

The author of SOPA is a copyright violator  - seanmalarkey
http://www.vice.com/read/lamar-smith-sopa-copyright-whoops
This is too funny...
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dkokelley
This really goes to show just how easy it would be to be accused and shutdown
as a copyright violator. In this case it was probably an issue of the web
designer recklessly searching for a Texas-y background and Congressman Smith
unknowingly using the copyrighted image. Sure, it's irresponsible, but it's an
understandable mistake to make.

Enter sites with untold volumes of user-submitted content. To begin, it's
unlikely that the site owner will be able to police the content due to the
sheer scale of it. But what's worse is that if content (like this copyrighted
image) _is_ found on the site, there is no immediately clear way to know if
its use and publication is licensed or not. (I know this is basically a rehash
of our old arguments.)

~~~
spodek
Think of the power a law that everyone breaks gives the government! They must
love it.

Mostly the executive branch, but others too.

~~~
Natsu
Everyone who has sung "Happy Birthday" is also a pirate. Yes, really.

<http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/birthday.asp>

<http://www.unhappybirthday.com/>

Sure, there's some evidence that they may have done some iffy things with the
registration, but you'd have to go through an expensive trial to prove that,
so good luck.

~~~
pvarangot
I wonder if that is the reason most big restaurant chains, like TGI Fridays,
have their own version of a song for their crew to sing when someone has a
birthday there.

~~~
Natsu
Yes, it is.

Source:
[http://interact.stltoday.com/forums/viewtopic.php?printertop...](http://interact.stltoday.com/forums/viewtopic.php?printertopic=1&t=841667&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&vote=viewresult&sid=2c01b6580bfcd8ebc70d14fdc6455703)

EDIT: At first I thought Snopes said that, but I was wrong. Here's a different
source saying the same thing.

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Permit
In my opinion, when Alexis Ohanian goes before Congress, this should be
something that is brought up. Just yesterday
(<http://hackerne.ws/item?id=3451934>) we saw how Congress doesn't understand
why this law would be so difficult to enforce and how broad it really is. It's
something that they can actually relate to, as I imagine they all have
websites of their own and having them block within the United States would be
catastrophic for their future election plans.

~~~
billswift
They'll just do the same thing they did with insider trading and other laws,
they'll exempt themselves.

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gerggerg
I think what's most interesting about this is it is a great indicator of the
public perception of copyright. If even the creator of the harshest pro-greed-
based-copyright legislation can't uphold the most modest of copyright
provisions, I think that's a clear indicator that copyright is in need of
reform in the opposite direction he proposes.

He himself can't respect the very laws he champions on his own public facing
website.

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spodek
Which is worse: someone supporting SOPA because they know nothing about
copyright or someone supporting SOPA because they know a lot about copyright?

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digitalsushi
While it's possible that he authored his own political website, I would
strongly suspect this is a proxy blame. I am all for blaming Lamar Smith as
much as the next guy. My issue is assigning a state to an individual when
another individual performed the state changing action. The furthest it is
fair to place that assignment is shared with the entire group.

edit, apparently downvoting is the same as disagreeing here too. sigh. guess
this teaches me to share my honest thoughts and to continue chasing integers.

~~~
dkokelley
I agree that it's unfair to accuse Congressman Smith of directly and
maliciously using pirated content. However, the irony of the matter is that
under his own proposed bill, the congressman's site would be blacklisted
regardless. One reason SOPA is such a bad idea is because it does precisely
what you take issue with by assigning the label 'copyright infringer' to the
congressman without any due process.

~~~
bad_user
Exactly, that this law is even discussed and brought to public attention is
unthinkable.

With this law the accuser becomes the judge and the executioner. It's like the
police shooting first, asking questions later. It's like silencing political
opposition in the name of progress. It's like detaining prisoners indefinitely
without trial ... oh wait!

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botj
Great sleuthing. Now how do we get the bigger outlets to run with the story?
This could cause some PR damage for the SOPA supporters.

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g-garron
Nobody is free of sin. So, it is dangerous to permit an act like that.

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kenrik
It's really easy to understand how something like this could happen. I'm sure
it was a mistake by the web designer and not intentional however under SOPA he
would be facing the same repercussions that everyone is worried about even
though it was a _mistake_.

Prime example of why SOPA is so god awful.

When I was a teenager I participated in a program offered through 4H (4-h.org)
every year where we would visit out State Capital and hold a mock legislative
lesson over the corse of a week. Depending on what portion you had signed up
for you might play the part of a Lobbyist, Legislator, Senator, Whip or even
the Speaker of the House. We would have the actual representatives and
lobbyists there to give presentations and offer advice while we argued bills
on the floor and made our back room dealings that would decide what bills
would be killed or passed (Our advisers were not very happy when one year we
legalized prostitution! LOL).

You could think of it as sort of a YCombinator of politics.

Once you understand exactly how the system works you realize why it seems that
so many of our representatives seem to be absolutely clueless as to what the
bills they are proposing actually do or what implications they may have.

The general gist is this:

Lobbyist: This is what I'm proposing <Insert> overly simplified explanation of
the proposed legislation similar to how you would explain the inner-
workings/programming of a software to your grandmother </Insert>

Lobbyist: We have a draft of the bill ready it's important to your
constituents because <Insert> Three Points: from overly simplified
explanation</Insert> do I have your support on this issue?

Representative: Sure send the draft to my office and I'll look it over (70%
never actually will)

Rince and repeat for each representative until it has enough support to make
it through committee and to the floor.

Result: 70% of the representatives only have a paragraph explanation of what
they are voting on. The other 30% are the ones who actually understand the
bill and will either fight for or against it.

Bill passes even if it's BAD, BAD, BAD for the State or in the case of
Washington, The Country.

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gldalmaso
If someone manages to lookup the guys ip, then please do check out on
<http://www.youhavedownloaded.com/>

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sutro
Is there any provision under SOPA with which we can somehow blacklist Lamar
Smith's toupée?

~~~
DrMcFacekick
_runs off to write her Representative_

