Both SOPA and PIPA Shelved Due to Recent Events

Correction: giving it back to American consumers for free

"Counterfeiting & piracy cost 1000s of jobs yearly."

Seem's like an extremely biased statistic which he probably cannot reference. Glad the battle has been put on hold for now.. the whole bill is still disgusting though. Good to know everybody more or less has the same opinion - get your dirty paws off mah internet!

P.S - shove it MPAA/RIAA!

What American jobs are lost to piracy? Please, this is an honest question, can someone let me know? 1000s of them are lost each year to piracy! So, what are they?

They can't take down foreign sites which means they would have to block them effectively creating an internet blacklist. What happens when a US citizen uses a foreign DNS server or proxy to get around the blockade? Will the get thrown in Jail?!

"The Protect IP Act does nothing more than make it possible for the U.S. government to handle illegal foreign websites in the same manner it can already do -- and has been doing -- with illegal sites,"

If all it does is let the government do what they can already do, why does it need to be passed?

This proves people at least have some what control over some things congress does.

This is just a political move.. too much heat right now.. shelve it for now.
then bring back the bill when the people forget about it...

quote: Somewhere in China today, in Russia today, and in many other countries that do not respect American intellectual property, criminals who do nothing but peddle in counterfeit products and stolen American content are smugly watching how the United States Senate decided it was not even worth debating how to stop the overseas criminals from draining our economy," he added.

obviously these people are still living in the cold war. the problem in not concentrated there anymore, it's global! sure they want and think that there 30 year old speech is gonna still work, but doesn't look like it does anymore.
sorry for the quote, I'm writing from my thrive tablet,

I am not a fan of the MPAA or the RIAA. I'm also not a fan of SOPA or PIPA. I'd also like nothing more than to see all 4 of these fail horribly as they are all out of touch with modern consumerism and loaded with unnecessary greed harming and pissing off consumers.

The reality is however, people do lose jobs from piracy. If businesses don't make their target "profit margins" they will and do lay people off. THQ cited their bankruptcy and layoffs was directly due to the pirating of Titan Quest series.

I'd love to see industries involved go to a model like Steam or GOG. It would benefit all involved.

Thousands of jobs are lost to piracy? Millions were lost to your economic recession, Mr Rich Man.

Should have been drafted as Protect-Distribution but that would have involved refining how media is distributed so cut rate and ignoring that distribution is generally how IP gets pirated in the first place. No comment on how to make distribution media pirate and hacker proof.. but it is a much better place to start.

Wow this just shows how clueless these people are. I am so glad this bill did not fall through. People like that guy would result an a scary world to live in. These people have no consideration for the working class trying to make ends meet. I guess most of you on here have lost the basic right of LIVING. The recession is what's hurting everybody, people are not spending money on movies or things that are not a NECESSITY. What if everybody decided not to spend anymore money on entertainment, mindless things that we can live without. Is it still Piracy Mr.Rich Man??.

I've heard this before. I suspect they will sneak it in under the radar attached to another Bill.

I'm still not convinced. The people that never purchased the title, and pirated it, most likely would have never purchased it if pirated copies were unavailable. Look at HAWX 2. It was so bad, nobody bothered to crack it, and nobody bothered to buy it either as a result of it being largely unavailable to the pirate community.

The only thing that is for certain though, is that THQ failed to produce a product (Titan Quest) that was compelling enough to purchase.

Anyway, back to the article. I'm glad this has all been put on hold. I'm still not convinced that piracy of data, cleverly arranged combinations of 1s and 0s (games/mp3s), has any huge impact. There's no physical medium that's been taken from a store shelf that would represent a loss of income for the creators and retailers. I'm still going with the assumption that people would pass on purchasing regardless of its availability on the net.

I'm a reformed pirate. I'm much more selective about the titles I really want to play, and purchase them. I no longer feel like I need to "try out" every new release to see if I like it. I stick to website reviews and gameplay videos on sites like youtube.

They are being shelved because its an election year.... Nobody wants to lose their job for passing it. Nothing more.

I might be more sympathetic if games or movies making more would actually help anybody but the highest in the company. It's one thing if a game does extremely poorly and puts a company out of business, but it's another thing for games or movies to sell very well and are pirated a large amount.

The worker sees no benefit if the game sells twice as many copies, and actually I think the same lay-off after a big release will happen due to the majority of the work being done on a game (only patches and maintenance need to be done after the big release). I think the bigger factor of piracy is whether or not to include PC in the next release because as compared to going out of business.

Let freedom of infomation reign!!!!!!!

if SOPA is approved I lose my job. that's for sure.

This stuff is never dropped. The methodology just becomes even more subvert. Its' the same reason the Mexican border is a joke despite the bloodshed and carnage. You will see this come back through a back-door policy, it's never over. Why do you think the US border with Mexico has been such a joke, for so long? Because politicians say one thing and do the opposite. Don't just keep your eye on one thing, either; like devious slags operating within British government, they will use one issue to divert attention away from another. Obama still has the North American Union in his agenda, still wants to jack of 'green' taxes, still wants open borders with Mexico despite the carnage, bloodshed and drugs.

They've put the legislation on hold. Remember that. Remember that all they need now is the right catalyst. Remember that this is not the only plan they have up their sleeve.

"Meanwhile, Hollywood is blasting Google for supporting anti-SOPA protests, claiming the search engine giant is distorting facts about what the bill would actually do. "The Protect IP Act does nothing more than make it possible for the U.S. government to handle illegal foreign websites in the same manner it can already do -- and has been doing -- with illegal sites,""

So according to that, SOPA/PIPA actually does nothing?

Most likely a military approriations bill, coz no congresscritter would ever want the military to go wanting.

Why would Hollywood condemn SOPA?! They are just stating facts what this bill would do if this will be passed. Yes PIRACY is big issue but you don't need to block EVERYTHING in the Internet. Also Hollywood can't even produce a decent film nowadays. The only original movie they have produce for the past 10 years is Inception. Everything else is based on comic book characters (i don't mind :-)] , video games and remakes from past movies. What i suggest is the big companies stop being greedy and offer better service to get movies, video games, music etc. Not overprice, overhype and bad quality service we have nowadays.

No, it just means that big brother tries to take away freedom a bit at a time, and if they miscalculate they have to backpedal quickly. Hey, does anyone remember that Patriot Act thingy that did away with some of our rights in the name of security? Yeah.

Dear PIRATING IDIOTS WHO MAKE LIFE HELL FOR THE HONEST CONSUMER:

Pirates will always try to justify their actions.

"I would not have bought a diamond necklace, so its okay to steal one" is equal to "I would not have purchased a video game, movie, or that music - so its okay to steal one". Either way, it wasn't yours to take was it?

The issue is not whether it results in lost revenue or not - the issue is that you did not have ownership rights to it. Stop taking what is not yours through illegal and unethical means, and trying to justify it so you can do whatever you want without a conscience/guilt.

/rant

"Everyone does it" - Also not justification. At some point society needs to realize that it has become morally corrupt and no longer respects the individual. I realize that capitalism is broken because of monopolization and mass marketing. (A music artist makes millions because he sells to so many people, and it just seems wrong when there are kids starving for love, food, a warm bed, and education). Still, two wrongs don't make a right.

There's an old saying: "If you want to change the world, start with yourself."

Ah, now all they /the pirates, the bad ones/ are foreign criminals /the stress is on the "foreign", but criminals according to which law btw?/, who steal from the /pure/ Americans. Lets aim our guns at somebody, who doesn't vote for the american president and the congress.
A new measurement of "low".

@JonnyDough:

I agree that piracy is a crime, but to call it "stealing" is simply incorrect. Copyright infringement is copying, not stealing. Seems like a matter of semantics, but it really is a huge distinction. Think of the difference between making a copy of the Mona Lisa and stealing the original.

Everything ██████ ███ ███████ ██ is █████ ████ ██ ██████ ███ fine. The █████ ███████ ████ Government ██████ ████ knows █████ █████ ███ best █████

This comment has been found in violation of H.R. 3261, S.O.P.A and has been removed

How about Hollywood stops ripping off the rest of the world for its movie ideas, it's either a comic/graphic novel movie, or a shitty remake of a good european/asian movie. Until then, this attack on foreign sites that pirate is utter bullshit

lol when software company learn that selling software copies in mass quantity in ultra low price is the only way to kill piracy. Selling 10 more copies @ 5USD is more profitable than selling 1 @ 40USD.

Screw hollywood thats why they gloat about making millions of dollars opening day for their movies,people still buy tickets,dvds and rental fees.
Musicians wouldnt be known if it wasn't for the internet , prior to that, Musicians had to do real work . Why do they charge $50+ for a ticket to see their shows, free rides over bi*ches.