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by mferrell 5263 days ago
The only thing that's really preventing me from fully opposing the bill is just how clearly it's made that SOPA would apply only to sites "dedicated to the theft of U.S. property". I might just be naive, but it seems like the use of SOPA to take down benign sites, as has been suggested, would be blatantly illegal.
3 comments
SomeCallMeTim 5263 days ago
Like the takedown of Dajaz1 that was blatantly illegal? It was only down for a YEAR, and finally released back to the owners with no apology after they discovered that the site actually didn't infringe at ALL. [1]

[1] http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120110/11395317367/websit...

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lambda 5263 days ago
Note that the US government has already illegally seized domains like Dajaz1.com, and hasn't given the owners a chance to defend themselves in court. Source: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/12/expert-domai... . Note the Dajaz1.com example; the government used an emergency seizure which is supposed to be used to prevent people from destroying evidence (though there's no way to prevent destruction of evidence merely by seizing a domain name), and then dragged the forfeiture process out for a year with secret court hearings that the owner could not defend themselves, before finally just giving up and giving the domain back because they had no case against it.

SOPA and PIPA are just ways to make this process easier, and easier to apply to domains owned by foreign entities. They don't particularly care about due process or whether or not they hit benign sites in the process.

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the-cakeboss 5263 days ago
Those are my feelings as well. I do understand the concern of a precedent being established, but I really do tire of all the hyperbole surrounding this bill. I can't tell how many times I've seen people make the claim that if someone where to post infringing material on to a site like whitehouse.gov, the authorities would have no choice to take it down. Bogus claims are bogus claims regardless of their intentions.

I think the most damage brought by this bill would not be manifested in legal cases, but rather a climate in which people are far more hesitant to take risks on the web, etc.

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SomeCallMeTim 5261 days ago
Whitehouse.gov wouldn't be at risk, but any start-up site would be.

See also: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120110/11395317367/websit...

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