The hypocrisy of SOPA protests | Hacker News Reader

The hypocrisy of SOPA protests

5 pointsmajani9 comments

To me, the outcry following the SOPA legislation seems extremely hypocritical of Americans. You already do this bullshit blocking to the rest of the world. I live in Kenya and I can't count the number of times I've seen the message on an entertainment site: "This site is not available outside the US". VEVO, Pandora, Hulu and Netflix all give me that crap. So far THAT has hardly been a problem according to you guys, but now that you're about get a taste of your own medicine, you're crying like babies!

Why would you care so much when it's happening to you, but you readily block other countries without batting an eyelid? Why hasn't blocking countries outside the US 'broken the internet' like American internet gurus are claiming will happen if we block you? Why hasn't blocking countries outside the US 'destroyed livelihoods?' Why hasn't blocking countries outside the US 'killed' major user-generated sites?To me, the outcry following the SOPA legislation seems extremely hypocritical of Americans. You already do this bullshit blocking to the rest of the world. I live in Kenya and I can't count the number of times I've seen the message on an entertainment site: "This site is not available outside the US". VEVO, Pandora, Hulu and Netflix all give me that crap. So far THAT has hardly been a problem according to you guys, but now that you're about get a taste of your own medicine, you're crying like babies!

Why would you care so much when it's happening to you, but you readily block other countries without batting an eyelid? Why hasn't blocking countries outside the US 'broken the internet' like American internet gurus are claiming will happen if we block you? Why hasn't blocking countries outside the US 'destroyed livelihoods?' Why hasn't blocking countries outside the US 'killed' major user-generated sites?

Actually, it's not the US that's blocking you. It's your own country. You see, some company in your country bought the rights to that media and plans to repackage it (maybe dub it) and play it to you with their own commercials. They don't want the US serving you the content as well because that would make them compete with the providers for the very content they bought from them.

I hate it to, but in this rare instance the US actually isn't behaving hypocritically.

Why isn't this form of "dividing the market" illegal under anti-trust statutes?

Do those statues cross international borders?

$major_copyright_holder choosing not to make its content available outside $country is not the same as $major_copyright_holder choosing to take down $third_party_site.

(I live in Britain.)

> $major_copyright_holder choosing to take down $third_party_site.

Plus: without any judicial oversight or regard to national sovereignty.

The copyright holders won't be taking down the rogue sites,they will be blocking them to US visitors. It's basically the same experience as the rest of the world gets with VEVO,Hulu and the like, except that US citizens won't get the polite 'Fuck you' message when they come through the door

When a copyright holder blocks a website from receiving revenue, that will often result in the website being taken down for business reasons (i.e. it will be down for the whole world, not just Americans. Does your site accept Paypal? Earn money from Google ads? Earn money from Amazon affiliate links? Not any more if Universal Music decides to put you out of business).

Note that the website does not need to be infringing any of the copyright holder's copyrights for this to happen: there is no right to due process.

In a talk I went to, the Pandora founder expounded on how they wanted to get into every country but they have to negotiate with the rights holders in each separate country. It isn't a matter of negotiating with the major multinationals on worldwide distribution.

> Why would you care so much when it's happening to you, but you readily block other countries without batting an eyelid?

Who is doing the caring and who is doing the blocking? When you understand that the two are not the same group, you will understand why this is not hypocrisy.

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