SOPA Supporters Learning (Slowly) That Pissing Off Reddit Is A Bad Idea

from the don't-mess-with-reddit dept

Thu, Dec 22nd 2011 2:25pm — Mike Masnick

There's been a lot of talk in the past few days about the companies supporting SOPA. As we've noted, it's pretty damn difficult to find too many individuals who like SOPA (or PROTECT IP), but there are a fair number of companies who might find it advantageous to be able to cause all sorts of problems for foreign competition. There are a few lists floating around of SOPA supporters, but Andrew Couts has put together a big list of 439 organizations culled both from the Judiciary Committee's website and the letter sent by the US Chamber of Commerce in support of the law.

We'd noted that there was some backlash towards companies supporting SOPA, but as more and more people recognize how bad these laws are, it's getting more attention. Add to that the awesome power of Reddit... and the whole thing has kicked into overdrive.

Enemy number one on the list appears to be GoDaddy, with Redditor's organizing a day (Dec. 29th) for GoDaddy customers to transfer their domains away from the registrar. We've discussed GoDaddy's bizarre support for the law in the past -- including the fact that, under the original definitions of SOPA, GoDaddy itself qualified as a "rogue site" since it recommended people buy domains violating the trademarks of lots of big companies. Of course, it's also notable that GoDaddy recently hired a top lawyer... whose previous job was in "IP enforcement" for the federal government.

GoDaddy doesn't quite seem to know how to deal with the rising backlash on Reddit, and has (somewhat bizarrely) reissued two previous statements about SOPA. The first was what it wrote when the bill first came out, and the second was its filing for the original (November 15th) Judiciary Committee hearings on SOPA. Neither of these statements address the concerns of the folks on Reddit and appear to be very much a "talk to the hand!" response to the Reddit community. I would suggest that this may not have been the keenest strategic move on the part of GoDaddy. And it's not just small domain holders. Ben Huh, CEO of the infamous (and awesome) Cheezburger network of sites is promising to move all 1,000+ of his domains off of GoDaddy unless it changes its position on SOPA.

Others on the list of supporters are starting to feel the wrath of Reddit for supporting SOPA as well. 3M, who has been a strong supporter is discovering that their customers are not pleased:

Others are starting to feel similar pressure. It wouldn't surprise me to see some of the companies start backing down. In fact, we're already hearing that some of the companies on the list (especially the law firms) have no idea how they got on the list in the first place. Some of the law firms may have clients who support the law, but that's a big difference from actually supporting the law themselves.

On top of that, the backlash is coming out in other ways as well. Paul Graham, the founder/head of YCombinator (where Reddit was first incubated) has announced that he will bar employees from any of those companies from attending YCombinator's famed Demo Days. For those in the Silicon Valley/entrepreneurship/startup world, you know that YCombinator Demo Days are a big deal. It's where all sorts of amazing new stuff gets launched, and big deals are made. Barring SOPA supporters from that event can really hurt those companies. Graham made himself clear:

Several of those companies send people to Demo Day, and when I saw the list I thought: we should stop inviting them. So yes, we�ll remove anyone from those companies from the Demo Day invite list.

He's apparently told the people in charge of Demo Day invites not to allow anyone from those lists. "I don�t know exactly which companies had people on the list. But I know which will now: none of them." He furthermore told TechCrunch that he'll recommend YCombinator startups not take investment money from any of those companies too: "If these companies are so clueless about technology that they think SOPA is a good idea, how could they be good investors?"

Either way, what's becoming clear is that even if some companies support the law, it's not because it's good for their customers. It's precisely the opposite. It's because it'll be useful as a protectionist law to stomp out competition or to protect against having to adapt to innovation. In the past, consumers might not have paid attention, but thanks to efforts like what Reddit and others (Tumblr, Wikipedia, etc.) are doing, it seems like those consumers are starting to speak up and make themselves heard. And the end result is going to be bad for business for the companies supporting SOPA.

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Filed Under: activism, boycotts, net roots, pipa, protect ip, sopa, supporters
Companies: 3m, godaddy, reddit, ycombinator

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Alvin Phee, 22 Dec 2011 @ 2:31pm

Great Article! Alvin Phee
Great Article!

Alvin Phee, Cali
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- Dark Helmet (profile), 22 Dec 2011 @ 2:40pm
  
  Re: Great Article! Alvin Phee
  Great Comment!
  
  Dark Helmet, Planet Spaceball
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Anonymous Coward, 23 Dec 2011 @ 4:10am
    
    Re: Re: Great Article! Alvin Phee
    Great Comeback!
    
    A. Coward, Undisclosed
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Loki, 23 Dec 2011 @ 7:51am
    
    Re: Re: Great Article! Alvin Phee
    Too bad you're surrounded by asshole.
    
    Prepare for ludicrous speed.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Spike (profile), 22 Dec 2011 @ 2:35pm

What boils my blood is how they lump the physical counterfeiters of fake product that deceive the public, in with digital copyright infringement such as file sharing sites.

This way companies such as 3M and make-up/clothing companies (which have nothing to do with big content) end up supporting the MPAA and RIAA's corporate agenda.
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- wvhillbilly (profile), 23 Dec 2011 @ 4:37pm
  
  Re:
  Maybe they think by shutting down all filesharing and turning Internet users into criminals, they're going to force more people to buy music through their monopoly channels. You'd think the RIAA would have learned a long time ago that just doesn't work. You piss people off enough, they stop buying your product. And the RIAA is totally clueless why CD sales are tanking while they sue people like Jammie Thomas Rasset for $$millions for sharing a handful of songs.
  
  Go figure.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Mad as hell, 26 Dec 2011 @ 9:59pm
  
  Re:
  Seriously, I didn't even know people bought name-brand post-it notes. That name has just become like 'frisbee' and 'kleenex' - completely genericized. This is just pure laziness on behalf of these companies, who think they'll have to market less if there are fewer people selling office supplies at cheaper prices.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 22 Dec 2011 @ 2:37pm

"but thanks to efforts like what Reddit and others (Tumblr, Wikipedia, etc.)"

AND TECHDIRT!!!! Thanks TECHDIRT AND MIKE!!!!
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- Anonymous Coward, 22 Dec 2011 @ 2:48pm
  
  Re:
  Yeah, give yourself a pat on the back. No sarcasm, keep up the good work Mike.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Dave, 23 Dec 2011 @ 9:39am
    
    Re: Re:
    "No sarcasm".
    
    Wow. I read too many troll comments. It took an act of will to change the tone of your response to 'not sarcastic'.
    
    Anyway, I agree. Keep it up Mike!
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
MAJikMARCer (profile), 22 Dec 2011 @ 2:38pm

Action
Nice to see some serious action taking place not just grumblings in forums and comments. (yes, guilt on that count)
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Spike (profile), 22 Dec 2011 @ 2:40pm

Big Pharma also loves lumping counterfeits which can be harmful, in with cheaper generic drugs, which is why they are big SOPA supporters. Cheap generic drugs are cutting into their profit and they hate it.
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- Loki, 23 Dec 2011 @ 7:57am
  
  Re:
  In this economy, that could be a short sited policy. I personally know of two people who lost their jobs and couldn't find new ones before their benefits ran out. Unable to afford their somewhat costly seizure meds they both had serious attacks in the past year and died.
  
  Dead people don't buy expensive drugs.
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  - wvhillbilly (profile), 23 Dec 2011 @ 5:02pm
    
    Re: Re:
    Yeah. right! I know two people who have seizure disorders, and I know all about that. Seizure medicines have to be carefully tailored to each individual, and generic seizure medications frequently just don't work. We are having to pay close to $90 for a 90 day supply of one brand medicine and now it looks like we will have to pay $500+ for a 90 day supply of another. The insurance won't allow it any other way. It's take generic, or pay the difference for brand, or stick it. And if you have a wreck and kill a bunch of people because the generic didn't work, tough!
    
    This is what happens when pointy haired bean counters are allowed to make medical decisions only doctors are qualified to make. There oughta be a law...
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Andrew F (profile), 22 Dec 2011 @ 2:45pm

Visa?
Why is Visa on that list? I remember reading on TechDirt that they were against SOPA. http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111114/23145216770/house-judiciary-committee-sopa-hearings-stacke d-5-to-1-favor-censoring-internet.shtml

Was there a switch in positions?
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- Mike Masnick (profile), 22 Dec 2011 @ 3:06pm
  
  Re: Visa?
  Was there a switch in positions?
  
  Yes. Unfortunately. With the manager's amendment, they flipped.
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- Rob, 22 Dec 2011 @ 3:46pm
  
  Re: Visa?
  Noticed that too. They're both on the For and Against list.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- wvhillbilly (profile), 23 Dec 2011 @ 5:17pm
  
  Re: Visa?
  SOPA hearings stacked 5 to 1 in favor of censoring? Yes, because all opposed were excluded. Yes, it was stacked, and intentionally so.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 22 Dec 2011 @ 2:49pm

Given GoDaddy's long, long, LONG history...
...of supporting spammers, phishers, scammers, forgers by letting them register tens of thousands of obviously-fake domains ("obvious" as in "you can find these using 'grep' and patterns like 'visa', 'watch', 'viagra', etc.) this is rich indeed. GoDaddy supports...GoDaddy -- and anything that will make money for GoDaddy. That's it. They are ALL about profit, and whether they can make it by supporting porn spammers, drive-by-malware, or cozying up to the MAFIAA, they'll do it.

It amazes me that anyone is willing to be their customer.
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- alternatives(), 22 Dec 2011 @ 10:40pm
  
  Re: Given GoDaddy's long, long, LONG history...
  I had a client on GoDaddy. They have a virtual server and this server was running their own SMTP/MUA software. Ran for 8-9 months and one day GoDaddy started killing sendmail and cyrusd. I loaded daelious to restart the killed processes and about a week later - that ruby script was killed. Renaming the process bought 2-3 days before it would be killed off.
  
  Moving them to the extra email-service on GoDaddy "solved" the problem.
  
  I don't trust them.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 23 Dec 2011 @ 4:35am
    
    Re: Re: Given GoDaddy's long, long, LONG history...
    Yea they pulled a bunch of **AA accounting on our previous web designer for our company website.
    
    When the web designer was let go, I had to hash out what exactly we were paying for, blahblahblah.
    
    We were paying for ColdFusion on beta.oursite.com, and I asked the reps in the 5 conversations we had that if we turned that one off if our site would break. "Oh No, your not even using beta.oursite.com". Ok, turn it off..
    
    2 weeks later - no website.
    
    Called em back...."Oh I guess we were wrong about that." Ok, fix it. Here's money, take it out out match our hosting account so it all renews at the same time.
    
    3 weeks and 23 phone calls later, (because the site was moved to a non-coldfusion server..and then back to a different ColdFusion server....and then they moved the database to the wrong place, then the restore wouldn't
    work...)...the site was back up and running.....
    
    1 month later, GoDaddy sends a mail that they are eliminating ColdFusion hosting completely. Not wanting to recode the whole site, we find a new hosting company, and log in to GoDaddy to back up database to move to the new site.
    
    We never could get the backups to work. Always failed, tech support couldn't manually get a backup running....we finally said 'screw it' (since we already had the data that was out there in house alerady.)
    
    Us, and 10 other people in our little circle gave GoDaddy the finger that month.
    
    Hopefully this list of people tired of GoDaddy will grow.
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- The Devil's Coachman (profile), 23 Dec 2011 @ 7:15am
  
  Re: Given GoDaddy's long, long, LONG history...
  GoDaddy is a steaming pile of monkey shit, and the only thing worse than GoDaddy itself is their monkey shit covered Super Bowl commercials. They need to die in a fire, or a volcano, or a tsunami, but they need to die. They host more spammers and scammers than the rest of the internet combined.
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Dec 2011 @ 2:51pm

Apparently Mike Masnick doesn't agree with this kind of language from Go Daddy:

"In our view, Internet policy should strive to balance the sometimes competing goals of the global free flow of information (which is clearly critical to U.S. businesses), with enforcement of the rule of law. We don�t see those competing goals as mutually exclusive, but rather, complimentary. In fact, that balance is essential to a flourishing, yet safe, Internet.

Why some members of the Internet ecosystem do not believe it is their responsibility to participate in finding that balance is unclear to us. We�ve found that balance in the past in the child protection and counterfeit pharmaceuticals contexts, for example, where we voluntarily take action against customers whose websites or domain names violate the law. So far, none of our voluntary action has stifled legitimate capitalism online. And neither will robust intellectual property enforcement."

That he thinks the above statement is somehow wrong or bad says everything you need to know about Mike Masnick.
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- Anonymous Coward, 22 Dec 2011 @ 2:53pm
  
  Re:
  Actually it says quite a bit about GoDaddy too...
  "balance" in the approach to child protection? Are they talking about child porn? GoDaddy is in favor of "balance" for child porn? That almost sounds like they're arguing for the pedophiles...
  
  Boycott them!
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  - Killercool (profile), 22 Dec 2011 @ 3:27pm
    
    Re: Re:
    Interestingly enough, they mention "rule of law."
    
    The way the internet exists today, it follows "the rule of law."
    
    However, SOPA supporters don't like the way the current laws function (too slow, too piecemeal, too haaaAAARRRrrd), so they are trying to get the law changed.
    
    We rose up as a unit and said "Bullshit!", and now they don't like the backlash.
    
    Even GoDaddy. Which would you rather be allowed to do: only remove offending materials (piece by piece), or *bloop* turn off the whole website, with no threat of recrimination?
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 22 Dec 2011 @ 3:36pm
  
  Re:
  Putting the control of content solely in the hands of its creators is not balanced and never has been.
  
  Remember when professional sports leagues tried to claim they owned stats/facts?
  
  Remember when ATT pushed Netflix out of the streaming market by bandwidth caps that conveniently didn't apply to ATT's services?
  
  There's nothing balanced about what big companies are trying to do with the internet.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - enjaysee, 22 Dec 2011 @ 4:43pm
    
    Re: Re:
    But that's just it, control of content don't currently belong to its creators. The rights of content belong to publishers and in the case of music, to the record labels.
    
    Generally, the actual artists, the singers and the writers and whoever else usually sign away the rights to their creations.
    
    This SOPA/PIPA thing is being backed and pushed by 'middlemen'
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 22 Dec 2011 @ 3:59pm
  
  Re:
  I remember listening to the godaddy rep during a senate hearing. They made a big point of expressing how cooperative they are and would be with congress and rights-holders.
  
  I get the impression that they are lobbying (brown-nosing) hard for a prominent seat at the table when the National Board of Internet Regulators is created.
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- abc gum, 22 Dec 2011 @ 4:06pm
  
  Re:
  "Internet policy should strive to balance the sometimes competing goals of the global free flow of information ... with enforcement of the rule of law."
  
  Enforcement of the law by sidestepping it - brilliant!
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- TtfnJohn (profile), 22 Dec 2011 @ 6:18pm
  
  Re:
  Despite what you say and want to imply about Mike and other opponents of SOPA/PIPA did you notice that what GoDaddy is talking about are done voluntarily by one or some members of what GoDaddy says is the internet ecosystem rather than a top down demand of the heavy hand of government? I guess not. And then it chides the rest of the internet ecosystem for its opposition to the heavy hand of government and, particularly, the call for DNS filtering.
  
  As for the rest of GoDaddy's statements they seem more self congratulatory than anything else and more the sound of one hand clapping than anything else.
  
  As one AC has pointed out already GoDaddy seems perfectly willing to host phishing sites (about 3/4 of my US originating spam/phishing messages a day for my sites and personal email come from sites hosted on GoDaddy, BTW).
  
  You'll pardon me then for being skeptical about GoDaddy's statements and motivations here. And flat out ingenuousness.
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- Anonymous Coward, 23 Dec 2011 @ 5:56am
  
  Re:
  "Why some members of the Internet ecosystem do not believe it is their responsibility to participate in finding that balance is unclear to us."
  
  Laughable.
  
  You've proven GoDaddy has absolutely no regard for its customers' interests. They are basically saying that their customers' dissent isn't a part of the "balancing" process. This is what I see in that ridiculous statement:
  
  "Despite your active role in this industry, GoDaddy literally does not care that you dislike this law. In fact, we don't even like to acknowledge that your opinion could be legitimate, so we're just going to act like you're lawless thieves simply for disagreeing with us."
  
  I can't believe more people aren't offended by this complete disregard for the *professional* opinions of such an enthusiastic community. If GoDaddy is so stupid as to dismiss their customers with such indifference, they deserve to lose business.
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Transbot9, 22 Dec 2011 @ 3:06pm

And this is only the beginning. Guess who control much of the media content industry's technology. Under SOPA, SOPA supporters can quickly find themselves without the internet technologies they rely on - and when they sue to get their services re-instated, the lawyers for the tech companies can simply say, "We are complying with Federal Law."
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- Anonymous Coward, 22 Dec 2011 @ 3:11pm
  
  Re:
  SOPA supporters can quickly find themselves without the internet technologies they rely on
  
  Like what?
  
  That's what's so funny about this; that you people think the world would stop turning if things like reddit left my life. LOL
  
  The self importance some of these web 2.0 companies attach to themselves reminds of the dot-bomb era...
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  - Killercool (profile), 22 Dec 2011 @ 3:17pm
    
    Re: Re:
    Ummm. No.
    
    Like NBC could be removed from the internet. As in, their ISP/host/DNS turned them off after a single notice of copyright infringement, even if it was just in the comment section of a project blog.
    Because SOPA specifically prevents penalties from being applied to service providers taking preemptive action.
    
    Unless that's changed? But it couldn't could it? Wouldn't that be a *gasp* safe harbor?
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
      
      Anonymous Coward, 22 Dec 2011 @ 3:26pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      LOL. No it wouldn't.
      
      Go read up on intent and spirit of the law.
      
      This is why no one in Congress takes you people seriously.
      
      IP hater Mike Masnick and his merry bunch of pirates make for amusing doomsayer entertainment, but nothing else.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - The eejit (profile), 22 Dec 2011 @ 3:40pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        The irony is that no-one takes Congress seriously, either. OR did you not know about it having the lowest approval rating since the Great Depression?
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - Killercool (profile), 22 Dec 2011 @ 3:49pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        ...
        
        "Spirit" and "intent" are ALWAYS second to the LETTER of the law.
        
        SEC. 105. No cause of action shall lie . . . and no liability for damages to any person shall be granted against, a service provider, payment network provider, Internet advertising service, advertiser, Internet search engine, domain name registry, domain name registrar, entity described in section 101(20)(B), or Internet Protocol Allocation entity . . . for taking the actions described in section 102(c)(2) or section 103(c)(2) with respect to an Internet site, acting in good faith and based on credible evidence, that�
        
        (1) the Internet site is a foreign infringing site, is an Internet site dedicated to theft of U.S. property, or is an Internet site that endangers the public health; and
        
        (2) the action is narrowly tailored and consistent with the entity�s terms of service or other contractual rights, and with the purposes of this title.
        
        See the "or" in bullet 1? That means "any of these," not "all of these."
        
        And you can bet your shilling ass that any and all terms of service will be amended to be as easy on the service provider as possible.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Killercool (profile), 22 Dec 2011 @ 3:51pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        I base my conclusion on the suits filed against any and all tabloids, which are nearly always lost (in favor of the tabloids).
        
        The good faith defense is as simple as "Someone told us it was."
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Killercool (profile), 22 Dec 2011 @ 3:54pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Addendum The Second
        Also, "credible evidence" would be satisfied by finding offending material on a site.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        xenomancer (profile), 22 Dec 2011 @ 10:10pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Bravo, sir! Bravo! (Encore?)
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - Mike C. (profile), 22 Dec 2011 @ 3:59pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Yup and the "intent and spirit" of the DMCA is that it would only be used against actual infringement. Instead, we see it used against 30 second clips of babies dancing to some music in the background or (not very good) advertisements for a drop box service.
        
        Did you ever hear the adage "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me"? Well, the DMCA was the first one. We're not sitting down for the second one.
        
        If the supporters could show us RELIABLE FACTS from HONEST studies showing ACTUAL harm to the industry as a whole and not just a few large businesses, we might actually listen to your wails of despair. As it is, the only actual evidence we've seen all points to "fat cats" trying to get fatter by controlling that which they have no right to control. Until we see otherwise, we'll continue to object most vociferously.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - abc gum, 22 Dec 2011 @ 4:10pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        "Go read up on intent and spirit of the law."
        
        Where can I read the secret interpretation of the law?
        Also, how often does intended and actual converge? - never.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - Anonymous Coward, 22 Dec 2011 @ 4:21pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Did UMG take down the Megaupload song over which they had NO copyright, in the spirit of the law, too?
        
        That's what I thought. With SOPA it would be worse, much worse than that.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - Transbot9, 22 Dec 2011 @ 4:46pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        You've never seen what a pissed off IT person can do, and SOPA gives them the encouragement to shut down your internet. The RIAA has already been IDed for pirated movies going to their IP address. Under SOPA, their ISP will have to block internet access. And it doesn't matter if we're talking land line (DSL, Cable, even Dial Up) or cellular data. There goes your 4g.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Killercool (profile), 22 Dec 2011 @ 5:07pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        -um. Quick correction. They won't HAVE to, but they will be able to, without recrimination.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Karl (profile), 23 Dec 2011 @ 9:31am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        They won't HAVE to, but they will be able to, without recrimination.
        
        Whenever you allow entities to completely avoid liability for taking some action, in effect, that entity "has to" take that action.
        
        An example: Nobody "has to" follow the DMCA notice-and-takedown provisions. In theory, the 512 safe harbors are voluntary. It's legally possible that you could completely ignore them, and still not be liable for any copyright infringement.
        
        Yet, how many U.S. sites deliberately do not follow the 512 notice-and-takedown provisions? None of them.
        
        If it passes, the limitation on liability under SOPA will become just as "optional" as not following the DMCA.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - Hephaestus (profile), 22 Dec 2011 @ 5:51pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        "IP hater Mike Masnick and his merry bunch of pirates make for amusing doomsayer entertainment, but nothing else."
        
        Arghhh!!! Says Dave while wearing a techdirt eyepatch.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        That Anonymous Coward (profile), 22 Dec 2011 @ 6:54pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        you forgot the puffy shirt and parrot!
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        The eejit (profile), 23 Dec 2011 @ 5:46am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        This post has been taken down by the SOPA Precognition unit at Techdirt, for providing links to potentially infringing works.
        
        The link was to the official FXUK website, and was to a free show called "The Booth at the End".
        
        Tom respond to this notice, please give over this poster's credit card details, SOcial Security number and all e-mail addresses, along with passwords and usernames to all sites of which this poster was a member.
        
        Failure to comply with thius will result inj suit being filed, and redress of $500,000 dollars being sought for copyright infringment by Warner Wros. Studios for linking to this infringing content.
        
        Kind Regards,
        S. Gibson
        New Righthaven (a subsidiary of Stephens Media)
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - JMT (profile), 22 Dec 2011 @ 5:53pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        The "intent and spirit of the law" will be talked up right up until the lawyers get there hands on it. Then, not so much...
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - Anonymous Coward, 22 Dec 2011 @ 6:03pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        LoL
        Spirit and intent has nothing to do with practical matters now does it?
        
        Because if it had copyright wouldn't last for life + 95 years, music, movies and fiction publishing wouldn't be covered, but here we are with a monopoly monstrosity that is enabling censorship wholesale.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - TtfnJohn (profile), 22 Dec 2011 @ 6:50pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        "Go read up on intent and spirit of the law."
        
        Then go read up on the fact that none of that means much of anything when a bill is passed into law.
        
        At that point it's what's in the Act itself, any regulations pursuant to that act, precedence, jurisprudence, evidence and then, maybe, just maybe "spirit and intent" and even than only at the highest levels of appeal courts as a rule.
        
        Sorta like Indiana once tried to regulate the value of the constant pi just because some politican thought it was too darned complicated and wanted something similar. So he whipped off a bill that almost passed. So any fool can write a bill. But that doesn't make it reality.
        
        The Indiana foolishness stopped when a math professor pointed out that the number was needed to measure and built round and circular things among other details. So they couldn't really change it.
        
        SOPA/PIPA have wonderful(?) intentions and spirit though they won't stop piracy and counterfeiting. The RIAA and MPAA won't adapt fast enough, if at all, to stop the first and, at least in high fashion, that's been going on since high fashion was "invented" in the 19th Century and this won't stop it. Very sadly it won't stop the dangerous stuff either like fake pharmaceuticals until the price of the real stuff comes down from the stratosphere to where real people can afford it.
        
        The downside of both bills, on the other hand, is somewhere between horrible and unthinkable if you believe in such things like the US Bill of Rights innovation, free speech and freedom and liberty.
        
        There are times, however where I'm convinced there were too, too many spirits involved in the formulation of the intentions built into this legislation.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - Tim Edwards (profile), 23 Dec 2011 @ 4:45am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        I do believe that Congress is made up of ELECTED officials, meaning that as the social view of the laws on the books changes so too should the views of the people writing those laws. As it stands now, the people that hold office are more concerned with upholding the status quo than listening to the majority of the people they claim to represent. Currently the majority of people find the idea of child porn appalling, hence there is no public outcry about the government heavy handedly enforcing child protection laws. Conversely you have SOPA (and PIPA) that proposes equally heavy handed measures to prevent online piracy (lets give them the benefit of the doubt and say that is the only purpose of the bill), but due to the social view on whats right and wrong there is major public outcry AGAINST these bills that is being largely ignored by congress.
        
        Your statement about Congress not taking us seriously just reflects a dire need for sweeping changes in American leadership that will take into account the greater common view over their own short sighted, and more often than not, self serving point of view.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Anonymous Coward, 23 Dec 2011 @ 5:41am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        The problem is not who you put there, the problem is the system per se.
        
        I think it was Einstein who said that trying to achieve different results doing the same thing is madness.
        
        We got the tools now and we can do it another way today.
        We can bring the political discussion to everyone.
        
        TED: Chris Anderson - How YouTube is driving innovation
        
        Youtube can create LXD(League of Extraordinary Dancers), can create grassroots movements overnight(OWS: Occupy Wall Street) and it can deliver useful work(i.e. Duolingo can translate Wikipedia in minutes to another language, or people can find new substances playing games online).
        
        What we need is to takeout the power of decision from a group of lobbying people and put it out into the public view, where people decide and draft the laws they want, there are some hints of how this can be done already.
        
        http://personaldemocracy.com/media/maptivism-how-crowdsource-political-action
        http://ww w.good.is/post/iceland-is-crowdsourcing-its-new-constitution/
        http://radiationnetwork.com/
        
        The internet people can bring about a silent revolution one that would shake the foundations of modern politics and become even more democratic.
        
        Instead of electing "representatives" people should be electing "ideas", then it doesn't matter who is in there, but what they do for the people and where they get their information from, right now those people in there get their cues from special interests is time to change that and put people who take their cues from the people, but the people must show what those representatives should stand for.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - The Devil's Coachman (profile), 23 Dec 2011 @ 7:12am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Intent and spirit of the law are what assholes say, when they have no meaningful arguments otherwise.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Justin Olbrantz (Quantam), 22 Dec 2011 @ 3:24pm
    
    Re: Re:
    How about web search, just to name one thing that immediately comes to mind? Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft all oppose SOPA, and there's basically no respected alternatives in the western world. In China they have Baidu, which is well-respected there, but that is even more despised by media companies than Google and all the others, and probably opposes SOPA itself.
    
    You can keep that head in the sand as long as you like, but your only hope of it not coming back to bite you in the end is if you die fairly soon. Web technology is already ubiquitous and bordering on mission-critical for the entire world economy. Declare war on it at your own peril.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - Anonymous Coward, 22 Dec 2011 @ 3:30pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft will tell the pirates to go pound sand if it comes down to picking between being able to make a profit legally and losing money supporting the freetard cause.
      
      You people are delusional.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - The eejit (profile), 22 Dec 2011 @ 3:49pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Google can just go, "lol noindexing4u" Have fun with that Fox.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - Justin Olbrantz (Quantam), 22 Dec 2011 @ 3:54pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Oh, you're changing the question when the answer turned out to be that you're wrong? I guess that's only to be expected. Short answer to your first challenge: yes, the world absolutely does depend on the "self importance" of these "Web 2.0" (whatever the heck that means) companies, and the world economy would indeed "stop spinning" without them.
        
        Moving on to your second challenge. Capitalism has no morals (and indeed drives anti-morality by its very nature), and as capitalistic companies I must admit that you are correct. All of the above have been perfectly content to bow to Chinese and other countries' demands for censorship, and it's certain they will bow to US demands as well.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - Anonymous Coward, 22 Dec 2011 @ 4:08pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Do you ever find it weird that your only way of complaining about your opposition is to call them delusional?
        
        How long do you think that's going to work for you? Especially online, where everything is recorded and searchable? Or am I being delusional too?
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - Anonymous Coward, 22 Dec 2011 @ 4:19pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft will tell the pirates to go pound sand if it comes down to picking between being able to make a profit legally and losing money supporting the freetard cause.
        
        Funny, that's not what I'm hearing from Vint Cerf at Google.
        
        Mere ignorant newbies such as yourself should probably not presume to know the minds of those of us who built this network. Unlike you, we aren't all so greedy that profit is our only goal and our only value. Nearly all of us set out to change the world -- and we have. Surely you don't think we'll allow a few whiners from dying businesses and some pipsqueak politicians to get in our way; even you can't be that naive.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Anonymous Coward, 22 Dec 2011 @ 6:38pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        And you should think twice about thinking you can hold the internet hostage.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        That Anonymous Coward (profile), 22 Dec 2011 @ 7:01pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Funny thats what they are trying to so with SOPA.
        
        And I vote for the people who created the damn thing to have the ability to very swiftly make these corporations regret their decisions.
        
        They panicked when some script kiddied DDOS'ed paypal, what do you think will happen when you piss off the very technically minded who wrote and built the system?
        
        The internet is not something you can take hostage, it is alive... and I fear for many of these companies that they have awakened the Internets immune system.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Anonymous Coward, 23 Dec 2011 @ 12:56am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        This is where the tide begins to shift in the corridors of power. This is where the Internet comes into its own as a political force. You have meddled in things you should have not meddled in to extract the last blasted cent of profit from your artificial, government granted monopolies. The Internet is beginning to wake up. And when it does awaken, when Wikipedia goes black in protest, when Google redacts itself, when we have the Million Nerd March on Washington in January, it's going to find itself strong, and you and your cartel are going to be like a deer in the headlights.
        
        There will be no more PIPAs or SOPAs for the next hundred years...and we can finally start undermining the absurd government granted monopoly privileges that you monopolists think you're entitled to.
        
        You are on the wrong side of history. But we will not bury you.
        
        We will make you irrelevant...and that is good enough for us.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Anonymous Coward, 23 Dec 2011 @ 4:16am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        This is where the tide begins to shift in the corridors of power.
        
        Don't bet on it.
        
        At a minimum, the 'net must be perceived as the decisive factor in significant, national elections.
        
        Even then, old habits and old modes of thinking die hard. The politicians and lobbyists who have grown fat and set in their ways during the age of television will most likely never really gain a new set of political instincts.
        
        I do not think that even rioting in the street �pepper-spray and flash-bangs mixed with internet-enabled cellphones� will send the message home. The history of the press is all too violent and bloody.
        
        Given time, a new generation, grown up with new technology, saturated in new media, might be expected to naturally gain new patterns of perception. Not even consciously. But there can't be time: The old and new powers now clash.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        The eejit (profile), 23 Dec 2011 @ 5:51am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        I wonder what would happen if Google, MS and Yahooo randomly decided that "oops! Our webcrawlers went havoc and aired all that dirty laundry you had! SORRY!"
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - Anonymous Coward, 22 Dec 2011 @ 6:12pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Well that tells you something doesn't it?
        If even those people who would sell anybody out are against it, they obviously have a very good notion of where their money is coming from and it is not from people like you.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - crade (profile), 22 Dec 2011 @ 3:58pm
    
    Re: Re:
    "Like what?"
    umm, like read the article, in this case like getting barred from YCombinator Demo Days.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Anonymous Coward, 22 Dec 2011 @ 5:57pm
    
    Re: Re:
    Here is the thing, I have Diabetes type II I found an article about an extreme diet that could regress it, and it worked, I no longer need tablets to control my Diabetes in fact I'm back to normal, what happens when the publishers of medical research start closing down all the blogs that reposted that information?
    
    Other won't be able to find it, the fact that you don't know how to use the internet doesn't preclude others from knowing how to benefit from it.
    
    The internet is more important than copyrights, it brings in more money, jobs and opportunities than does the entertainment industry, people can go without watching movies or listening to music but their lifes will be very negatively impacted without free(as in freedom) communications.
    
    Which reminds me that copyrights are not that important at all for society, they are a barrier that aggravates an already bad situation, copyrights are the seeds of a police state and it is what is driving right now people to pass censor bills.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - Anonymous Coward, 23 Dec 2011 @ 2:30pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      http://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-business/674855-potentially-huge-copyright-problem.html
      
      Beca use morons like this should TOTALLY be allowed to keep stealing people's shit and claiming it as their own. Copyright definitely shouldn't be life+95 years, (this is coming from a musician btw) but there's no reason why someone can't have the rights to their own work until they die.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - Anonymous Coward, 24 Dec 2011 @ 9:45am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        There's really no good reason why someone should have lifetime rights over something they put out in public either. What are you going to do, spend your lifetime policing your copyrights? What does lifespan have to do with anything?
        
        A defined (and far shortened) term of length for copyright and obligatory *registration* of copyrighted works would be better for all, we'd all know where we stand, rightsholders included (you think you can't be sued over copyright just because you're a rightsholder? don't think it works like that).
        
        Copyright is a pact between the creator/rightsholder and the public - and the public at large is the only true grantor of this privelege. The pact is broken when copyright, an unnatural right that goes against innate human behavior and communication, is extended or elevated above the consent of the public to the point that the public no longer can understand or respect it.
        
        We are long past that point.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Anonymous Coward, 24 Dec 2011 @ 10:44pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Why shouldn't someone have lifetime rights? Just because I (or any other artist for that matter) holds a copyright on our OWN WORK doesn't mean we are going to be silly enough to still milk money from it 5-10 years after it really isn't popular anymore. And don't use the dumbass labels as proof against this...because I'm talking about the average indie artist/composer that isn't an a-list megastar. Everyone knows those stupid labels would probably try to make their money on old albums a hundred years from now.
        
        But what would you have copyright be if you were to change it? Because a measly year or two isn't fair to the creator at all, especially not in these days where most people can rip a creator's core product off the internet for free. Copyright may have evolved to some crazy shit beyond what it was meant for, but it doesn't mean it's not necessary. Don't think for a second that your favorite video game/music/whatever would have been made if the creator wasn't able to make money off of it.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - Gail Gardner, 24 Dec 2011 @ 10:05pm
      
      Disappearing Content
      Most people don't realize that content is already harder to find today than it was last year or several years ago. Thanks to Google's monopoly and their favoritism of big brands and - for lack of a better way to put it - the party line (i.e., sites that agree with what big business wants us to believe) - alternative health treatments, the truth about food rights and many other topics have already been pushed way down in the search results and will in the future just go *poof* on the whim of Google and by using SOPA and other "rules of law".
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Anonymous Coward, 22 Dec 2011 @ 7:06pm
    
    Re: Re:
    Google.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Derek, 23 Dec 2011 @ 2:50pm
    
    Re: Re:
    Like wikipedia?
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Adam Bell, 22 Dec 2011 @ 3:17pm

Can we call this SOPA Spring?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Anonymous Coward, 22 Dec 2011 @ 5:59pm
  
  Re:
  In three months we could.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Robin, 22 Dec 2011 @ 3:34pm

3M & SOPA
It's particularly interesting to see that 3M supports SOPA. From the comments made here and on the Reddit, it's clear that few people are aware that 3M is a major supplier of services to libraries throughout the world. It is a market leader in magnetic security devices, self-checkin machines and RFID systems. They may not be aware that librarians in general are committed to facilitating the free exchange of ideas and information. Perhaps librarians might wish to contact the company to find out why it places so little value on these ideals?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
revsorg (profile), 22 Dec 2011 @ 3:40pm

GoDaddy / Gibson
I moved 3 of my 5 GoDaddy domains out today, the other two will be moved away as soon as possible. So yep, I'm boycotting them. Never using them again will be so very easy.

On the other hand, after I and several others posted comments on Gibson's facebook they said this:

"Hey guys - Gibson does NOT support this legislation. Gibson's CEO has demanded that Gibson be removed from the list of company's supporting SOPA. Don't believe everything you read on the Internet! ~ Sean"

http://www.facebook.com/GibsonGuitar/posts/10150428903850718?notif_t=feed_comment_reply (you may need to Like Gibson in order to see this)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Rich Kulawiec, 22 Dec 2011 @ 4:10pm
  
  Re: GoDaddy / Gibson
  Fascinating. The Wikipedia article on SOPA includes a reference footnote (found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act#cite_note-theglobalipcenter-79 ) which in turn references a letter (found here: http://www.theglobalipcenter.com/sites/default/files/pressreleases/letter-359.pdf ).
  
  What's fascinating is this: that letter, from the US Chamber of Commerce and addressed to the members of Congress, lists Gibson (among many other companies and organizations) as a SOPA supporter.
  
  Which leaves us with two possibilities.
  
  One, Gibson signed on to that letter, but has now reversed course in the face of public outcry.
  
  Two, the USCoC put Gibson on that list without bothering to ask Gibson if they wanted to be on it.
  
  If the latter is the case, then we must ask: which other names are on that list for the same reason?
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Mike Masnick (profile), 22 Dec 2011 @ 4:28pm
    
    Re: Re: GoDaddy / Gibson
    One, Gibson signed on to that letter, but has now reversed course in the face of public outcry.
    
    Two, the USCoC put Gibson on that list without bothering to ask Gibson if they wanted to be on it.
    
    If the latter is the case, then we must ask: which other names are on that list for the same reason?
    
    We've been hearing they're not the only ones who claim to know nothing about the list...
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - Hephaestus (profile), 22 Dec 2011 @ 6:01pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: GoDaddy / Gibson
      Perhaps, every time one of these list of supporters is made available to the general public it should be checked.
      
      Notifying companies what they bills they support do might just put an end to this practice.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - Hephaestus (profile), 22 Dec 2011 @ 6:02pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: GoDaddy / Gibson
        they = the
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Anonymous Coward, 22 Dec 2011 @ 6:11pm
    
    Re: Re: GoDaddy / Gibson
    It wouldn't surprise me if they just collected the names from some database and use it without asking.
    
    We are talking about people who create false grassroot campaigns, tried to employ a security researcher to deploy social network puppets on a large scale(i.e. remember Anonymous owning the guy) and it is associated with people who put dead people in their letters before.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 22 Dec 2011 @ 6:33pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: GoDaddy / Gibson
      It wouldn't surprise me if they just collected the names from some database and use it without asking.
      
      Shock.
      
      You mean the US CoC would knowingly and willfully use a company's trademark fraudulently?
      
      Sounds like under SOPA, they should have their domain seized, all their funds impounded, and held for a year without any due process.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
David Evans (profile), 22 Dec 2011 @ 3:59pm

Hmm...
Seeing what's going on at Reddit, I immediately got curious whether anything similar is happening on digg.

There's a spectacular amount of *nothing* about SOPA on digg. Even in their political page. Is it just me, or is that kinda weird?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- abc gum, 22 Dec 2011 @ 4:18pm
  
  Re: Hmm...
  No, not weird since digg sold out
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - David Evans (profile), 22 Dec 2011 @ 5:23pm
    
    Re: Re: Hmm...
    I hadn't heard that. Did they? It'd be interesting to confirm whether they're making posts disappear.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - abc gum, 23 Dec 2011 @ 10:37am
      
      Re: Re: Re: Hmm...
      http://gigaom.com/2010/08/26/digg-redesign-met-with-a-thumbs-down/
      
      http://blogs.alternet.org/oleo leolson/2010/08/05/massive-censorship-of-digg-uncovered/
      
      http://www.geekosystem.com/digg-v4-rebel lion/
      
      ... and many more.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Macmurdo, 22 Dec 2011 @ 4:23pm

Thinking about moving your domain names to an European country to avoid SOPA?... Think Again
IMHO moving domains, and possibly hosting sites in The EU, will be a waste, since (as I understand this) the US has "TOTAL" control over the .coms, .nets, and the .orgs. Also consider that the root servers from which all other DNS servers get their copies from, are hosted here in the US courtesy of:

A - VeriSign Global Registry Services
B - University of Southern California - Information Sciences Institute
C - Cogent Communications
D - University of Maryland
E - NASA Ames Research Center
F - Internet Systems Consortium, Inc.
G - U.S. DOD Network Information Center
H - U.S. Army Research Lab
I - Autonomica/NORDUnet
J - VeriSign Global Registry Services
K - RIPE NCC
L - ICANN
M - WIDE Project

When it's mentioned that the SOPA master sleuths will contact your ISP to block your domain name, most probably they are referring to removing your domain name entries at these root servers, not much work if you asked me. They just need to do it through [IANA](http://www.iana.org/root-management.htm)

After such an action, the removal of your domain name from the root servers, will propagate in a mater of days to "ALL" the caching name servers in the world that use US based root servers directly or indirectly. By the end of a month (with any luck) perhaps your domain names will still be visible in Armenia, and Tuvalu.

In other words, if you are using .com, .net, and .org, you don't stand a chance.

Anyhow, the Justice Department, is already using this method for blocking domain names with total impunity, which leads to the question as to why all the fuzz with SOPA and Protect IP, since they already got what they want.

Someone please correct me if I am wrong Please (probably I am)

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS_root_zone
http://www.isoc.org/briefings/020/
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 22 Dec 2011 @ 5:32pm
  
  Re: Thinking about moving your domain names to an European country to avoid SOPA?... Think Again
  You are confusing things.
  
  The root servers have nothing to do with this situation. All they do is to point to the next level. So, for instance for .com, they answer:
  
  com. 172800 IN NS a.gtld-servers.net.
  com. 172800 IN NS b.gtld-servers.net.
  [...goe s up to m...]
  
  And for .co.uk, they answer:
  
  uk. 172800 IN NS ns1.nic.uk.
  uk. 172800 IN NS ns2.nic.uk.
  [...another long list of alternatives...]
  
  Notice that they only point to the next level. The only way the root servers could remove for instance example.co.uk, would be to remove *all* of .uk. Which they won't; the fallout would be immense, and alternative roots would quickly appear.
  
  The problematic domains are .com, .net, and .org, since their registrars are in the US. If you are using one of these three, you are vulnerable to US laws.
  
  One easy way to avoid this is to simply use a domain name from another country. Instead of example.com, use example.co.uk, and now the registrar is on the other side of the ocean.
  
  So how SOPA and similar evil law proposals pretend to deal with it? By forcing *every* US provider to somehow block or even worse manipulate the DNS responses for these domains, and make illegal bypassing, attempting to bypass, or even discussing how to bypass it. I won't bore you with a pages-long rant on how this is evil, breaks things, and kills kittens; let me just say that, among other things, it goes completely against the current push for DNSSEC, which is designed to protect against hackers hijacking your connection in ways not very dissimilar to what these guys are proposing.
  
  And by the way, the root servers are NOT all hosted in the US. For performance and reliability reasons, they are mirrored all over the world. Just F alone (the ISC one) is mirrored in several countries (with the same IP addresses, using the magic of anycast routing).
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 22 Dec 2011 @ 6:36pm
  
  Re: Thinking about moving your domain names to an European country to avoid SOPA?... Think Again
  Hence the need other countries will feel to create new rootDNS servers of their own, fracturing the DNS system and making the development of more secure ways for DNS systems to appear until people can settle on one again.
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_DNS_root
  http://dot-bit.org/Main_Page
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 22 Dec 2011 @ 6:45pm
  
  Re: Thinking about moving your domain names to an European country to avoid SOPA?... Think Again
  No, those 13 root servers serve the small root zone file(200KB), pointing to the other root servers around the world, that will deal with the queries.
  
  http://root-servers.org/
  
  Quote:
  
  The root zone file is a small (about 200 kB) data set whose publication is the primary purpose of root nameservers.
  
  The root zone file is at the apex of a hierarchical distributed database called the Domain Name System (DNS). This database is used by almost all Internet applications to translate worldwide unique names like www.wikipedia.org into other identifiers such as IP addresses.
  
  The contents of the root zone file is a list of names and numeric IP addresses of the authoritative DNS servers for all top-level domains (TLDs) such as com, org, edu, or the country code top-level domains. On 12 December 2004, there were 258 TLDs and 773 different authoritative servers for those TLDs listed. Other name servers forward queries for which they do not have any information about authoritative servers to a root name server. The root name server, using its root zone file, answers with a referral to the authoritative servers for the appropriate TLD or with an indication that no such TLD exists.[13]
  
  Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_name_server#Root_zone_file
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- The Groove Tiger (profile), 22 Dec 2011 @ 7:00pm
  
  Re: Thinking about moving your domain names to an European country to avoid SOPA?... Think Again
  Moving providers has nothing to do with "protecting" yourself from abuse. It's about boycotting a specific company (GoDaddy) so that it doesn't receive income from you as your domain registrar.
  
  It's just about giving the money to somebody else. Of course moving to other registrars won't magically protect your domains.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
crip, 22 Dec 2011 @ 5:37pm

SOPA and counterfeiting
China has a few counterfeiting sites I guess. China also holds a large amount of U.S. debt, plus a few nukes. How many Chinese counterfeiting sites will the U.S. with sopa shut down?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Angry Voter, 22 Dec 2011 @ 5:43pm

Boycotts are very effective on big companies
Boycotts are very effective on big companies because almost all of them are very heavily leveraged.

If you can cut their income by just 10% many of them won't be able to pay their creditors and when the accountants take over a company, they will fire the people who triggered the failure.

Also, when it comes to virtual goods and fresh retail orders, the speed at which you can switch providers will astound them.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 23 Dec 2011 @ 9:20am
  
  Re: Boycotts are very effective on big companies
  But those things would tend to be ineffective against a company like GoDaddy, because they are basically a "cost plus" reseller of domains. They don't have any inventory, so it's not like you are going to stick them with millions of domains to pay for that will spoil. You don't use them, they don't have expenses either.
  
  They pay the same $8 or so for a dot com domain, and they sell it on for $10 or so. But they only pay the $8 if you actually take a domain and pay the year lease on it. If you don't, they don't pay a thing.
  
  Until you get them down to a very low number of domains (where they can no longer pay for servers and staff, net) they will not really notice your protest.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
audiomagi (profile), 22 Dec 2011 @ 5:50pm

That's it, I'm done with GoDaddy
I cancelled my virtual private server with them today; I will be moving my domains on the 29th. Can anyone recommend a decent registrar who won't bend over and capitulate for Big Content/Big Government?
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- Andrew F (profile), 22 Dec 2011 @ 6:37pm
  
  Re: That's it, I'm done with GoDaddy
  I haven't used them myself, so I can't testify to quality -- but a lot of the redditors are recommending namecheap.com, along with a SOPASucks coupon code.
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- xenomancer (profile), 22 Dec 2011 @ 10:31pm
  
  Re: That's it, I'm done with GoDaddy
  Personally, I would recommend namecheap and dreamhost as I am a current customer of both and they have both come out against these festering piles of legislation. That said, they are US based and therefore directly subject to these laws should they pass. If you look in the Reddit article from the post you can find several lists of alternative registrars and coupon codes that make the transfer relatively cheap. Look for the user "tamar," who is Namecheap's social media person. Tamar has been particularly helpful in pointing out links and coupon codes that can make the process rather painless.
  
  Oh ya... Fuck GoDaddy
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Violated (profile), 22 Dec 2011 @ 7:39pm

GoDaddy
I will certainly move my domain away from GoDaddy then on the 29th due to their continued support of SOPA. I find it disgusting that any Internet company would welcome a bill that has the potential to cause serious harm to the Internet.

I have been with GoDaddy for like 10 years so this would also be one seriously long move away.
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remixedcat, 22 Dec 2011 @ 10:48pm

Will someone PLEASE confirm whether Schneider Electric is really in support of this. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT THEY OWN THE APC BRANDS, THE SQUARE D BRANDS which mean the UPS products, the circuit breakers that are in people's homes, businesses, etc....
If they support this they will loose a TON more money than most of those other companies. A SINGLE datacenter that wants to expand and hears of this could easily cost APC/Schneider Electric 100K or more! they could have losses in the high millions.
That's a very dangerous name to have on there! Please confirm this!
I suggest contacting them, however, be nice and professional. Thank you!!!!
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- Anonymous Coward, 23 Dec 2011 @ 4:13am
  
  Re:
  Without some sort of direct action by the company in the opposite direction and I don't mean a press release, there is no way to really cauge what the company has been doing, if it was important their name wouldn't be there, they probably sue the chamber of commerce or something, so until they do something about it just assume they are ok with it and stop doing business with those guys.
  
  Same for Gibson, Visa, Go Daddy and others.
  Remember words mean nothing in public affairs.
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mike allen (profile), 23 Dec 2011 @ 12:19am

Guys if SOPA passes and reddit goes down so will twitter, facebook and google + all carry the same type of user generated material.
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- Anonymous Coward, 23 Dec 2011 @ 1:22am
  
  Re:
  From what I have heard, it is worse for reddit because they have very few resources. This makes them less able to fight back if they are taken down.
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- Anonymous Coward, 23 Dec 2011 @ 5:56am
  
  Response to: mike allen on Dec 23rd, 2011 @ 12:19am
  You are a FUD mongering idiot. SOPA is limited to foreign sites. The ones you mention are domestic. Oppose SOPA if you like but at least base your opposition on facts not fiction
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  - crade (profile), 23 Dec 2011 @ 7:28am
    
    Re: Response to: mike allen on Dec 23rd, 2011 @ 12:19am
    Yeah, but they would probably leave since they obviously aren't wanted in the US.
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  - mike allen (profile), 23 Dec 2011 @ 9:40am
    
    Re: Response to: mike allen on Dec 23rd, 2011 @ 12:19am
    Each of these appear to be zoned example Google uk is different to Google.com so you fail.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 23 Dec 2011 @ 10:35pm
    
    Re: Response to: mike allen on Dec 23rd, 2011 @ 12:19am
    SOPA is NOT limited to foreign sites - YOU are the idiot.
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Violated (profile), 23 Dec 2011 @ 4:16am

Re: GoDaddy
I decided to move my domain early to beat the Xmas holiday. I also sent an email to GoDaddy stating this move was due to their SOPA support and pointing out why they are wrong.

Up next is to convince a lot of other GoDaddy domain owners to move as well. I think GoDaddy are totally crazy to support SOPA but they have their reasons.
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- Loki, 23 Dec 2011 @ 9:27am
  
  Re: Re: GoDaddy
  It's really strange to see people talking about leaving GoDaddy. Given the horror stories from pretty much everyone I've known who once used GoDaddy, I just figured it sustained its business from noobs and Porn websites.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Dec 2011 @ 10:59am

Page linked to is now gone
GoDaddy, apparently ashamed of its position on SOPA, or at least afraid of anyone finding out what it is, has deleted the page linked in the original post here, http://support.godaddy.com/godaddy/go-daddys-position-on-sopa/

Rather than changing that position, obviously, it's easier to delete the page.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Dec 2011 @ 11:17am

Page linked to is now gone
In the 15 minutes since I posted this, apparently GoDaddy has posted a new position statement entitled "Go Daddy No Longer Supports SOPA" that says in part "We�ve listened to our customers. Go Daddy is no longer supporting the SOPA legislation."

In other words, they admit that they did support the entire piece of crap, but the threat of the walkout made them change their mind where the extreme odiousness of the proposed legislation could not.
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MattP, 23 Dec 2011 @ 11:58am

Reddit convinces Alan Schaaf (Imagur.com) to switch from GoDaddy
http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/nnynm/imgurcom_is_with_godaddy_alan_schaaf_the_founder/

Alan Schaaf is a member of Reddit.com (MrGrim). Here's the thread asking for suggestions of where to move his domains to.
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Texas Data Center Operator, 24 Dec 2011 @ 5:34am

Folks, Time Warner has a HUGE ISP business.

Find out from your bandwidth providers who your last mile provider is and get some quotes to get that changed.

Then call up TWC and tell them they have 60 days to change their stand. Then send them a letter.

If no response, then change.

I send 50K a month of business to TWC and that WILL change.

If you are in a colo, find out who THEY use.
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neomew, 24 Dec 2011 @ 8:44am

more boycotts
if we start boycotting stuff from the other sopa supporters they will start to learn what we are talking about!
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anonymous, 24 Dec 2011 @ 4:10pm

4chan
Yeahh... TOTALLY because of Reddit.
TOTALLY not the work of 4chan... assfucks.
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Dissapointed, 27 Dec 2011 @ 12:08am

How strange. Ford Motor Company is on that list. This is disappointing: it's not like you can pirate a car online. I've been driving Ford trucks my whole life. Looks like when upgrade time comes around again, Dodge or Chevrolet will have my business. I don't care if I have had a 25 year histroy with them, I WILL NOT support ANY company who pushes for these unconstitutional and authoritarian laws.
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TheSOPAHater, 18 Jan 2012 @ 12:38am

VERY DISSAPPOINTED!!
Im very dissappointed, wwe, ford, visa, mastercard, electronic arts!!!! why!! atleast RockstarGames dont support, im cutting any relationship with any SOPA supporters!!! look even loreal!! how could their things could be pirated and cbs, espn!! i think SOPA gave them a bride!!!
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Steve, 18 Jan 2012 @ 11:47am

Boycott
Boycott is the ultimate way to show our disapproval. If this is important to you, do the only thing theses corporation understand...hurt their wallets! Boycotting one of them (or more) is the ultimate way of showing your support. People, we have the power because we have the money they want!
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