely,

Ron Johnson
United States Senator

Support the Experiment!

Categories

Senator McCain’s form-letter response to my letter: