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The worst part of SOPA, in my opinion, is the ability for a rightsholder to ask any ad network or payment provider to stop doing business with any website merel

The worst part of SOPA, in my opinion, is the ability for a rightsholder to ask any ad network or payment provider to stop doing business with any website merely by claiming the site's primary function is infringement... and the liability incentives the bill creates for doing so without a trial. We can route around DNS blocks to get to the sites, but what does that matter if the sites close themselves because their funding was cut off? A site like YouTube would not be profitable without access to US-based ad networks.

tomjen3 15y ago
Microtransactions in Bitcoin (or heck ads paid with bitcoin). You can't cut of bitcoin transactions because there is by its very definition no place to cut them of. If this is the case, we are only going to get that much closer to the end game.
- dlikhten 15y ago
  I have to say, as much as bitcoin is in a downfall, this actually makes a ton of sense. That was the initial goal of bitcoin, to create a de-centralized currency. As long as the BTC is a STABLE currency this works out well. Or short-term stable. It can become a medium of financial transfer: I buy 10 BTC, donate it, they claim 10 BTC, convert to cash. Done. It would be great if there was a tool to literally facilitate this transaction without directly giving from one company to another, thus bypassing SOPA. I give the "holder" $10, the "holder" gives me 10 BTC. Then I give 10 BTC to say PirateBay. Then the "holder" guarantees that piratebay can sell 10 BTC to them for $10. Thats it. They only converted BTC to/from cash. I directly gave BTC to pirate bay. SOPA is ignored. HOWEVER THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THE INTERNET IS AGAINST. This will prevent all sort of anti-fraud that is going on now. You will wind up bypassing years of innovation to create a black market. It will be detremental.
  - JoshTriplett 15y ago
    > HOWEVER THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THE INTERNET IS AGAINST. This will prevent all sort of anti-fraud that is going on now. You will wind up bypassing years of innovation to create a black market. It will be detremental. Right now, in meatspace, I have both options: I can pay with cash and have little to no recourse or record, or I can pay with check or credit card and have a record and various fraud protection measures. I want to have both options on the Internet as well. Also note that various bitcoin escrow agencies have popped up, which serve the obvious function. Assuming an agency exists that both parties trust, you can have the fraud protection you want if and when you want it.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
    - dangrossman 15y ago
      > various bitcoin escrow agencies have popped up But bitcoin escrow agencies don't solve the SOPA problem -- once you have a small number of intermediaries paying these websites, they become the place where the law can apply its force. They will be ordered/coerced to stop funding ThePirateBay or whatever site the media industry targets, so these sites either can't have reliable BC payments or they are subject to being cut off by these laws without trial.
      - JoshTriplett 15y ago
        Only if they operate in jurisdictions that can apply such force, and only if they make a connection between their online presence and their offline presence. An escrow agency could operate pseudonymously online without having an offline presence, as long as they built a trusted reputation around their online pseudonym and cryptographic identity.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - tomjen3 15y ago
    The endgame is much, much more than that. Once the US lose control of the money supply it loses a ton of its power and we can (finally) stop fearing Washington.
- JoshTriplett 15y ago
  While you can't prevent transactions in bitcoins, you absolutely can cut off conversions between bitcoins and USD. Just cut them off at the payment provider the same way. Right now, bitcoin exchanges can operate entirely above-board; driving them underground and equating them with money launderers would make it extremely difficult for bitcoin to solve any of the problems that people want it to solve. While many people (myself included) would love to see a cryptographic currency replace all existing currencies, it needs a transition period to have a good chance of succeeding, and making it illegal would eliminate that transition period.
  - tomjen3 15y ago
    So what? Cut them of in USD, sell your bitcoins in Europe, buy USD with Euro (they can't outlaw foreign currency exchanges).
- dangrossman 15y ago
  That might be a solution 5, 10 years down the line. What's the solution today? If you cut any site off from Google/DoubleClick, you've effectively prevented them from monetizing through advertising enough to reach top 100. That's not every site's business model, but there's certainly a class of sites we'd like to exist (of which YouTube is a prime example) that would not be able to exist without access to the US advertising networks.
  - nextparadigms 15y ago
    Flattr?
  - tomjen3 15y ago
    If you cut of the other ways to get money then Bitcoin is the solution today (or in a few months when it is properly integrated with the merchant software).
    - dangrossman 15y ago
      Bitcoin is not a solution today. Your parents are not going to buy something from a website that only accepts payment in a currency they've never heard of and don't have. A website that can only accept BitCoin payments cannot be competitive.

tomjen3 15y ago

Microtransactions in Bitcoin (or heck ads paid with bitcoin). You can't cut of bitcoin transactions because there is by its very definition no place to cut them of. If this is the case, we are only going to get that much closer to the end game.

dlikhten 15y ago
I have to say, as much as bitcoin is in a downfall, this actually makes a ton of sense. That was the initial goal of bitcoin, to create a de-centralized currency. As long as the BTC is a STABLE currency this works out well. Or short-term stable. It can become a medium of financial transfer: I buy 10 BTC, donate it, they claim 10 BTC, convert to cash. Done. It would be great if there was a tool to literally facilitate this transaction without directly giving from one company to another, thus bypassing SOPA. I give the "holder" $10, the "holder" gives me 10 BTC. Then I give 10 BTC to say PirateBay. Then the "holder" guarantees that piratebay can sell 10 BTC to them for $10. Thats it. They only converted BTC to/from cash. I directly gave BTC to pirate bay. SOPA is ignored. HOWEVER THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THE INTERNET IS AGAINST. This will prevent all sort of anti-fraud that is going on now. You will wind up bypassing years of innovation to create a black market. It will be detremental.
- JoshTriplett 15y ago
  > HOWEVER THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THE INTERNET IS AGAINST. This will prevent all sort of anti-fraud that is going on now. You will wind up bypassing years of innovation to create a black market. It will be detremental. Right now, in meatspace, I have both options: I can pay with cash and have little to no recourse or record, or I can pay with check or credit card and have a record and various fraud protection measures. I want to have both options on the Internet as well. Also note that various bitcoin escrow agencies have popped up, which serve the obvious function. Assuming an agency exists that both parties trust, you can have the fraud protection you want if and when you want it.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - dangrossman 15y ago
    > various bitcoin escrow agencies have popped up But bitcoin escrow agencies don't solve the SOPA problem -- once you have a small number of intermediaries paying these websites, they become the place where the law can apply its force. They will be ordered/coerced to stop funding ThePirateBay or whatever site the media industry targets, so these sites either can't have reliable BC payments or they are subject to being cut off by these laws without trial.
    - JoshTriplett 15y ago
      Only if they operate in jurisdictions that can apply such force, and only if they make a connection between their online presence and their offline presence. An escrow agency could operate pseudonymously online without having an offline presence, as long as they built a trusted reputation around their online pseudonym and cryptographic identity.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- tomjen3 15y ago
  The endgame is much, much more than that. Once the US lose control of the money supply it loses a ton of its power and we can (finally) stop fearing Washington.
JoshTriplett 15y ago
While you can't prevent transactions in bitcoins, you absolutely can cut off conversions between bitcoins and USD. Just cut them off at the payment provider the same way. Right now, bitcoin exchanges can operate entirely above-board; driving them underground and equating them with money launderers would make it extremely difficult for bitcoin to solve any of the problems that people want it to solve. While many people (myself included) would love to see a cryptographic currency replace all existing currencies, it needs a transition period to have a good chance of succeeding, and making it illegal would eliminate that transition period.
- tomjen3 15y ago
  So what? Cut them of in USD, sell your bitcoins in Europe, buy USD with Euro (they can't outlaw foreign currency exchanges).
dangrossman 15y ago
That might be a solution 5, 10 years down the line. What's the solution today? If you cut any site off from Google/DoubleClick, you've effectively prevented them from monetizing through advertising enough to reach top 100. That's not every site's business model, but there's certainly a class of sites we'd like to exist (of which YouTube is a prime example) that would not be able to exist without access to the US advertising networks.
- nextparadigms 15y ago
  Flattr?
- tomjen3 15y ago
  If you cut of the other ways to get money then Bitcoin is the solution today (or in a few months when it is properly integrated with the merchant software).
  - dangrossman 15y ago
    Bitcoin is not a solution today. Your parents are not going to buy something from a website that only accepts payment in a currency they've never heard of and don't have. A website that can only accept BitCoin payments cannot be competitive.