

Stop Online Piracy Act - veronicaram

Hey hacker world(: I was wondering if you have heard of the Stop Online Piracy Act and if you have I wanted your opinion on it and if hacking or downloading illegal things on the internet is considered stealing in your opinion.<p>Please be nice, I'm purely curious...
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ColinWright
Hi, and welcome to Hacker News.

One of the things you really, _really_ need to know about hackers - or about
people in general - is that they don't like to waste time. When someone asks a
question, it's considered polite for them to have done some homework first.

So see if you can find a search box on this site, and then type SOPA into it
and see if you get any results.

Read them, and then come back and ask questions.

And if you want to participate here I strongly recommend you read these:

<http://www.mikeash.com/getting_answers.html>

<http://labs.phurix.net/articles/how-to-ask-a-question>

<http://stackoverflow.com/questions/how-to-ask>

<http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html>

~~~
veronicaram
Alright, sorry for the newbie question and thank you for the directions.

~~~
ColinWright
It's worth reading around for a while before starting to contribute, so you
can get a sense of the content, style, culture and existing subjects.
Questions are welcome, provided it's clear from what you ask, and how you ask,
that you've done your homework and are willing to share the work you've done
in return for the help you get.

~~~
veronicaram
Okay, so let me revise my previous statements. I'm a high school journalist
writing a story on SOPA. I've done research on the bill for the past couple of
hours and I think I've grasped the concept of it. So I am here now because I
want to get a hackers' point of view.

Obviously, every average teenager can download movies and music on the
internet for "free". How much power do hackers have on the internet (what do
you do)? Why do you enjoy hacking? Is it a hobby or job? And are you worried
that SOPA will decrease freedom of speech and censor major sites, or because
it could potentially hurt the hacker world a lot?

I apologize if my questions are rude or stupid, but I am not familiar with
hacking and I am doing my best at the moment.

~~~
jacktoole1
Hi, and welcome!

First, you might want to read
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_definition_controversy#H...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_definition_controversy#Hacker_definition_controversy)
and <http://paulgraham.com/gba.html> (the latter by the founder of this site),
which describes how the word "hacker" is used on this site. In short, the
popular concept of a "hacker" is usually considered a cracker around hacker
news and similar sites, while the term hacker refers to someone interested in
computers or programming.

Hacking, as referring to programming, can be both a career or a hobby.
"Software Engineer" would be a common job title, but many people from
different industries enjoy programming on their own time (sometimes in
addition to a programming job). Hacking as a hobby is a way to create things
in the 21st century, where a digital creation such as a website can be just as
real as a physical creation such as a car.

In regards to SOPA, there is plenty of reading material on hacker news:
[http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=SOPA](http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=SOPA)
(and one of the earliest links there: [http://boingboing.net/2011/11/11/stop-
sopa-save-the-internet...](http://boingboing.net/2011/11/11/stop-sopa-save-
the-internet.html)) Some of the articles and comments on those threads will
probably be much more useful for your story than comments on this specific
thread will be.

A little preface to the comments around here: what most people here tend to
agree is that SOPA's free speech ramifications are much larger than its
ability to stop piracy, regardless of whether they feel piracy is morally
wrong or not. SOPA would fundamentally transform the internet in a way that
user-created content sites that have taken off over the last decade
(Wikipedia, Youtube, Facebook, Reddit, etc.) would become legally infeasible
to operate. It also has several constitutionality issues, primarily around
free speech and due process of law, both of which would be subverted by SOPA's
provisions. But others have already said everything I could more elegantly in
the above links.

