Carl Heerwagen on 12/21/2011 10:01 PM · Permalink · Report
Here in the USA our congress may pass a law called SOPA which is an anti-pirating law which block sites with nonlegal material. This site screenshots are given by people who send them in. If the SOPA law is passed then this site might be forced to take down screenshots or be blocked entirely. I have major concerns because this is one of my favorite sites and don't want it blocked. Can someone alleviate my concern?
Parf (7873) on 12/21/2011 10:10 PM · Permalink · Report
Well... I'd concider the screenshots free advertisement for the games in question, so I don't see how anyone could have a problem with them being here. I suppose if the law is as strict as you fear, then all sites with non-developer-sent-out screenshots will have to take them out unless they ask for permission from the developers... Doesn't seem very plausable to me, but I don't know much about US laws either.
Where's Indra when you need him?! ;)
Carl Heerwagen on 12/21/2011 10:43 PM · Permalink · Report
It might not seem that way to the Justice Dept. They may think you need to get the screenshots from the publishers of the game. If SOPA passes it will affect YouTube greatly which has video walkthroughs of certain games and those may go away. Also on most EULA except to make a backup copy you can't make any other copy of any part of the game and the Justice Dept might consider screenshots sent by anyone other than the publisher to be coptright infringement.
formercontrib (157510) on 12/21/2011 10:51 PM · Permalink · Report
Without own opinion, US law seem to be different to many other countries, maybe this will answer your question or generates more...
"The US Copyright Act of 1976, Section 101, says: "A derivative work is a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a ?derivative work?." A photograph of a copyrighted item is considered a derivative work in US jurisdiction. US Copyright Act of 1976, Section 106: "(...) (T)he owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following: (...) (2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;"
Therefore, if one uses a screenshot of a copyrighted work without the proper license from the copyright holder, it is copyright infringement. One defense may be fair use, however, depending on the use of the screenshot and the extent to which the copyrighted work is the sole subject of the screenshot. Another possible defense may be that substantial changes were made to the orginal work so that the screenshot is a "new" piece of work. "
GAMEBOY COLOR! (1990) on 12/21/2011 10:55 PM · Permalink · Report
I was going to make a thread about this. It makes me so mad that most of the people making this bill openly admitted they don't even know anything about how the internet works! I don't everything, but nothing? Goddamit.
Parf (7873) on 12/21/2011 10:58 PM · edited · Permalink · Report
[Q --start Yay!!! wrote--]It makes me so mad that most of the people making this bill openly admitted they don't even know anything about how the internet works! I don't everything, but nothing? Goddamit. [/Q --end Yay!!! wrote--]
Why, it's a series of tubes of course!
j.raido 【雷堂嬢太朗】 (95231) on 12/23/2011 4:09 AM · Permalink · Report
[Q --start Yay!!! wrote--]I was going to make a thread about this. It makes me so mad that most of the people making this bill openly admitted they don't even know anything about how the internet works! I don't everything, but nothing? Goddamit. [/Q --end Yay!!! wrote--] I think this was my favorite moment of all this hoofaraw so far. And by "favorite" I of course mean "what the hell do these people think they're accomplishing?"
Lain Crowley (6629) on 12/22/2011 1:27 AM · Permalink · Report
Moby also has ads so it is selling everything available on the site.
Yes, if SOPA passes then any copyright holder of any screenshots or scans of anything that exists on Moby can, at any time, file a request to have Moby taken down. Every website that contains images like Moby will only exist so long as potential copyright holders don't want to shut them down. Moby has no protections or loopholes.
BurningStickMan (17916) on 12/22/2011 5:54 AM · Permalink · Report
I think this is a fairly extreme interpretation of the law, and I'm tired of people screaming that SOPA's gonna take all our Internets away.
They're going after Pirate Bay and other torrent trackers... and if we're being honest here, probably Wikileaks as well. Even if the law is as draconian as it's being made out to be, I don't think sites like Moby would be bothered. It's like any of the numerous laws on the books that can get you fined or jail time - like jaywalking - that are rarely enforced.
Not to mention, it doesn't matter what the stupid Act says, it will take years of appeals to hammer out what will legally stick.
And finally, as I last understand it, the Act doesn't "shut down the site". It blocks DNS routing to it and it won't show up in search engines. If you know the IP address though, you're still golden.
Adzuken (836) on 12/22/2011 6:00 PM · Permalink · Report
I think the real issue behind it is not that corporations will take down every site displaying copyrighted material, it's that they'll have the right to do so. Whether or not they will is another matter, the problem is that we'll be at their mercy. While I agree that a lot of people are overreacting to the bill, I'd rather they raise a stink using their misinformed opinions rather than just let the corporations have their way. They sure as hell don't need more rights than they already have.
BurningStickMan (17916) on 12/22/2011 6:14 PM · edited · Permalink · Report
[Q --start Adzuken wrote--]I think the real issue behind it is not that corporations will take down every site displaying copyrighted material, it's that they'll have the right to do so. [/Q --end Adzuken wrote--] Not necessarily. If I understand it correctly, the burden is on the copyright holder to show that the site in question is infringing. That copyright holder is then liable for damages for false or otherwise unproveable claims. And the questionable site has a protected amount of time to respond to/disprove the infringement claim before action is taken.
Further, that action is only enforceable by court order, and at the discretion of a judge (so no automatic "the site is nuked" response... there's the intent of a "punishment fits the crime" setup). Stripping DNS routing, blocking by ISPs, blocking PayPal or ad services would presumably only be used for extreme offenders. Again, even if this passes, we have to see how it plays out and what holds up on appeal.
Emphasis on if I understand this correctly.
Adzuken (836) on 12/22/2011 8:32 PM · Permalink · Report
Well, from what I understand about the bill, once a court order has been given to a particular site, the accuser can force ISPs to block access to the site (via DNS, so yes, it would still be accessible by IP). This means, that even if it festers in court for a while and is denied, that site still suffers the loss in traffic from being blocked.
The next problem is that what is regarded as copyright infringement is not exactly made clear. It seems that, considering even having a song play in the background of a video can be considered infringement. That also means that all our cover art and screenshots also likely to fall under their guidelines and if a publisher wishes, they can have us blocked. Again, this doesn't mean that they will, but it does mean that they can.
However, I'm sort of in the same boat as you, I'm not %100 sure if this is all accurate. As a Canadian, I don't pay much attention on American politics, but I am basing this off research that I have done.
BurningStickMan (17916) on 12/22/2011 10:21 PM · Permalink · Report
[Q --start Adzuken wrote--]That also means that all our cover art and screenshots also likely to fall under their guidelines and if a publisher wishes, they can have us blocked. Again, this doesn't mean that they will, but it does mean that they can [/Q --end Adzuken wrote--] With Moby based and hosted in the USA, they could have already pegged us with an order under the DMCA if they wanted to. Blocking access would be new, but "cease and desist" orders to take down all infringing material could have been sent for almost ten years now under that law. Still could be if they wanted to.
SOPA's main purpose is because, currently, the US doesn't have an established legal way to act on foreign sites - those "rogue sites" they keep talking about (again, pretty much Pirate Bay and Wikileaks).
j.raido 【雷堂嬢太朗】 (95231) on 12/23/2011 4:51 AM · Permalink · Report
[Q --start BurningStickMan wrote--] SOPA's main purpose is because, currently, the US doesn't have an established legal way to act on foreign sites - those "rogue sites" they keep talking about (again, pretty much Pirate Bay and Wikileaks). [/Q --end BurningStickMan wrote--] It'll only block them from within the US. And only if you aren't using an unregulated DNS -- which will likely spring up en masse if this passes. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if someone was already working on a Firefox plugin that would detect blocked sites and automatically fetch the address independently, circumventing it completely.
Really, my issue with it is that it will ultimately accomplish nothing whatsoever towards its stated goals. It will be a burden on any operator that gets hit, whether they have done anything illegal or not, and it will be an inconvenience for users who will simply have to take an extra thirty seconds to download their favorite TV show. It will do absolutely nothing to stop piracy.
BurningStickMan (17916) on 12/23/2011 5:39 AM · Permalink · Report
[Q --start jotaro.raido wrote--] Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if someone was already working on a Firefox plugin that would detect blocked sites and automatically fetch the address independently, circumventing it completely. [/Q --end jotaro.raido wrote--] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAFIAAFire_Redirector
j.raido 【雷堂嬢太朗】 (95231) on 12/23/2011 8:28 AM · Permalink · Report
[Q --start BurningStickMan wrote--] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAFIAAFire_Redirector [/Q --end BurningStickMan wrote--] "The United States Department of Homeland Security has requested that Mozilla remove MAFIAAFire from its extensions directory, a request which Mozilla is resisting."
Excellent. Some faith in humanity restored.
Daniel Saner (3503) on 12/27/2011 1:26 AM · edited · Permalink · Report
From what I read from the EFF and related sources, SOPA would in fact allow industry organisations to preemptively take action against sites they consider infringing. Similar to DMCA takedown requests which have to be effected immediately, under threat of punishment for filing false claims of course. That sensible "but" there might not really work out in practice though. YouTube and Facebook might have the resources to fight false claims, but smaller sites can be extorted and ruined even if they're in the right, simply for their lack of resources. The same problems that have corrupted the world of patents.
Basically, the lobbyists have again used the excuse of digital piracy, a crime whose effects can never be really ascertained and where the lobbyist's claims of lost profits are just as arbitrary and unfounded as anybody else's guess, to try and circumvent yet more laws. After hollowing out the first-sale doctrine and probably some other stuff, they now try to locally transfer the burden of proof from the accuser to the accused. Even if we assume that it will only be used to go after actual professional piracy, it's cause for concern enough that some corporations are even given the possibility. It takes just one to make the whole site a target. Such as a publisher who legally prohibits some information about a game from being made public, and could go after MG because it's mentioned in a trivia section or the forums somewhere. I can't think of any videogame-specific examples right now, but I know that stuff like that has happened repeatedly elsewhere.
On the other hand, as the example of Wikileaks has nicely shown, if the corporations are big enough they don't need SOPA anyway. With enough money and intimidation, you can get any service provider to buckle and shut down a site.
Daniel Saner (3503) on 1/17/2012 5:06 PM · Permalink · Report
I heard he spoke out against it, but I don't think it kills it. Otherwise there probably wouldn't be the big Internet blackout tomorrow (among other sites, the English Wikipedia will be closed down for 24 hours).
Daniel Saner (3503) on 1/18/2012 2:41 PM · edited · Permalink · Report
I like how the Wikipedia blackout is so easy to circumvent. Possibly an ironic comment on the same quality of the proposed DNS blocks, which would be crippling everyone's Internet except for the actual criminals'?
Also, it's fixed now, but I enjoyed that during the first moments of the blackout, the "Learn more" link on the blackout page led to a statement on the Wikipedia server—also blacked out.