PSOPA

Posted by Alert Games on March 30, 2012, 1:50 p.m.

I think the only way for this to get online piracy issue fucking settled is to have the internet create its own law and offer it to the government to consider. If lawmakers cant make a law, then maybe the collaboration of people consisting of the internet can.

Online piracy is a problem, so I came up with this solution. What do you think about these ideas?

I came up with this idea of PSOPA. The People's Stop Online Piracy Act.

Here is a rough outline of what it would look like:

1) If there is a claim made against the person/group, they have a set amount of time (like 90-180 days) to remove that content if they agree with that claim.

2) If they do not agree to the claim, they can counter-sue for an unreasonable claim. People should be protected from big corporations by having a small reward for the person if that larger company has made an unreasonable claim.

3) Acceptable content would include anything that is not originally broadcasted as being copyrighted. Anything not altered to remove such copyrighted notices. Anything that is a recreation of a copyrighted work, provided it has been credited to the original author, and is distinguishably different. (for example, making a song based off of another copyrighted song. remixes.) and is not sold unless given permission from the original author, etc etc (theres laws for this to abide by).

It would also be acceptable to supply a preview of such works, as long as it is non-profit. A preview would be anything supplied from the original author of their work.

4)If they do not agree to the claim, they must be tried by the country of which the content they are hosting or supplying access to has originated from. i didnt say in, here. possibly a set up where other countries would inform the person of their accusations and the person would report their defense back

5)Upon a successful trial that the person is guilty of the crime, the ISP's would be required to block access to this host. The fine of the person would be to No need to seize the information then, unless it is distributed to people manually

Basically the people need to be protected from the huge organizations, and the problem will be much better controlled.

I know this would be aggravating to people who like to download stuff (including me), but HOPEFULLY this would drop prices of overpriced productions, and create more legal and legit ways to get access to these things.

This would also make it legal to maybe put your voice over a movie for most of it on your own comments, but also have a clear visible watermark over the image of the movie to distinguish it from the real thing. If it seems like the intention is to distribute the movie illegally, it could be tried in court, and its not an unreasonable claim.

Who knows? Maybe there will be more people moving to linux then until windows drops their prices. Maybe there will be more services to show you TV and movies like netflix and hulu. And its better than the shitty laws that are being proposed right now.

Your thoughts?

Comments

flashback 12 years, 7 months ago

Quote:
If they do not agree to the claim, they can counter-sue for an unreasonable claim.
You do realize how expensive that can be, yes?

Alert Games 12 years, 7 months ago

@flashback: yes, but thats why i suggested for the reward to outweigh that expense. You can chose not to counter-sue, which if you win you wouldnt get a reward. If you make it clear enough that you are not infringing copyright with your content, you shouldnt have a problem.

So if you make it clear, but they try to sue you, you can counter-sue for a small reward on your part. Rather than the current system, which doesnt care about your right and trusts the big guys to decide that for you.

flashback 12 years, 7 months ago

Quote:
So if you make it clear, but they try to sue you, you can counter-sue for a small reward on your part. Rather than the current system, which doesnt care about your right and trusts the big guys to decide that for you.
And since you have been bankrupted by the legal fees while waiting for the case to be processed… a "small reward" helps how?

Acid 12 years, 7 months ago

I earnestly believe what Stevenup said.

Also, if companies made games that people honestly enjoyed, they would make enough profits to support themselves. People who pirate instead of buy usually wouldn't have bought the item in the first place, and those that would have are such a small minority that it honestly doesn't affect sales enough to matter.

I pirate software all of the time, but I also pay for software that I use and enjoy. My Steam games list is pretty large and I have tons of games for the major consoles of the last two generations. I have a crap load of PSP UMDs (at least 25). I also opensource alternatives to expensive programs/games that I wouldn't want to pay full price for anyway.

If the publishers made it easier to get to the content and the artists/developers made content that was actually worth money, they would have nothing to worry about.

Alert Games 12 years, 7 months ago

@stevenup: Well the DMCA would basically be the protection. I think it may just need to be more clarified.

Yes i agree it should be easier to obtain. And it is a service problem. However, my argument is that in order to create the obvious demand for better service, the pirating must be more limited. I mean, you can buy movies on iTunes, watch them unlimited on certain paid services, etc. So the service is there, but needs improvement, and there would be more competition for supplying it with cheaper prices.

What im saying here, is that they should not just be able to shut the site down without a fair warning, and proper procedure. So for example, if someone uploads a movie to pirate bay, pirate bay has the responsibility to take down that access, if it is or has been claimed by the organization as copyrighted material. A link directing to another site, would be the responsibility of the owner of the hosting of it, not the link. (at first they would have to have some time to clean it up :P)

HOWEVER Another issue is the cooperation of mutliple organizations to set prices to create higher profit. Thats another issue that should probably be resolved before this piracy one.

Alert Games 12 years, 7 months ago

Quote:
And since you have been bankrupted by the legal fees while waiting for the case to be processed… a "small reward" helps how?
Thats a problem with the legal system. Not this theoretical law. Like steve said, the DMCA would play a part in that.

Alert Games 12 years, 7 months ago

@Acid: I agree with you. But I basically just dont play the games that i think are not enjoyable. I have pirated software though. And trust me theres always to get around it. But you know, maybe if there wasnt as much piracy, there would be more motivation for other companies to make better games? i dunno.

My main issue, is that if you condone downloading illegally, then it would become widespread and start to negatively affect the producers.

oh

Quote:
People who pirate instead of buy usually wouldn't have bought the item in the first place,
Tell that to nintendo reporting their Billions of dollars of lost profit. LOL

flashback 12 years, 7 months ago

Quote:
Thats a problem with the legal system. Not this theoretical law. Like steve said, the DMCA would play a part in that.
So, because it's only a consequence of your proposed law, rather than written in to the law, your law need not address it?

Alert Games 12 years, 7 months ago

@flashback: well theres things written into law already that cover some aspects of this, but it seems like it needs to be clarified and improved on since there are all these propesed new laws trying to get through the government currently.

I am not an expert on the subject so I don't know what is and isnt coveredalready . But basically this outline i wrote is how i think the process should work. But to clarify, i guess what i meant by "counter-sue" is just have the ability to defend yourself and be rewarded and covered for the time and effort going into dealing with false claims.

I mean the law stating that 'you can use media for educational purposes' sounds pretty vague. And I dont think the laws consider "providing access" to a way to obtain the material as illegal, as of now, because it wasnt thought of at the time.

flashback 12 years, 7 months ago

Quote:
I am not an expert on the subject so I don't know what is and isnt coveredalready
Then why write something "solving" the problem?