8 ms·

Scribd Protests SOPA By Making A Billion Pages On The Web Disappear

131 points by csmajorfive 15y ago

ghshephard 15y ago
I've never really understood how SOPA will deal with websites that are indisputably multi-use. I don't think anyone could, with a straight face, argue that Scribd doesn't have a significant amount of non-copyright infringing use (unlike Napster, which was close to 99%+ copyright infringing by volume) - thought it does have a significant component of copyright infringements that rights holders are always having to stamp out with DMCA takedown requests. So - what to do with sites like Scribd, post SOPA? Just blacklist the entire site because it gets a lot of DMCA requests? What do the SOPA proponents (do we have _ANY_ of those on HN, I really would love to be educated by them) have to say about that?
- rhizome 15y ago
  I've never really understood how SOPA will deal with websites that are indisputably multi-use There is no such thing to a smaller mind, such as a Congressperson's. The people who argue and vote for these laws are not big computery people, they are lawyers, and exceedingly lazy ones at that. The subtlety you describe, that some websites can be multi-use, is lost on people who can't understand how Reddit in not just a den of kiddie porn after hearing the stories over the summer.
- tedunangst 15y ago
  I think we have arrived here, in some part, because of how much some sites relied on safe harbor provisions. They were added to protect a host which had a tiny bit of inadvertent infringing material. But people have been (ab)using that as a free pass to deliberately host copyrighted things until they get caught. If everybody claims to be indisputably multi-use, the net effect is that no one is. Since the DMCA appears to have failed (in the eyes of copyright holders), and since that failure appears in large part to be due what they consider a loophole, don't be surprised if the next round of legislation is not going to include the loophole. If you don't want the government regulating your business, a little preemptive self regulation often goes a long way.
- zoom 15y ago
  I'm for SOPA only because I hate DNS.
j_baker 15y ago
This is certainly good of Scribd, but I suspect this is more about "Hey, we've got a billion pages!" than it's about "Let's stop SOPA!"
- matthiaskramm 15y ago
  Oh, it's about SOPA, trust me. I felt defenseless when the DMCA (and the "European DMCA", 2004/48/EC) were introduced (I went to a couple of demonstrations, but that only goes so far), and SOPA is even worse. It's nice to work at a place where you can have more of an impact, and take a stance that has an actual chance of being heard.
dos1 15y ago
I applaud all of these anti-SOPA efforts. What I can't figure out is why our legislators are hell bent on passing this thing. I've not heard of a single rational person being individually in favor of this bill. Now, that certainly doesn't mean there aren't any, but by and large I would be willing to bet that the vast majority of US citizens are either ambivalent or in opposition when it comes to SOPA. The only groups that are for this bill, so far as I can tell, are big content providers and their lobbies. If almost no one is in favor of a piece of legislation, and there are millions vehemently opposed to it, why in God's name is it still being considered? Is it really just so certain Congressman can collect money from the proponents of the bill? That seems far too cynical to be accurate. If there's more truth in that statement than false, I think we owe it to ourselves to never re-elect a single sitting member of this Congress. The longer I live, the more ashamed I become of the United States government.
- thenextcorner 15y ago
  You might be biased because you work in the industry probably most effected by SOPA. The movie & music industry are pushing this piece of legislation through because it will give these companies a lot of power to "protect" their work. Just remember that the people who vote for the bill are getting funded by the same companies protected by the bill. http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/12/21/sopa-supporters-are-cashing-the-medias-checks/ http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/12/21/sopa-supporters-are-c...
- smokeyj 15y ago
  > If almost no one is in favor of a piece of legislation, and there are millions vehemently opposed to it, why in God's name is it still being considered? Because our 'representatives' don't really represent us. Never have, never will, IMO.
  - nextparadigms 15y ago
    This is why I think "petitions" should have real power, or the gathering of a certain number of people should have the power to veto or at least postpone a certain bill. Clearly the more representative-oriented democracy isn't working too well. We need a democracy with a little bit more "direct democracy" measures thrown in there. I'm not advocating for 100% direct democracy. I'm just saying there is a scale, and we need to push that scale back a little more towards direct democracy, because right now it's too easy for politicians to do whatever they want when in Office when the only repercussion is not being re-elected (maybe). Getting a lot of funding for the 2nd campaign can help negate that "punishment" too sometimes.
maeon3 15y ago
This comment contained unauthorized information about the rectangular shape of the new iProduct and has been censored by an agency who's identity has also been censored for national security. Thank you for your continued cooperation.
itcmcgrath 15y ago
I would be interested in seeing some stats on number and % of unique visitors that clicked on the 'call now' or 'write now' buttons. ( see: http://www.scribd.com/doc/75153093/Tribe-Legis-Memo-on-SOPA-12-6-11-1 http://www.scribd.com/doc/75153093/Tribe-Legis-Memo-on-SOPA-... )
evanlong 15y ago
We as the internet should do everything in our power to mute Congress. Encourage Twitter and Facebook other social networks to shutdown their accounts for a day. Show them that their laws impact them as well.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
jerhewet 15y ago
Serious question, here. How difficult would it be for anti-SOPA corporations and supporters to block congressional IP addresses? Assumption (possibly incorrect) on my part that it would be fairly easy to identify blocks and ranges of congressional IP addresses, and that it would be legal to block them in the first place.
Erwin 15y ago
This doesn't seem to be working for me, when I visit some of Scribd's varied completely legitimate content. Like this 288 page book, found in seconds on Google (does Kernighan still work there?) , which I guess must be in public domain, right? http://www.scribd.com/doc/59247191/PRENTICE-HALL-The-C-Programming-Language-Second-Edition http://www.scribd.com/doc/59247191/PRENTICE-HALL-The-C-Progr... Just how much of Scribd's value comes from books like this?
- snowmaker 15y ago
  Are you outside of the US? Reluctantly, we decided to target the animation to US users because there is unfortunately little that foreign citizens can do to stop SOPA.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
- georgefox 15y ago
  Personally, I had to disable AdBlock Plus and Ghostery to get it to work (plus a bunch of NoScript stuff, but that goes without saying). There's an astonishing amount of crap loaded on the page when you do all this, including the anti-SOPA stuff.
colinsidoti 15y ago
It would be awesome if that "Call Now" button was implemented with Twilio Client to directly call someone.
bitops 15y ago
Good start. For maximum impact: Google should disable all of its public facing web servers for a week. I think Congress would get its act together pretty darn quickly if there were no Google search or GMail.
- billswift 15y ago
  So you think Google should fuck over millions of people to protest Congress potentially fucking over millions of people??
  - mattstreet 15y ago
    I think a good start would be filtering out access to all government IPs.
  - mattmillr 15y ago
    s/protest/attempt to prevent/
  - yuhong 15y ago
    Yea, I think a doodle is a better idea.
- dchuk 15y ago
  Google profits hundreds of dollars a second, shutting down their search engine for a week would make their stock holders extremely unhappy.
  - bitops 15y ago
    Exactly - impacting the bottom line is an excellent way to get peoples attention.
- drivingmenuts 15y ago
  > For maximum impact: Google should disable all of its public facing web servers for a week. That would be making a point that would be lost on a lot of people. Their first and last thought would be: "What the hell is going on? I'm losing orders here and my packers are standing around drinking coffee." You can tell people what you want them to think about, but you can't force them to think.
jritch 15y ago
There are sooo many factors about this that its hard to make a point that covers everything, and its had to stay partial when explaining your point. From reading the comments etc and various reports about SOPA, it seems everyone is going on about the music companies rather than the artists they represent. IMO the music companies are the ones who have been making the money off of someone else's talent for a long time now, perhaps taking more than their fair share. Do I feel sorry for the profit driven record labels? No I don’t. Its no coincidence that all of the richest artists in the world are the ones who have built their own record labels and cut out the middle man, and hats off to them, the ones with the talent are the ones who should make the biggest share. With the opening of apple's itunes it gave (even the smallest) artists the chance of putting their content on the internet to buy, without having to necessarily deal with the companies who have have been making millions/billions off them for years.. Several artists (and i would go as far as saying most) have now accepted that downloading music is the new norm and itunes is the way to keep the money coming in, whilst also being able to appeal to the masses. When you read (https://torrentfreak.com/swiss-govt-downloading-movies-and-music-will-stay-legal-111202/)then https://torrentfreak.com/swiss-govt-downloading-movies-and-m... take into account that alot of music artists have actually uploaded their own albums to torrent sites prior to release to gain attention, it would seem the artists know exactly how to play the market. I can truthfully say I have been to many gigs I wouldn’t have known about etc had I not downloaded the artists albums, I have also bought merchandise as a result of this. then you read something like https://torrentfreak.com/retired-computerless-woman-fined-for-pirating-hooligan-movie-111222/ https://torrentfreak.com/retired-computerless-woman-fined-fo... , and realise this is what would happen if the music companies had their way. Profit at any costs, even when it cant even be proven that any crime has been breached. At the end of the day I see the music companies fighting a losing battle (the megalupload takedown certainly didnt help), the musicians still "making it rich" and the consumers who buy music STILL buying music, though direct from the musician, thats why the companies are trying to have this act passed.

131 points by csmajorfive 15y ago

I've never really understood how SOPA will deal with websites that are indisputably multi-use. I don't think anyone could, with a straight face, argue that Scribd doesn't have a significant amount of non-copyright infringing use (unlike Napster, which was close to 99%+ copyright infringing by volume) - thought it does have a significant component of copyright infringements that rights holders are always having to stamp out with DMCA takedown requests. So - what to do with sites like Scribd, post SOPA? Just blacklist the entire site because it gets a lot of DMCA requests? What do the SOPA proponents (do we have _ANY_ of those on HN, I really would love to be educated by them) have to say about that?

rhizome 15y ago
I've never really understood how SOPA will deal with websites that are indisputably multi-use There is no such thing to a smaller mind, such as a Congressperson's. The people who argue and vote for these laws are not big computery people, they are lawyers, and exceedingly lazy ones at that. The subtlety you describe, that some websites can be multi-use, is lost on people who can't understand how Reddit in not just a den of kiddie porn after hearing the stories over the summer.
tedunangst 15y ago
I think we have arrived here, in some part, because of how much some sites relied on safe harbor provisions. They were added to protect a host which had a tiny bit of inadvertent infringing material. But people have been (ab)using that as a free pass to deliberately host copyrighted things until they get caught. If everybody claims to be indisputably multi-use, the net effect is that no one is. Since the DMCA appears to have failed (in the eyes of copyright holders), and since that failure appears in large part to be due what they consider a loophole, don't be surprised if the next round of legislation is not going to include the loophole. If you don't want the government regulating your business, a little preemptive self regulation often goes a long way.
zoom 15y ago
I'm for SOPA only because I hate DNS.

j_baker 15y ago

This is certainly good of Scribd, but I suspect this is more about "Hey, we've got a billion pages!" than it's about "Let's stop SOPA!"

matthiaskramm 15y ago
Oh, it's about SOPA, trust me. I felt defenseless when the DMCA (and the "European DMCA", 2004/48/EC) were introduced (I went to a couple of demonstrations, but that only goes so far), and SOPA is even worse. It's nice to work at a place where you can have more of an impact, and take a stance that has an actual chance of being heard.

dos1 15y ago

I applaud all of these anti-SOPA efforts. What I can't figure out is why our legislators are hell bent on passing this thing. I've not heard of a single rational person being individually in favor of this bill. Now, that certainly doesn't mean there aren't any, but by and large I would be willing to bet that the vast majority of US citizens are either ambivalent or in opposition when it comes to SOPA. The only groups that are for this bill, so far as I can tell, are big content providers and their lobbies. If almost no one is in favor of a piece of legislation, and there are millions vehemently opposed to it, why in God's name is it still being considered? Is it really just so certain Congressman can collect money from the proponents of the bill? That seems far too cynical to be accurate. If there's more truth in that statement than false, I think we owe it to ourselves to never re-elect a single sitting member of this Congress. The longer I live, the more ashamed I become of the United States government.

thenextcorner 15y ago
You might be biased because you work in the industry probably most effected by SOPA. The movie & music industry are pushing this piece of legislation through because it will give these companies a lot of power to "protect" their work. Just remember that the people who vote for the bill are getting funded by the same companies protected by the bill. http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/12/21/sopa-supporters-are-cashing-the-medias-checks/ http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/12/21/sopa-supporters-are-c...
smokeyj 15y ago
> If almost no one is in favor of a piece of legislation, and there are millions vehemently opposed to it, why in God's name is it still being considered? Because our 'representatives' don't really represent us. Never have, never will, IMO.
- nextparadigms 15y ago
  This is why I think "petitions" should have real power, or the gathering of a certain number of people should have the power to veto or at least postpone a certain bill. Clearly the more representative-oriented democracy isn't working too well. We need a democracy with a little bit more "direct democracy" measures thrown in there. I'm not advocating for 100% direct democracy. I'm just saying there is a scale, and we need to push that scale back a little more towards direct democracy, because right now it's too easy for politicians to do whatever they want when in Office when the only repercussion is not being re-elected (maybe). Getting a lot of funding for the 2nd campaign can help negate that "punishment" too sometimes.

maeon3 15y ago

This comment contained unauthorized information about the rectangular shape of the new iProduct and has been censored by an agency who's identity has also been censored for national security. Thank you for your continued cooperation.

itcmcgrath 15y ago

I would be interested in seeing some stats on number and % of unique visitors that clicked on the 'call now' or 'write now' buttons. ( see: http://www.scribd.com/doc/75153093/Tribe-Legis-Memo-on-SOPA-12-6-11-1 http://www.scribd.com/doc/75153093/Tribe-Legis-Memo-on-SOPA-... )

evanlong 15y ago

We as the internet should do everything in our power to mute Congress. Encourage Twitter and Facebook other social networks to shutdown their accounts for a day. Show them that their laws impact them as well.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

jerhewet 15y ago

Serious question, here. How difficult would it be for anti-SOPA corporations and supporters to block congressional IP addresses? Assumption (possibly incorrect) on my part that it would be fairly easy to identify blocks and ranges of congressional IP addresses, and that it would be legal to block them in the first place.

Erwin 15y ago

This doesn't seem to be working for me, when I visit some of Scribd's varied completely legitimate content. Like this 288 page book, found in seconds on Google (does Kernighan still work there?) , which I guess must be in public domain, right? http://www.scribd.com/doc/59247191/PRENTICE-HALL-The-C-Programming-Language-Second-Edition http://www.scribd.com/doc/59247191/PRENTICE-HALL-The-C-Progr... Just how much of Scribd's value comes from books like this?

snowmaker 15y ago
Are you outside of the US? Reluctantly, we decided to target the animation to US users because there is unfortunately little that foreign citizens can do to stop SOPA.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
georgefox 15y ago
Personally, I had to disable AdBlock Plus and Ghostery to get it to work (plus a bunch of NoScript stuff, but that goes without saying). There's an astonishing amount of crap loaded on the page when you do all this, including the anti-SOPA stuff.

colinsidoti 15y ago

It would be awesome if that "Call Now" button was implemented with Twilio Client to directly call someone.

bitops 15y ago

Good start. For maximum impact: Google should disable all of its public facing web servers for a week. I think Congress would get its act together pretty darn quickly if there were no Google search or GMail.

billswift 15y ago
So you think Google should fuck over millions of people to protest Congress potentially fucking over millions of people??
- mattstreet 15y ago
  I think a good start would be filtering out access to all government IPs.
- mattmillr 15y ago
  s/protest/attempt to prevent/
- yuhong 15y ago
  Yea, I think a doodle is a better idea.
dchuk 15y ago
Google profits hundreds of dollars a second, shutting down their search engine for a week would make their stock holders extremely unhappy.
- bitops 15y ago
  Exactly - impacting the bottom line is an excellent way to get peoples attention.
drivingmenuts 15y ago
> For maximum impact: Google should disable all of its public facing web servers for a week. That would be making a point that would be lost on a lot of people. Their first and last thought would be: "What the hell is going on? I'm losing orders here and my packers are standing around drinking coffee." You can tell people what you want them to think about, but you can't force them to think.

jritch 15y ago

There are sooo many factors about this that its hard to make a point that covers everything, and its had to stay partial when explaining your point. From reading the comments etc and various reports about SOPA, it seems everyone is going on about the music companies rather than the artists they represent. IMO the music companies are the ones who have been making the money off of someone else's talent for a long time now, perhaps taking more than their fair share. Do I feel sorry for the profit driven record labels? No I don’t. Its no coincidence that all of the richest artists in the world are the ones who have built their own record labels and cut out the middle man, and hats off to them, the ones with the talent are the ones who should make the biggest share. With the opening of apple's itunes it gave (even the smallest) artists the chance of putting their content on the internet to buy, without having to necessarily deal with the companies who have have been making millions/billions off them for years.. Several artists (and i would go as far as saying most) have now accepted that downloading music is the new norm and itunes is the way to keep the money coming in, whilst also being able to appeal to the masses. When you read (https://torrentfreak.com/swiss-govt-downloading-movies-and-music-will-stay-legal-111202/)then https://torrentfreak.com/swiss-govt-downloading-movies-and-m... take into account that alot of music artists have actually uploaded their own albums to torrent sites prior to release to gain attention, it would seem the artists know exactly how to play the market. I can truthfully say I have been to many gigs I wouldn’t have known about etc had I not downloaded the artists albums, I have also bought merchandise as a result of this. then you read something like https://torrentfreak.com/retired-computerless-woman-fined-for-pirating-hooligan-movie-111222/ https://torrentfreak.com/retired-computerless-woman-fined-fo... , and realise this is what would happen if the music companies had their way. Profit at any costs, even when it cant even be proven that any crime has been breached. At the end of the day I see the music companies fighting a losing battle (the megalupload takedown certainly didnt help), the musicians still "making it rich" and the consumers who buy music STILL buying music, though direct from the musician, thats why the companies are trying to have this act passed.