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SOPA Sponsors Break Their Own Law

Here’s a classic.

Remember how the Stop Online Piracy Act would make streaming of copyrighted material a felony?

How it could lead to a 5 year jail sentence?

Well it turns out that the sponsors of the bill aren’t too worried about this prospect.

As dkesh notes on Reddit, many of these lawmakers actually stream copyrighted videos on their websites.

Hypocrites?

Without going into detail whether fair use would apply, or if there’s another loophole through which they could be allowed to do this, I can only conclude that this is just plain stupid .

The worst part is that it shows you that the people who can sign this bill into law have absolutely no idea what they are doing.

Unbelievable.

lamar

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  • http://torrentfreak.com/ Rob8urcakes

    I find this news not only unsurprising but thoroughly depressing, and a clear indication of the crazed and corrupt attitude of so-called law-making politicians in today’s society.

    Politicians have simply turned over their responsibility to their corporate paymasters and will now try to get all sorts of crazy law passed as if people will really take it seriously – though the increasing threats of being jailed in your local concentration/work camp with fines of millions of dollars will usually work.

    Well done guys – you’ve created a society worthy of the term “Human” …. NOT!!!

    • Anonymous

      I’m sure that the americans will route around the censorship if the SOPA thing passes (which i think is vert unlikely), by forming more darknets and meshnets and Freedom DNSs or something to that effect.

      • Anon

        The problem is, only a handful of people, relatively speaking, know what a “darknet” is. This legislation has the potential to censor information once accessible by millions of people.

        • Danny

          Yes but people will go round helping their friends get on to darknets, and soon enough every sensible person will be on one and the US can suck it! You can communicate outside of the www you know!

  • http://devinprater.klangoblog.net Devin Prater

    I am very ashamed of my country. I really am!

    • Kane

      I bloody agree. I’m a proud american. But this is not my government. They don’t represent me. This is no where near what the people want.

      • philosopher1

        Just another day in the fascist states of america where your only choice rebublo-cratic party of corporate greed

      • philosopher1

        Just another day in the fascist states of america where your only choice rebublo-cratic party of corporate greed

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Adrian-Hansraj/100001487474527 Adrian Hansraj

    when u read all these articles and study all these new acts, it makes u wonder if these lawmakers think file sharers are terrorist

    • cindy

      that’s one of the loopholes they’re trying to use.that homeland security b.s.

  • http://profiles.google.com/giantnerd14 Collin O’Toole

    Absolutely pathetic, how can they be SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO far behind on understanding technology?!?

  • JaredLeeLoughner

    Any child who thinks control of the internet is about copyright, is just that, a child.

  • Anonymous

    The guy should be put behind bars. He preaches democracy to everybody else but himself … hypocrite of the lowest level. He takes money from big corporations for his election …… which in other countries would be considered as bribery. He sells his soul to the highest bidder who happens to be the greediest.

    Americans ought to take back their country from hypocrites, corporate leeches etc. Send those idiots to China where they could be shot for corruption.

    • Johnny

      “Send those idiots to China” please don’t forget China is currently more free than the USA where piracy is concerned. That’s why the USA wants to filter their sites :P

      Let’s compare the USA to North Korea, this makes more sense…

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_IZ5BM5GNLA54OADSWGSXAMA7SY Jay

    Orrin Hatch did the same thing during his advocacy of the DMCA. Why should we believe any of the copyright laws passed if even our Congresscritters can’t get it right?

    • HPL

      In case anyone cares, there currently is a Democrat running against Orrin Hatch this 2012 election season. His name is Pete Ashdown, and the founder and CEO of a pretty large local ISP to the state of Utah. This guy knows the internet. He knows the hardware, the protocols, the software and the IDEA behind the Internet.

      Just in case you ever wanted to get behind a guy that’s not a complete moron.

  • Anonymous

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  • John D

    It is unclear if they would actually be breaking their law:

    http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/11/on-wednesday-reddit-which-like.ars

  • Anonymous

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  • Anonymous

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  • Anonymous

    Has anyone ever been as far as to ask this man for a response on the illegal streaming on his website and that he knows he is doing this and that it would become illegal?

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