over here sites like megaupload and rapidshare are already censored when you click on them they ask you if you think this site shouldnt be blocked and why, i always write to them i'm just gonna watch cartoons but they never unblock it.

i guess america got that idea too. but youtube?!!!
i'd rather pay tax than stop watching free stuff on the net really, people cant afford a lot of money and the stupid companies always put movies in expansive packaging and colored covers, we'd all buy movies or shows if they didnt cost so much >_<

i really urge america to not go through with this idea, people are depressed and financially struggling... free entertainment online is the happy pill of today.
besides there's free online games dont they make money even when free? so why dont movie companies make money off of people the same way?

The ONLY people that don't want "regulation" are us.    Soccer mom's want it because they don't want to be active in their kids lives.  Law Enforcement wants it so they can circumvent that pesky illegal search and seizure law.  Government wants it to control the media.  The media wants it to control the government.  ISP's want it to charge exorbitant rates like cable/sat TV do with "premium" channels.   And the conservatives want it because... well  pick a reason; they hate civil liberties, it helps big business, and they keep f'ing up on it and people see a glimpse of what they really are.

And if you are AGAINST it I'm sure you'll end up on a chalkboard in a flowchart that looks like it was drawn by a three year old that points to you being a paedophile.  With a mealy mouthed troglodyte is sobbing, jabbing his finger at your name, and screaming about how you killed freedom.

~Tobe

I REFUDIATE your reality and substitute my own.

In short: we're screwed, have a nice day.

And the conservatives want it because... well  pick a reason; they hate civil liberties, it helps big business, and they keep f'ing up on it and people see a glimpse of what they really are.

Painting with a broad brush, much?

Ugh, what bullpucky shenanigans is this? They keep trying to pull this crap year after year. I hope it doesn't happen in the coming years. D:

And the conservatives want it because... well  pick a reason; they hate civil liberties, it helps big business, and they keep f'ing up on it and people see a glimpse of what they really are.

AS MUCH as I love to hate on the crazy Rights, as an Independent, I also love to point out that the left are just as effin' borked in the head sometimes. Sorry, Tobes, this is actually more of a democrat thing to "control" stuff. This is honestly not a big right push. It's there, trust me, but a lot aren't for it, unless you're a dead senator from Alaska going on about internets being tubes or something. Or did you forget, that these guys are against regulation?

For all the crap the Demmies aren't doing, they're meddling in sh@ they shouldn't.

"Dedicated to infringing activity"

Love broad terms like that.

And I thought 'soccer moms' were more worried about poor Johnny coming across porno in the library or the like? This seems a wee bit bigger than that.

Actually, scratch that. This is a joint effort! Mr. Leahy AND Mr. Hatch (go figure, the one thing they unite on and it's on crap they don't understand). Welp, at least Obama finally got some bipartisan ship going on?

AS MUCH as I love to hate on the crazy Rights, as an Independent, I also love to point out that the left are just as effin' borked in the head sometimes. Sorry, Tobes, this is actually more of a democrat thing to "control" stuff. This is honestly not a big right push. It's there, trust me, but a lot aren't for it, unless you're a dead senator from Alaska going on about internets being tubes or something. Or did you forget, that these guys are against regulation?

That's a pile of manure.  I challenge you to come up with any consistent history of "controlling" being a Democrat thing, or of Republicans being consistently against regulation rather than just certain types of it.  You won't, not just because you made gross generalizations that are more a Republican version of party identity than based upon any sort of facts (I'd like you to find a single Democrat who claims to believe in government control in general), but because there is too much intra party diversity to find consistent history.

But I challenge you to do it in another topic because this is too important to be bogged down in an asinine label war.

There's so much of every faction claiming to represent freedom that I have to ask what they are arguing about.  Perhaps the point of the 2 party hegemony is each represent a small enough subset of freedom to cover for their corporate whore associates that can find bipartisanship in corporate feudalism.

The legislation is currently not fast tracked but now those bastards are trying to do it through the executive branch.  I believe that if we had Star Trek replicators capable of ending starvation these kind of ... people ... would be trying to ban them to 'save the food industry' too.

AS MUCH as I love to hate on the crazy Rights, as an Independent, I also love to point out that the left are just as effin' borked in the head sometimes. Sorry, Tobes, this is actually more of a democrat thing to "control" stuff. This is honestly not a big right push. It's there, trust me, but a lot aren't for it, unless you're a dead senator from Alaska going on about internets being tubes or something. Or did you forget, that these guys are against regulation?

That's a pile of manure.  I challenge you to come up with any consistent history of "controlling" being a Democrat thing, or of Republicans being consistently against regulation rather than just certain types of it.  

Oh Vec. I'm not denying that I over exaggerated, nor that I over over generalized the Demmies. I'll be damned if I'm going to deny though that they always try to get their hands on the things that I love, such as music, tv, and now, my gaming habits, which was coughed up by a Democrat, and was signed by Ahnuld merely to gather the family vote on those parents who are too busy to teach their kids right from wrong. These three things, the attempt at censoring and attempt to control or regulate these industries, is what made me realize that wow, these guys are trying to be a bunch of nannies, telling us what we can and can't do.

I already corrected myself by saying that this thing with the intertubes is a joint venture by both Dems and Reps, which just goes to show you NEITHER SIDE knows what the hell they're talking about. I'm all for regulation to prevent companies and industries from overstepping their boundaries and turning into monopolies, etc, to name a few. I'm also all about the freedom to let these companies and industries grow and regulate themselves when it involves things that don't affect the public, in this case, censorship, naughty words, sex, and violence in PRETEND LAND. That's why I'm Independent. Always look at both sides.

*hits his easy button and smiles mischievously*

~Tobe
I ain't even mad

DA EASY BAUTON! IT DOES NO-TINNNNNG!

To be honest, I think this is going overboard. All people have to do is actually use the parental controls on the computer/browser/whatever and do their own thing. Why let the government do what average people who like control can easily do themselves?

To be honest, I think this is going overboard. All people have to do is actually use the parental controls on the computer/browser/whatever and do their own thing. Why let the government do what average people who like control can easily do themselves?

Because average people are lazy, including the government it seems. What they're trying to do, obviously, is crack down on illegal activity, as they should. But it seems that what's happened is that, when someone has said they need to carefully word things so there's no ambiguity and no restriction of peoples' rights, the group has collectively gone "But... but... but that's haaaaaard! =(" and then gone ahead and created this tosh.

I just hope our own government doesn't go getting any funny ideas from this. We've had enough importing of American ridiculouseness as it is, thank you very much.

~SilverShadow (I'm not xenophobic, honest!).

This isn't democrats and republicans. It's greedy people who want to be in control to the point of causing collateral damage.

Maybe I like to occasionally download a movie or something, costing me only a very small bit of pride. But I also really like purchasing blu-ray movies and enjoying the amazing quality on a 1080p screen.

These greedy people who want to be in control of their industries and put everything on lockdown also pay money to the Dems and Reps with their own greediness. So, it's a crappy vicious cycle.

Because average people are lazy, including the government it seems. What they're trying to do, obviously, is crack down on illegal activity, as they should. But it seems that what's happened is that, when someone has said they need to carefully word things so there's no ambiguity and no restriction of peoples' rights, the group has collectively gone "But... but... but that's haaaaaard! =(" and then gone ahead and created this tosh.

Oh, yeah, I forgot for a moment that people like to take the smallest thing and blow it completely out of proportion.  Unfortunately, being vague about things was never exactly the best way to go about doing things, and when someone DOES decide to provide details (or something close to it), there's always a problem.

It's all about controlling the flow of information.  And frankly, I've only heard about or learned some things through YouTube, like about the flooding going on in Tennessee earlier this year (if what the people on YouTube said was true, then the traditional media didn't even touch it).  Some of you may have other or better examples.

Now obviously this isn't just about YouTube, which is what is scarier.  Will this open the way for banning fan websites because they use "copyrighted materials"?  Which puts us at immediate risk right there, because, you know, the whole blue hedgehog thing we sometimes talk about.  And that really opens the gateway for taking down entire communities like DeviantArt or Facebook or whatever else have you.

If the average citizen doesn't have access to additional flows of information, they can be guided much more easily into reading only the things that support the agenda of the same people who want to control the information in the first place. 

Dems and Reps, frankly, may be behind the bill - but not all of either group are for this measure, so we should count them as allies instead of chunking them with their misguided fellows (as long as they're willing to help keep the Internet free, that is).

Course the thing being with fan communities is that do they profit any from the things that usually come about from fandom like fanart, fanfiction and etc?

Course the thing being with fan communities is that do they profit any from the things that usually come about from fandom like fanart, fanfiction and etc?

Only if their name is Rich Kuta. WAKKA WAKKA!

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/11/coica-web-censorship-bill/

The bill got sent through the Senate committee without a hitch.

I wish that online petitions could be proven to actually work, as I don't really have much confidence that anyone is really listening.  About the only thing the online petition did was to raise awareness that such a bill existed.

You know it is time people learn to get beyond trivial social issues and deal with the common enemy: corporatist politicians.

This is why they put cultural issues at the fore, you know. It's to make those who might oppose corporate feudalism fight each other over things like 'OH NOES there are some guys having sex somewhere.'

Some would argue that our entire US political system has devolved into one huge partisan distraction from the real issues.  If something like, oh, China firing missiles off the coast of California are true, our country's priorities are in serious need of rearrangement when the government has to lie (badly) to try to cover it up instead of own up to the responsibility of not detecting the threat.  What, are we going to wait until China actually hits our country before we take action?

There's also a food bill going around that, if purported to do as its critics would say, would make it possible for the government to arrest people if they produce their own food.  Again, priorities.

A lot of it has to do with the consolidation of media companies too. There basically is no reporting in America at this point, just promotional agencies calling themselves news that vomit press releases. If anybody attempts to verify what politicians & corporations say, that's 'bias.' You could get away with telling people the moon is made of cheese No supposedly reputable news outlet would challenge it, except perhaps with 2 pro and con representatives who get to argue at each other. Every question is of course defined by exactly 2 polar opposite yet obviously equal factions, and anybody who suggests one of those factions is unequal is an extremist.