My opinion on SOPA [Please help and comment!]

Posted by Athsuran on January 20, 2012 01:09 am 1

I will post what i understood of it, and, please, help me to understand better or to get to a better conclusion. I welcome Mr. Mathew to comment too, just don't fight nor offence the others.

First considerations

If one should be INNOCENT until PROVEN guilty, SOPA is Wrong in fact that what happens on it is the contrary: When someone accuse of copyright stealing, the first thing that happens is that the "defendant's site" is taken down. Its understandable the reason of this, but it would be of great harm for the defendant itself and it would have been taken as "guilty" BEFORE a judgment or anything.
In cases like theft, assassination, etc, it is understandable that they maintain the person on hold until they have some more information. In intelligence it works just like this as well. In this point of view, its right. And the policymakers are ONLY USED TO THIS POINT OF VIEW!

So what is the point

But, on Internet it works differently. About copyright, google can claim the rights for anything its their and for anything its protected by them. As well as anyone can claim their rights on anything even with today laws, it just have to prove it is the rights legal owner. Someone on the comments of The Verge's pronunciation on SOPA said something like "It means i could be sued for singing a music i like and uploading a video of it?" Yes, you could, even today! The reason you could is not necessarily because it is a danger for the musician that you're using it's music, and is not about "OMG! He is singing my music, if someone else sings my music i will be doomed because it is the reason i'm famous!" It is a question of "I don't want other people to sing it, even if they are not generating profit with it" because, he can do it, It's his creation, it is his right to claim it. (But if he don't cares, so it is not illegal to sing it in a non-profitable way. The law assures the owner's right to protect it's creation, but it can also allow others to use it.)

So what is the real point, what really happens?

Well, almost NOBODY does it, almost nobody sues everyone because of it.
Even being possible today, before SOPA. Because people singing their musics and people sharing things like the Star Trek's "facepalm" is actually good for the enterprises who owns it's rights. There are a lot of enterprises who even try to create Memes for viral distribution on Internet exactly because it is actually GOOD for them.
The real problem of "rights" is that, today is almost impossible to "stop" a movie, music, or this kind of content from being shared because suing each individual would be (possible but) very hard. So, for the great Hollywood enterprises who's profits comes from single movies for example, it is a lot easier to just "stop the whole site".
Well, there i think is the problem. Because first, they would not be attacking the person who is responsible for the copyright infringement, but they would be stopping the WHOLE SITE! It would stop the "supposed" piracy. But it would be ridiculous and much bigger than necessary.

Sopa's problem:

Sopa's problem:

Google, Amazon, HP, etc, certainly would NOT sue The Verge for using it's image without permission, this is not the problem. (Yet, most people discussions are about this') The problem in SOPA, is that barely ANYONE could just say something and just close a website for some time. Which would be legal in theory, but actually would be illegal to use it just for shutting down another site, because of profits. But anyone could do it. It could turn into a great war of interests.
So, the problem is not the use of images in 95% of the cases! The problem is that people download Movies, Musics, Whatever, without paying for that, so the solution for THIS would just work better and cheaper for "Hollywood" for example.
I will show you what i mean:
Before iTunes, people downloaded pirate music because there where no good place to buy it! If there is a place where you can buy it and have a GOOD QUALITY product, 98% of people will just buy it. For example: When Smart TVs gets better and we can just turn on the TV and watch exactly what we want to, on our sofa, comfortably, instantly, we'll will just DO IT! Because its a LOT better than downloading a pirate movie. It is easier, better quality, faster, anyone would pay for that. And as it is in the case of music on iTunes when it was introduced, people like it, people like music, they want good quality music, and they pay for that!
The problem is that at the moment, there are not very comfortable ways to get these things. I mean, even with Netflix and others, it is not too comfortable.
So, SOPA's reason of existing is legitim, protecting rights and putting a great value on it! But the way it is supposed to work, is COMPLETELY WRONG. Man, i read all that, and, i imagine a out-law land if SOPA is approved, with a harmagedom scenario, because anyone would be able to take down anything! It is not the best way to solve the problem.
The intention is good, and it would "work" (for obliterating piracy). But i think it is like if a Police Officer would "imprison the entire city" when someone says one of these guys "committed a murder", because the murderer where at the city.

The solution

If there is a very good distribution with good quality of these copyrighted things, 95% of people would buy it because it is just more comfortable and they like it. So, they would need to go after a little group of persons who still don't buy it if they wanted to extinguish and obliterate ALL the "pirates", and with today laws, they can already do it. And it would be a LOT more profitable than just taking everything down, stopping 100% of the piracy, and still don't getting people to buy it. If there is good and comfortable content, they would take 95% of piracy down and profit a LOT with this.
I mean, you are very clever, i thing you got the idea. Joshua was talking about this when they were at CES when he talked about Smart TVs.
I really want to talk about it, and, i want to hear from you, am i right? Is there something wrong on what i said? I want to understand all this better as well, so lets talk about it, i'm open to comments, suggestions, etc.
(Sorry for the VERY LONG post).
Hope you read it and can help me! I think it is a very important topic, so if The Verge staff could make ir a 'Fixed' topic for 2 or 3 days, i think it would be great for discussing the idea and maybe getting to some good and productive conclusions!
Thanks, comment guys, even if it is just to say "o agree" or "i disagree". Thank you, clever and beauty readers of The Verge!