How SOPA & PIPA Could Hurt Scientific Debate

mwolfam writes with this pointed excerpt from a piece at the Huffington Post by Los Alamos National Laboratories post-doc researcher Michael Ham, who makes a slightly different case than most for the reasons that SOPA and PIPA should be stopped: "Simply put, The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) currently under development in Congress will provide a rapid way to sentence websites to death without the need for pesky things like trials and juries. Much to the surprise of nobody who understands how the Internet works, these two Acts will have absolutely no effect on digital piracy, but they will create an environment where freedom of speech could be severely curtailed, large companies can execute competitors, and scientific data can be hidden from the public."

Re:An idea...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah that example is from Freakonomics, but the important part of the takeaway was that they made the overtime fee too small, and the cost-benefit analysis made it worth more just to be late. The conclusion was that the fee needed to be higher. I think it we a daycare in Israel.

Whitehouse responds

[7x7]

The Obama Administration has responded to the petitions for stopping SOPA, PIPA and E-PARASITE. The good news: They oppose DNS intervention and action against anyone covered by US law. The bad news: They did not address deep-packet inspection or payment processors. https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#/!/response/combating-online-piracy-while-protecting-open-and-innovative-internet [whitehouse.gov]

Re:I see an explosion in European web-hosting

[betterunixthanunix]

Why? SOPA would prevent US visitors from going to such websites.

Re:so where should one go?

[xavdeman]

I'd like to know where that mythical country is that respects your Internet privacy and doesn't subject you to damage from arbitrary and invalid copyright claims. I haven't found it (...).

Sweden. You should try PRQ.se, they host TPB. But they also offer Dedicated servers and Tunnels and anonymizers.

Re:I see an explosion in European web-hosting

[andydread]

By blocking our access to overseas information? Sounds like China. No thanks no fucking thanks. You media people are simply pissed off that people don't want your fucking content any more. You see the Internet as a threat to your control of content. When people are watching Youtube and using Google and Facebook they are not going to the movie theatre or purchasing your shitty content.