ANNOUNCEMENT: Scheduled downtime - 'SOPA Strike'

Good luck. I don't know how I feel about this whole thing, but I'm quite looking forward to the discussion and hearing more about what led to your decision and what comes out of the whole movement (if such a thing can be called a movement).

Its worth noting that this legislation takes root in the US but spreads after that. While I was more of an observer in the days of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the first in the series of odious legislations now culminating in SOPA and the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement [ACTA]), eventually it spread into Canada in a series of bills who were only defeated by the collapse of coalitions in the minority government of the time.

Meanwhile I notice the European Commission and several other European agencies working towards increasingly restrictive copyright regimes. Ultimately, its just a matter of time until the draconian state expectations are the same everywhere.

From a radical perspective I think the internet and computing has allowed a certain flourishing of non-commodity relations. I am regularly able to use open source development as a model to people in my industry as alternative narratives to social darwinism and capitalist economics. Other organizations such as Telekommunisten genuinely believe certain forms of development are possible on the internet that may bring about communism (if my reading of the manifesto is right). Libcom exists as a site that doesn't charge, unlike nearly every other paper pushed by a leftist organization. At minimum, experimentation is currently possible that gives us new material to discuss and consider in our ideas for a different society.

So, while the efficacy of this protest may be in question by some I think it would be close-minded to deny that it is in the spirit of principles we all agree on.

Finally, I'm pushing around a link on safe ways to black out that don't screw you over from a webcrawler perspective: http://www.seroundtable.com/sopa-blackout-google-seo-14592.html

is it a javascript blackout?

I trust that the site will be replaced by a message saying "LibCom would like to express its solidarity with the internet in the face of this attack."

http://twitpic.com/88ueqz

That's fantastic flaneur.

So how's this all playing out in the States? Any movement or response from Congress?

Damn 24 hours without libcom and all the bitching that comes with it. What do you expect me to do at work?...my life will fall apart.

Still be interested to find out the effect "internet strikes" have on the real economy. I imagine lots of big companies rely on open source software and free info website to assist in developing their products?

http://www.fox13now.com/news/politics/local/kstu-pipa-sen-hatch-withdraws-support-for-controversial-pipa-20120118,0,1609774.story

http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/19/tech/sopa-blackouts/

http://gizmodo.com/5877219/sopa-outrage-is-breaking-the-senates-websites?tag=sopa

Going by how media bosses are squealing, it seems to have been a success:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16628143

Yeah, apparently Sens against have risen from 5 to 35, and 41 are needed to block it.

I think it's a pretty sure thing that libcom would be fucked if this law goes through… At best we'll have to change our name to 112.52.289.7 or something like that, which is a lot less catchy…

I't odd though isn't it. Large corporations using essentially activist methods. Has this happened before? Could be a problematic precedence. Next we'll see corporations "striking" for anti-union legislation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_World_Wide_Web_protest

(List of sites that participated; not sure how complete it is tho, reached it through a link from one of the wiki sources.)

How come?

Megaupload finished: Feds shut down file-sharing giant without SOPA

Anonymous attacks WhiteHouse.gov after taking down Department of Justice and others

Not new, ever heard of lockouts?

haha, well that's a precedence I guess.

https://rt.com/usa/news/anonymous-barrettbrown-sopa-megaupload-241/

Filesonic has stopped staring and apparently Fileserve too. The amount of stuff that has just been lost.

I do not understand why a law being passed or not passed matters to communists.

This is a fight between different groups of capital. On the one hand, companies like Google or Facebook. On the other hand, the music and movie industry. Will the world be better if the former win? Many op-ed writers have argued against SOPA on the grounds that it would get in the way of innovating and expanding the economy. That sounds plausible. Certainly, China and other states have well organized and profitable 'pirating' industries.

i expect you don't see how it matters is papers/books are banned, wages are cut, workers fired, or free health care is abolished? After all it still capitalism either way right?

I do not think a wage cut and a law being passed are the same thing.

So I suppose you are opposed to looting?

Lettersjournal, how do you think a wage cut is impliment if not by law ?

Hi Juan,

I am not sure what looting has to do with the passage or non-passage of a law (ie. Facebook vs. Universal Music Group). I do not oppose or support looting. Certainly, I am opposed to anything police would do to looters, though when I lived in New Orleans briefly it was clear that the police looted more than anyone (a lot of them drove Cadillacs after the hurricanes). Why do you ask about looting?

Hi Croydonian,

In the US, wage cuts are not voted on by congress. Maybe it is different where you live. Wage cuts are carried out by management/ownership and unions. Struggles around wages are not parliamentary, while 'struggles' around the passage or non-passage of laws are, by definition, parliamentary. I thought it was a basic position of communists to not involve themselves in parliamentary debates, as the real struggle is at the point of production.

As far as I know, this SOPA thing is the first time Libcom has gotten involved in a congressional debate. Was there a discussion about this beforehand? Will Libcom be periodically shutting down to protest other laws? If the passage or non-passage of laws is important, should one encourage others to call or write senators?

Nothing has been lost. All the files on those websites still exist somewhere, and most of them are bad replicas of books, movies, and music that certainly still exist away from computers.

If the whole internet disappeared tomorrow, nothing would be lost. We would write each other letters again, like the great communists of the past (who, after all, were able to put together public meetings attended by hundreds, without the "aid" of the internet). Maybe we could publish newspapers that had a readership of more than 12.

Maybe they do, but they then require re-upping. And if not, someone has to rip it again, all of which takes time and is a pain in the arse. Though the days of bad quality rips are long gone.

Do you think it's as simple as that? That you can just roll back technology and people will go back to things like letters or radical newspapers? People abandon things like when they don't feel they're relevant or useful to their lives. You gotta bring it to them, not the other way round.

The libcom library being taken offline would ruin the endless hours of hard work people have put into preparing the documents for digital publication. Stronger ip laws and internet related takedown powers makes this a much more likely event.

It would be better to have alternative means of distributing the data, as I've mentioned before, but protesting against aggressive laws seems reasonable. You are also putting to much into the fact that it's a battle between corporations. In this very narrow case we share the interests of google but the law will affect people way beyond google.

Nahhhh, doubt you could mate, sorry.

no but this law and a cut to wages would both have a negative effect on workers, and so should be opposed by communists, if you don't understand that then your an idiot.

This law will restrict the free flowing of information. As such it will reduce the availability of free information to proletarians, who will be more likely to have to pay for information/culture. Also it puts working class/radical websites at greater risk of takedown/lawsuits. If you don't see the problem with that then I think there is a problem with you