Because piracy is killing the US...

[Jagos]

I would have put this in the comedy section, but somehow, I feel that this was too good for that thread. No, Viacom, who just gave their CEO a $50M stock option raise, is saying that piracy is killing them:

The anti piracy ad

What's absolutely amazing is the fact that today, when tomorrow is American Censorship Day, is the day we have some facts about piracy.

From the same research group that brought about the "Media Piracy in Emerging Economies, Joe Karaganis finds quantifiable data on piracy and how much people actually pirate here in the US.

The Copy Culture survey was sponsored by The American Assembly, with support from a research award from Google. The content of the survey and its findings are solely the responsibility of the researchers. The U.S. survey was conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International. The results are based on interviews on landline and cellular telephones conducted in English with 2,303 adults age 18 or older living in the continental United States from August 1-31, 2011. For results based on the entire sample, the margin of error is plus or minus 2 percentage points.

For the sake of convenience I'll only post the bolded parts in a quote:

Preliminary Conclusions
- ‘Piracy’ is common.
- Large-scale digital piracy is rare
- Console-based video game piracy is very rare
- Legal media services can displace piracy.
- Copyright infringement among family and friends is widely accepted 
- Only a slim majority of Americans (52%) support penalties for downloading copyrighted music and movies—and limit this support to warnings and fines
- Disconnection from the Internet, in particular, is very unpopular
- Among those who support fines, 75% support amounts under $100 per song or movie infringed
- For a majority of Americans (54%), due process in such matters requires a court
- Solid majorities of American Internet users oppose copyright enforcement when it is perceived to intrude on personal rights and freedoms.
- Comparable majorities (56%) oppose government involvement in “blocking” access to infringing material. 
- Blocking and filtering by commercial intermediaries such as ISPs, social media sites, and search engines receive majority support—until the questions include likely consequences.

There's also a post at Techdirt showing the data more succintly and with an alternative explanation.

The reason I point to this data is for one main reason. Tomorrow, Congress is hearing about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) at 10 AM Eastern Time. This is the bill that is looking to censor people on the internet with accusations. Websites can be taken down, with all funding cut by Viacom for the mere accusation of piracy. Now look at the people complaining about piracy in their designer clothes and chic offices. Then look at the people that are accused of copyright infringement. Does the punishment fit the crime?

[Shyria Dracnoir]

[Red Mage Black]

This reminded me of something I found once while surfing around a long time ago. Since it's at least related, I found just a little bit of relevance in posting it here. I apologize for the horrible grammar, spelling, etc in the document. Well, I'm attaching it because it would do no justice to just copy and paste it all. I don't exactly share all the same sentiment as the author of this, so take it with a grain of salt. It's actually two posts I found, the argument and the response. I also apologize for the language used in it.

[Loyal]

Thread should totally have been subtitled with "...the US will try to kill the internet."

I have no clue whatsoever what that's supposed to mean, Shy. Like I would have inferred "settle it with Mortal Kombat" but then you threw in the Ninja Turtles and completely derailed my train of logic.

[Red Mage Black]

Originally Posted by Loyal

Thread should totally have been subtitled with "...the US will try to kill the internet."

I have no clue whatsoever what that's supposed to mean, Shy. Like I would have inferred "settle it with Mortal Kombat" but then you threw in the Ninja Turtles and completely derailed my train of logic.

Your train of logic derailed? I hope there are survivors.

[Loyal]

Not a one.

It's like "If x then y, and if y then z", only instead it was like "if x then y, and oh fuck who left this out here"

[Aldurin]

"Silly rabbit government, Trix the internet is for kids international."

[Shyria Dracnoir]

Originally Posted by Loyal

Thread should totally have been subtitled with "...the US will try to kill the internet."

I have no clue whatsoever what that's supposed to mean, Shy. Like I would have inferred "settle it with Mortal Kombat" but then you threw in the Ninja Turtles and completely derailed my train of logic.

The jury finds you guilty on all counts. You are required to turn in your internet card and vacate the rock you've been living under for the past eight years

[Magus]

Well I for one got that they were all ninjas (though frankly it could have been made clearer if there weren't two from MK and the Ninja Turtles, like if it had been Scorpion, Ryu Hayabusa, and the Ninja Turtles, or something like that), I got the joke after a minute.

But I still like to read the post as:

Solution [to the piracy debate]:
MORTAL KOMBAAAAAAAAT!

[Loyal]

Originally Posted by Magus

Well I for one got that they were all ninjas (though frankly it could have been made clearer if there weren't two from MK and the Ninja Turtles, like if it had been Scorpion, Ryu Hayabusa, and the Ninja Turtles, or something like that),
[...]
Solution [to the piracy debate]:
MORTAL KOMBAAAAAAAAT!

Pretty much this.