Quote:
Originally Posted by kektex
(Post 18697777)
Wouldn't the copyright holder of these images be allowed to sue and take down GFY over your use of these pics under SOPA/PIPA? After all, gfy is profiting off this forum and the evil pirate posting the pics...
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First, pics are hotlinked, so nothing is actually hosted on GFY and the authoring site still has complete control over renaming or removing the images.
Second, PJ is playing off the the similarity between PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act) and Pippa (Middleton), so use of the images might be allowable under satire provisions of copyright law - though attributions certainly wouldn't hurt. Keep in mind, SOPA/PIPA are not proposed to replace existing copyright laws, but provide a course of action for those who are having their content stolen by persons or entities currently outside the reach of the judicial system.
Personally, I'm for SOPA/PIPA as I am currently in a position for which it is intended. I live in the US and a person who has ripped my site lives in Germany but hosts in Turkey. He refuses to remove my content from his site and his host offers no method for removing copyrighted material - I've also emailed them but gotten no response. Google has been pretty good about removing the pages from their search results as I report them, but getting a domain-wide ban has so far been unsuccessful. Yahoo/Bing however want me to provide them with all my personal details (name, address, and phone number) in my DMCA request which they will then forward to the infringing party - WTF!
Furthermore, it seems a lot of people are citing concerns over no judicial process and that a competitor can file a false claim and get your site shut down. This seems a bit of a stretch, because as written the proposed bill would require a court order and then action on the part of the Attorney General who is tasked with first attempting to serve notice to the site owner. Pirate sites that falsify their whois and thoroughly obfuscate their identity would therefore be difficult to serve - should the judicial process have to wait for them to reveal themselves?
Additionally, concerns like the one mentioned above about a single image being grounds for site removal are similarly unfounded as the proposed bill specifically states that the sites affected would be those used PRIMARILY for prohibited purposes. (
see the bill markup)
Another poster above mentioned concerns over policing all links and accountability for links pointing to pirate sites. While the bill uses the term "information location tools" - which is generally interpreted as meaning search engines, it is possible that it could be misconstrued to mean other sites such as forums. However, the bill does not have the authority to take your site or forum away merely for linking to an infringing site, but allows for the 'information location tools' to be served and tasked with removing the links. Thus, if a notice is served it will specify the links in question. Until such a notice is served, site owners have no more responsibility for policing their links and content than they do already.
Anyhoo, that's just my :2 cents:.
I have yet to hear a valid argument in opposition to the proposed bills:
