PIPA Loses Support From Co-Sponsor Marco Rubio [UPDATED]

I have a question i hope someone can shed some light on. As i'm from the UK i'm less well versed in your constitution and political system, so bear with me if i make any dumb remarks. My understanding is they want to change the law in the USA, but if major sites stored their data abroad while also operating abroad, would the government have any real power to shut them down if they refused to comply with copyright legislation (for example if Wikipedia moved its servers and staff to europe)?

I understand they can restrict access to international websites, but within western liberal democracies I have no real knowledge of major sites having being blockaded like that? Indeed, would the American people stand for such an intrusion on their personal sovereignty to browse whichever sites they wish, even if such sites lie outside of the American jurisdiction?

@JJpenguin: They could force US ISP's to block those websites, which I believe is a SOPA provision.

Aren't politicians supposed to consider all sides of a bill BEFORE writing it and getting ready to vote?

Wait, Orrin Hatch??!! That piece of shit. He is the enemy, if ever there was one.

How about just this sentence from google cached wikipedia:

Hatch caused an overnight controversy on June 17, 2003 by proposing that copyright owners should be able to destroy the computer equipment and information of those suspected of copyright infringement, including file sharing.

Aw hell, I'll quote more of that section while I'm at it:

One year later, he proposed the controversial INDUCE Act that attempted to make illegal all tools that could be used for copyright infringement if said tools were intentionally used for illegal copyright infringement.

On September 20, 2010, Senator Hatch once again attempted to make illegal websites that could be used for trademark and copyright infringement through the controversial Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA). This bill would allow the Department of Justice to blacklist and censor all websites the department deemed to be dedicated to "infringing activities."

@patrickklepek said:

@Crono said:

@Branthog said:

@Evilsbane said:

To those who doubted the protest *sticks tongue out*

Yes, congratulations. They've managed to make everyone pretend to pull back temporarily so they can find other insipid ways to push through the same legislation. This same furor was raised during DMCA legislation and it eventually found its way into law. So will this. There may be slight changes, but the meat of the infringement will still exist. All that has been accomplished is that they have realized that they need to be more discreet about this, next time (they figured that only a few engineering nerds would catch on to this and the rest of the population wouldn't bother).

Those people who think anything meaningful and long term has been accomplished are probably too young to understand how these patterns play out. They're the same kids who voted for Obama this past election under the premise that he was finally a non-regular politician. Why, after more than two-hundred years, THAT was going to be the time they finally had someone who wasn't "business as usual". And then they discovered that he was. The same thing will happen this next election (and no matter who wins, they will be the same business as usual figure as every other has been).

It's great that there is enough outcry that it has at least inconvenienced legislators a little bit. But in the end, it's just an inconvenience. And . . . where have these people who suddenly give a damn been the last fifteen years?

You're right. Protests never work. We should never attempt to protest and should just roll over without question. Good post.

If you don't fight, you have no right to complain when rights goes away. Cynicism is a terrible disease.

You fucking said it, Mr. Klepeck.

@Fobwashed said:

Translates to "Too many people seem to have paid attention to this and I need to keep my job so I can continue getting lobbied. Here's me trying to save face and not lose voters. By the way Reid, here's a bus, try to get under it"

Fightin' Abraham Lincoln has spoken. Do you doubt Abraham Lincoln, America?

We still have a long battle ahead of us....Kudos to Wiki.

It's just a smokescreen. What they really want to push is the OPEN Act.

Does anybody honestly believe that this will stop piracy? The harder people try to stop piracy the more it intrigues and challenges people to find ways around it. As long as people want to pirate they will find a way to do so. All things like this and DRM do is punish people that try to use it legally. Companies have key codes, they crack down on websites that they can, they have ways to even make you be online for the product to work and pirates are still stealing games while people like me that have never pirated anything(and yes I mean nothing not a song, movie, or game) have to deal with these things and this is what would happen with these bills. Piracy would still be going on while I had to suffer with it.

well that is good news. noticed a few websites have some kind of against PIPA and SOPA like google has a black thing over the google logo, wikipedia is kind of down.

Wish I could Wiki Rubio to see what his deal is. o.O

Orrin Hatch. Dats mah senatuh.

@PatPandaHat: Ding!

I doubt this is a re-election ploy as Rubio is not up for re-election until 2016 (neither is Reid who is still really, really gung-ho for this abhorrent bill). He'll end up as President at some point regardless.

He turned on the bill because the right wing is virulently against the bill. Tea Party activists loathe this asinine bill and most major conservative sites have become vicious critics of guys like Lamar Smith still supporting it to fervently.

Did the protest help? Well, unlike OWS, it very much did. The protestors didn't make asses of themselves, instead explaining what the problems are and what the concerns are.

Aren't politicians supposed to consider all sides of a bill BEFORE writing it and getting ready to vote?

@Lurkero: That not how politics works. They only seek to protect their interests under the guise of helping the greater good. That's why you will be hear the term unintended consequence.

@MariachiMacabre said:

@Yagami said:

Hmm.. Google is still up. :| Amazon as well... What sites are "black"?

Google is still up because, at this point, it has to stay up. It's too big, and god knows no one wants to use Bing or Yahoo Search.

Too big to go black then it should be cut up into little pieces. Go black or go home is what I say!

The black shall inherit the internet. I have been to the mountain top and I have seen the promised land! A land full of black sites feeding on the corpses of those who refused to go black.

There can be only black!

@Lurkero said:

Aren't politicians supposed to consider all sides of a bill BEFORE writing it and getting ready to vote?

Yes and no one should steal, no one should kill, only the good guys should win and the tooth fairy exists!

Lobbyists still want the bill they paid for. This will be back under a different name eventually. Hopefully it'll get its ass handed to it the next time, too, assuming that it doesn't get through this time anyway.

@w00master: @iAmJohn: @megalowho: @Taklulas: Don't get me wrong, I know how important this all is for Giant Bomb and video games in general, but these articles aren't talking about how important this is for GB or for gaming. It's just senators. I don't really think that belongs on a site that advertises itself as a video game site. It's interesting, but unless it's 'Here is Giant Bomb's official position on SOPA and PIPA' or 'Video game people say this about how much SOPA/PIPA sucks/doesn't suck' then it probably belongs on a personal blog.

Rubio and Hatch can still go fuck themselves.

@Xeiphyer said:

@stalefishies said:

@w00master: @iAmJohn: @megalowho: @Taklulas: Don't get me wrong, I know how important this all is for Giant Bomb and video games in general, but these articles aren't talking about how important this is for GB or for gaming. It's just senators. I don't really think that belongs on a site that advertises itself as a video game site. It's interesting, but unless it's 'Here is Giant Bomb's official position on SOPA and PIPA' or 'Video game people say this about how much SOPA/PIPA sucks/doesn't suck' then it probably belongs on a personal blog.

How about the fact that the passing of this legislation affects every single user of this website as well as potentially destroys this website itself. I'd say that's pretty fucking important news on a videogame site.

Agreed.

Let's take time to receive some more bribes before we vote.

this is what i hate about this government , all they want to do is control ,your every move what makes them so damn special, ? sopa/pipa cam kiss my ass and since sony supports sopa/ if this goes through you know what im not buying any more and there is an easy way without having to jeopardize the internet, take down p2p sites , problem solved, , i dont see how no one has came to this , ,

@GaspoweR said:

@Xeiphyer said:

@stalefishies said:

@w00master: @iAmJohn: @megalowho: @Taklulas: Don't get me wrong, I know how important this all is for Giant Bomb and video games in general, but these articles aren't talking about how important this is for GB or for gaming. It's just senators. I don't really think that belongs on a site that advertises itself as a video game site. It's interesting, but unless it's 'Here is Giant Bomb's official position on SOPA and PIPA' or 'Video game people say this about how much SOPA/PIPA sucks/doesn't suck' then it probably belongs on a personal blog.

How about the fact that the passing of this legislation affects every single user of this website as well as potentially destroys this website itself. I'd say that's pretty fucking important news on a videogame site.

Agreed.

Common sense is great, to bad some people don't have it.

As happy as I am to see these bills going down in a huge ball of fiery death, I'm not really in the mood to celebrate, mainly because of the internet's reaction.

Most people on the internet aren't so much upset because this legislation is bad (it is), but because they don't want ANY regulation at all. I get the distinct feeling sometimes that these protests are less about "free speech" and more about "free beer." The fact is that, thanks to many countries' blatant disregard for copyright law (I'm looking at you, China and Sweden), it's piss easy to get anything for free on the internet, and whether people here want to admit it or not, piracy is a real issue that does impact the economy at large. Will anything completely stop piracy? Of fucking course not! There will always be people trying their damnedest to steal shit online, just like there will always be people willing to commit any crime in the real world. That doesn't mean we stop trying. Just because rape will always happen doesn't mean we don't try to persecute rapists and shut them down where we can. The point is to make this, like any crime, carry enough consequence that only the most determined will do it.

Look, we've all been frustrated by DRM and similar private anti-piracy measures. I myself have gone on an emotional rant about the issue, which remains my personal shame. Of course piracy will always be a horrible thing, and when it's so rampant, I can't honestly say I blame companies for leaving open platforms, in our case abandoning PC in favor of the consoles, or being more restrictive about their media, in our case crazy ass DRM. Gotta try SOMETHING, I guess.

No matter what the detractors and cynics say, we're winning ourselves a great victory here, and the government now knows that we'll rise up again the next time the internet is threatened. However, it's time for us now to grow the fuck up and realize that the free ride is going to end sooner than later. Maybe instead of folding their arms and whining (and doing PLENTY of their own lobbying, BTW), tech/internet companies should be offering suggestions on how to tackle the issue of piracy... This is, of course, assuming Google and other internet companies weren't just exaggerating the issue to protect their own bottom line (I imagine actually taking pirate sites off their search engines would require actually paying people to keep track of what goes on the engine).

Make no mistake, ending SOPA and PIPA is a huge victory. However, it's time for us to become part of the solution, not the problem.

scrutiny is always intense

@Lurkero: No. The Supreme Court is supposed to consider all sides of how law affects society. That's why bills and laws get struck down.

Politicians are supposed to first consider the interests of the people who elected them, and who will reelect them. That's how a republic based on representative democracy works. (I'd link the wikipedia articles, but y'know...) If everything works the way it's supposed to, enough people will tell the politicians to back down and listen, and they will. When special interests overrule public interest, that's when things really fall apart.

@YukoAsho: You do realize SOPA and PIPA aren't going to die right? They're going to rewrite them or whatever they decide to do, the whole point of this is fixing the problem......... just the original creators of the bill are idiots who were using it for the wrong reasons. It's gained too much attention now to not get fixed.

It's nice to know that it takes something like losing access to Wikipedia to make people think about taking action regarding something that affects them.

@Xeirus said:

@YukoAsho: You do realize SOPA and PIPA aren't going to die right? They're going to rewrite them or whatever they decide to do, the whole point of this is fixing the problem......... just the original creators of the bill are idiots who were using it for the wrong reasons. It's gained too much attention now to not get fixed.

I would consider a refinement of the bill that more explicitly protects fair use rights would be a quite different bill. As you say, the original creators were a bit on the, shall we say, "special" side. I expect this bill to be fairly different when it gets out of markup.

@Brackynews said:

@Lurkero: No. The Supreme Court is supposed to consider all sides of how law affects society. That's why bills and laws get struck down.

Politicians are supposed to first consider the interests of the people who elected them, and who will reelect them. That's how a republic based on representative democracy works. (I'd link the wikipedia articles, but y'know...) If everything works the way it's supposed to, enough people will tell the politicians to back down and listen, and they will. When special interests overrule public interest, that's when things really fall apart.

I would say that most bills in congress are introduced because of special interest rather than public interest. Public interest usually demands lower taxes and more infrastructure development where they live (mostly "pork barrel" projects). Special interest demands change to existing legislation to lower taxes for an industry or new legislation to give an industry less regulation and more control. Special interest groups sure do have a lot of money to donate, so politicians tend to prefer listening to their grievances first.

The reason why I mentioned that politicians are supposed to consider all sides of an issue first is because no matter what the Supreme court decides, everyone is supposed to follow the same laws. If there is a bill that would clearly infringe on certain rights and established law (previous court cases) then there is no reason to introduce it to congress other than to gain favor with special interests. These days everything is open to interpretation because Congress and the Supreme Court have failed to, or refuse to, keep up with advances in society. Due to the lack of internet legislation, SOPA and PIPA are murky laws. Its often the case that even the Supreme Court can't agree on what the rules should be, which is why we get so many 5:4 rulings. You'd think the court would have the hang of interpreting law by now.

Good things happen, I am glad.

“We've heard legitimate concerns about the impact the bill could have on access to the Internet and about a potentially unreasonable expansion of the federal government's power to impact the Internet,” said Rubio. “Congress should listen and avoid rushing through a bill that could have many unintended consequences.”

A surprisingly poignant and concise response from Rubio.

A good sign I hope?

@Lurkero: Don't you know some people/entities are more equal than others? ;)

It's absolutely pathetic to see these people changing their minds at the end. It speaks volumes of their character. These people knew full well what they were doing. They willingly ignored the advice of experts, and traded away the rights of the people in favor of corporations. The only reason any of these people have stepped to the other side, is due to the amount of heat this bill has been generating. Had no one bothered to stand against it, they would happily screw us all.

@Stimpack said:

It's absolutely pathetic to see these people changing their minds at the end. It speaks volumes of their character. These people knew full well what they were doing. They willingly ignored the advice of experts, and traded away the rights of the people in favor of corporations. The only reason any of these people have stepped to the other side, is due to the amount of heat this bill has been generating. Had no one bothered to stand against it, they would happily screw us all.

God forbid our politicians change their minds based on the viewpoints of their constituents!

I'd have loved for everybody involved to get this right the first time too, but given the choice between introducing and then killing a damaging piece of legislation or being bullheaded and ignoring protests to said legislation, I'll take the former every damn time. You're a fool if you're calling out these politicians for flip-flopping, and you're absurdly paranoid even by my anti-big-government Libertarian standards if you truly think they were trying to intentionally screw over the American public when they introduced the legislation in the first place. And even if you ARE that paranoid, you're a lunatic if you think it's a bad thing that they'd decide not to screw us over.

@Massive_basset said:

Came here looking for sexy pics of the extended royal family. Left disappointed.

Wut.

I wonder if the apparent side-effect of letting copyright holders effectively kill big websites, is indeed a side-effect. You'd have to be pretty unobservant to support the bills, without knowing that that could be the knock-on effect.

The "shoot first, ask questions later" policy seems like a terrible idea. "Divert all of this website's traffic while we check to see if copyrights have indeed been infringed". That would kill YouTube dead in a day.

You'd think capitalists would be able to offer us products and services we want, that are fundamentally better than their pirate counterparts. Of course, most people would prefer free to paid; but if the paid option is easier to attain and has better features, then more people would probably buy it.

“We've heard legitimate concerns about the impact the bill could have on access to the Internet and about a potentially unreasonable expansion of the federal government's power to impact the Internet,” said Rubio. “Congress should listen and avoid rushing through a bill that could have many unintended consequences.”

Rubio is so full of crap, I'm surprised he can walk. But he's a great politician. He takes the checks from the big companies, co-sponsors this bill and tries to sneak it through. Now that the masses have been worked up in a fervor, he's managed to turn tail and use it as an argument against "big government". Yep, I think he'll go far in politics. Don't be surprised if you see him running for president in 2012.

I liked it, but than I didn't.

-Idiots running the country

Thanks for this small victory. Now please, stay out of our lives. I know your interns need busy work, but leave me alone.

@patrickklepek said:

@Crono said:

@Branthog said:

@Evilsbane said:

To those who doubted the protest *sticks tongue out*

Yes, congratulations. They've managed to make everyone pretend to pull back temporarily so they can find other insipid ways to push through the same legislation. This same furor was raised during DMCA legislation and it eventually found its way into law. So will this. There may be slight changes, but the meat of the infringement will still exist. All that has been accomplished is that they have realized that they need to be more discreet about this, next time (they figured that only a few engineering nerds would catch on to this and the rest of the population wouldn't bother).

Those people who think anything meaningful and long term has been accomplished are probably too young to understand how these patterns play out. They're the same kids who voted for Obama this past election under the premise that he was finally a non-regular politician. Why, after more than two-hundred years, THAT was going to be the time they finally had someone who wasn't "business as usual". And then they discovered that he was. The same thing will happen this next election (and no matter who wins, they will be the same business as usual figure as every other has been).

It's great that there is enough outcry that it has at least inconvenienced legislators a little bit. But in the end, it's just an inconvenience. And . . . where have these people who suddenly give a damn been the last fifteen years?

You're right. Protests never work. We should never attempt to protest and should just roll over without question. Good post.

If you don't fight, you have no right to complain when rights goes away. Cynicism is a terrible disease.

Nobody said it wasn't worth fighting for. Just don't except the efforts to be rewarded, because they usually aren't. Also, that comment is a bit like saying "if you don't vote; you can't complain", which is just an attempt to convince more people (ie, more morons) to get out and vote who otherwise wouldn't bother to (or else they wouldn't need the nudging). When the goal is to get more people to vote rather than smarter/informed people to vote, we all fucking lose (and, also, there's no clause in free-speech that makes having voted a requisite - and not-voting is often a form of protest for some, I suppose - abstaining from the whole horrible mess).

Alas, that isn't what you were talking about anyway, so I do agree that people should take action. Note that nowhere in my statement did I say they shouldn't. I just pointed out that little appears to have actually been accomplished. If you or someone else takes that as a reason to quit, then okay. Presumably, others (and yourself) would see it as a reason to fight harder. Perhaps some that suddenly give a fuck about this might be familiar enough with taking action to give a fuck next time, too. When something like the NDAA comes around, again (because we all know the NDAA and SOPA/PIPA aren't the last two pieces of shitty abhorrent legislation that we're going to see).

@Evilsbane said:

@patrickklepek said:

@Crono said:

@Branthog said:

@Evilsbane said:

To those who doubted the protest *sticks tongue out*

Yes, congratulations. They've managed to make everyone pretend to pull back temporarily so they can find other insipid ways to push through the same legislation. This same furor was raised during DMCA legislation and it eventually found its way into law. So will this. There may be slight changes, but the meat of the infringement will still exist. All that has been accomplished is that they have realized that they need to be more discreet about this, next time (they figured that only a few engineering nerds would catch on to this and the rest of the population wouldn't bother).

Those people who think anything meaningful and long term has been accomplished are probably too young to understand how these patterns play out. They're the same kids who voted for Obama this past election under the premise that he was finally a non-regular politician. Why, after more than two-hundred years, THAT was going to be the time they finally had someone who wasn't "business as usual". And then they discovered that he was. The same thing will happen this next election (and no matter who wins, they will be the same business as usual figure as every other has been).

It's great that there is enough outcry that it has at least inconvenienced legislators a little bit. But in the end, it's just an inconvenience. And . . . where have these people who suddenly give a damn been the last fifteen years?

You're right. Protests never work. We should never attempt to protest and should just roll over without question. Good post.

If you don't fight, you have no right to complain when rights goes away. Cynicism is a terrible disease.

Damn right there is little we can do in situations like this, we don't have much control over this stuff any small victory is something to be proud of not spat upon.

Let's not confuse political maneuvering for triumphs.

Fuck this shit. Im moving to Iceland.

@JJpenguin said:

I have a question i hope someone can shed some light on. As i'm from the UK i'm less well versed in your constitution and political system, so bear with me if i make any dumb remarks. My understanding is they want to change the law in the USA, but if major sites stored their data abroad while also operating abroad, would the government have any real power to shut them down if they refused to comply with copyright legislation (for example if Wikipedia moved its servers and staff to europe)?

I understand they can restrict access to international websites, but within western liberal democracies I have no real knowledge of major sites having being blockaded like that? Indeed, would the American people stand for such an intrusion on their personal sovereignty to browse whichever sites they wish, even if such sites lie outside of the American jurisdiction?

It is irrelevant where your website is located. The US asserts jurisdiction over ALL *.COM TLDs and further asserts that non *.COM TLDs are under our jurisdiction, too, because the root DNS servers are located in the US. The logic being that "when you type in the domain of a site, it has to query the root DNS servers and since those are in this country, that means we have jurisdiction over it". So, they take possession of the domain and re-route it to point somewhere else of their own choosing (which also fucking breaks secure DNS, which we've been working hard to formalize and put into place universally for years, now).

Of course, there is also a major flaw in the logic regarding the root DNS servers. Not every DNS query hits the root servers. Most of your DNS requests are hitting a cache - either on your machine or at your ISP or elsewhere. Your query may never go even remotely near the US. But politicians and corporate lobbyists have been known to simply not give a fuck about that "nerd stuff" and, in fact, expressed glee during deliberations in expressing just how ignorant they are of the technical aspects of the internet and how this law would impact it. And when given the opportunity to have experts of all stripes testify to explain it to them, they dismissed it.

Also, this has all already been done. ICE (a division of the Department of Homeland Security, which is a pretty fucking vile and new institution) has confiscated tons of domains without any due process. They simply said "hey, those domains! we want them!". They took them and pointed them elsewhere.

http://torrentfreak.com/u-s-government-seizes-bittorrent-search-engine-domain-and-more-101126/

Essentially, we're going to take what we want when we want it, because fuck the rest of the world.

Also, you don't seem to be aware of this current event, but not only can we take control of your site - whether you're in America, Canada, the UK, or the fucking moon, but we can even demand that your (UK) government extradite a UK citizen for running a website where he linked to another site with copyright infringing (in the US) content.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120113/09184917400/us-to-extradite-uk-student-copyright-infringement-despite-site-being-legal-uk.shtml

@Lurkero said:

Aren't politicians supposed to consider all sides of a bill BEFORE writing it and getting ready to vote?

I'm not sure if you're an American citizen, or not. I presume that you aren't, because in American, you consider all the sides that financially support you and then you side with the lobbyist that financially supported you, the most. In this case, you'll find that the authors of the bill (and most of its supporters) are significantly (often above any other industry) supported by groups like the RIAA, MPAA and movie/music companies. Also, if they were supposed to consider all sides, they would never pass the atrocious shit they have over the last decade, because nobody is eager about the idea of giving up their first, fourth, and fifth amendment rights.

Also, if they were supposed to consider all sides, regardless of financial support, then they would also have to consider things like how there is no conclusive evidence that copyright infringement negatively impacts business (it may or may not, but there is no conclusive evidence that it does and there are even studies indicating to the contrary). They'd also have to take into consideration all of the musicians and other artists who support file-sharing and are against the industry, the labels, and their treatment of file-sharers. Some who even encourage the spread of their own work via file-sharing, whether or not their labels give a damn.

Of course, you're only speaking of writing it and voting on it. What you didn't mention was "reading it". And that is wise, because they usually do not read it. Politicians almost never read an entire bill front to back. It's easy to slip things in. And when they do read them, they don't necessarily understand them (look up the coverage on how fucking ignorant the legislators were on this issue and how gleeful they were about being ignorant).

@Rudyftw said:

Fuck this shit. Im moving to Iceland.

How will that help?

@Branthog said:

@Rudyftw said:

Fuck this shit. Im moving to Iceland.

How will that help?

Greenland then? I get them mixed up.

@Rudyftw said:

@Branthog said:

@Rudyftw said:

Fuck this shit. Im moving to Iceland.

How will that help?

Greenland then? I get them mixed up.

Oh, you're aiming for some place without internet, you mean?