Operation SOPA/PIPA Blackout
On January 18th, the entire XBMC.org website will go black in protest of SOPA/PIPA.
XBMC prefers to avoid political activism. It is our opinion that we are builders of software. Awesome software, to be precise. And we, as a group, do not care one bit how our users choose to use that software, nor do we have any interest in standing in our users way.
However, under provisions granted by SOPA/PIPA, if a copyright holder believes that any piece of our website violates their copyright, whether it be a picture in our forum, an item on our blog, or a single addon in one of our mirrors, they could use unprecedented measures to deny access to xbmc’s website and services without due process. (see EFF Report for a better and more thorough explanation)
In essence, we’d have to make a choice. Do we want to keep building awesome software and in so doing waste 75% of our coding time acting as the police officers of our users trying to find and delete every single piece of content that might potentially have copyright issues, or do we want to give up this project entirely?
We, the developers of XBMC, believe this “choice” is not a choice at all, and as such, we oppose this Bill.
We recognize that many disagree with our stance on this subject, and invite all to examine the text of the SOPA Bill, the coverage of the SOPA bill performed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and whatever sources you trust on this topic, before coming to your own conclusions.
It is for all these reasons and more that, on January 18th, we will be joining reddit, Raspberry Pi, XDA Developers, The Linux Forum, and numerous others by blacking out our website for the day. We invite you to educate yourself and then, if you live in America, contact your local congressman and senator to further this discussion.
Where were all these people when Beta, VHS, and cassette tape machines started to have recording buttons?
Where were all these people when the write-protected tabs on said Beta, VHS, and cassette tapes could be overwritten with a simple piece of sticky tape?
Where were all these people when Commodore 64 games could be shared with multiple floppy drive units connected, and again, said sticky tape trickery?
Hypocricy at the worst – oh but they lose money because of no advertisements on BT TV shows.
Ha!
Sony, Panasonic, Pioneer, and countless companies involved in pioneering (sic) video tape, cassette, CD, DVD, and now Blu-Ray never were brought to stand trial as judge, jury, or executioner against their consumers, yet in the digital age, people stand by and let this happen.
The human race and what we have become is disgraceful.
I am very proud of you decision. SOPA is a very scary piece of legislation and I am glad to see you take a stance. Thank you
I think this bill is ridiculous, everything deserves due action/course. The morality/legality of something
like a tracking cookie gets left alone though, so its ok for e.g for google to know what sites i visit etc
but yet they will take your whole website down without warning if they THINK something violates some copyright…
I fully agree and I think we all need to take a stand against the SOPA. Granted, piracy needs curbing but the SOPA is NOT the way to do it. Besides which, it’s yet another waste of time and money as wel all know that some smart guys will always find a way around it.
They moan about losing money over piracy yet they spend billions all the time trying to fight it. When will they learn that you can’t stop anything online?
People should focus on making content on the internet for all that is high quality, and maybe people will pirate less as it will be something worth paying for. Like XBMC.
They dont understand that if this bill passes A Replacement DNS protocall Much like Torrent Basies systems Will become In effect. Making By Nature the interent More Social. And Also By nature Making it more unstable and Less In control. IF this bill passes Many will Move to the New DNS replacement witch is Not Controlled or Guded by one single Structure. Effectively Destroying The internet.
SONY, Comcast and a few Others Will surely Watch all there sales die from the net if this bill Passes. Its short sighted by far.
Well done XBMC.org! You got my full support.
Hi guys,
thank you for this great piece of software.
I just want to say im proud of you not just ignoring things like SOPA. This is not just an american problem, i think the tendency also in europe is going to laws that “help” copyright owners in a way not compatible with our laws.
Greetings from Germany
Awesome! I am 100% behind you guys on this one!
I am glad to be apart of XBMC…The use of some (VERY AWESOME!) software is a privilege indeed…Because it’s free….
Because it’s idea’s & the imaginations of huge numbers of people from all over this planet comming togetger as a community
and sharing idea’s to make things work better,faster,prettier…To share in an experience…To be apart of…XBMC is everything
But control….It is freedom to express to design to create….I appreciate your stand against SOPA and laws like it that want to hinder
the creativity of your many talents….Thanks all at XBMC !!!
Ditto
I for one support your action
SOPA is pure evil brought about my company’s offering congressman large funds to back these idea’s time to make stand.
I fully support team XBMC’s decision to blackout on the 18th. The more sites that blackout the better so the public can be made aware of the travesty that is SOPA/PIPA.
I totally support this decision from Spain, where we are going to suffer a similar law aimed at restricting the liberty of speech and protecting the insterests of a corrupted minority
Great work guys, SOPA is Evil and should be stopped at all costs.
Thanks guys, I didn’t hear back from the email but saw this pop up on my RSS feed today and got a huge grin! Well done!
i hope organizations like this and similar ones are stopped
if not i hope anonymous can somehow come to the rescue, they seeem to be the internets superheroes, sometimes
Surely a blackout will only hurt/effect the members and do absolutely nothing to actually stop SOPA/PIPA?
As a skinner I rely on the forum/wiki all the time.
Well the bill just got a knock back
White House responds to SOPA petition as hearing is delayed, DNS blocking on the outs
By Donald Melanson posted Jan 14th 2012 at 1:01PM
It’s turned out to be a big weekend for those concerned about the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act. Yesterday came word that a key House hearing originally scheduled for Wednesday will be delayed until there is a “consensus” on the bill, and today the White House has issued an official statement on SOPA (and the Protect IP Act, its counterpart in the Senate) in response to a petition that drew thousands of signatures. While it doesn’t go quite as far as to issue a firm veto threat from the President, it does lay out the administration’s position in the clearest terms yet, including the condition that any proposed law “must not tamper with the technical architecture of the Internet through manipulation of the Domain Name System.” That follows word late last week that Representative Lamar Smith and Senator Patrick Leahy would indeed pull the DNS provisions from SOPA and PIPA. The White House statement is less specific in other respects, but it broadly states that the administration will “not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.”
In related news, the planned blackouts to protest SOPA and PIPA only seem to be increasing, with the popular xda-developers forum recently announcing that it will go dark at 8AM on January 18th, and return either at 8PM or as soon as it’s able to get 50,000 people to sign a pledge to contact their local Senator or Representative.”
//corrected
Sorry all, only meant to paste the bottom part of the page. Doh.
XBMC You got my support!
Full support.
Is just the website going down or the entire xbmc server? Will our installs and scrapers continue to work?
I agree with your reasoning here. It is not normally a good idea for businesses to take stances on subjects like this, but the negative effect this may have on the industry and on your business specifically make it one worth getting behind the opposition.
You’ve got my full support. The US seems to be able to “influence” our current government in power more than I’d like and SOPA is the last thing that I’d like to see in Canada.
Totally agree! What is the real accomplishment by killing the site for a day? You really think anyone at EFF cares?
You have my support too, but what is a real shame is that the really big boys, who are against the scheme, don’t go offline for the day. 98 percent of net users have probably never heard of SOPA and what it might mean for the internet as we know it. If Google took themselves and Youtube offline for a day and Facebook did likewise, that would really send a message.
You got my full support! I agree that SOPA is not the right way to fight piracy.
Bill shelved until ‘consensus’ is found. http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/204167-sopa-shelved-until-consensus-is-found
You should move your servers to Poland. In Polish law, if any site/forum is not moderated, administrator of this server is not responsible for any information or data submited by website/forum user.
You got my support. Down with SOPA!
It might be prudent to re-label to “Operation SOPA/PIPA Blackout”. The US House bill known as SOPA was just shelved (maybe permanently), but the US Senate bill PIPA is still very much alive.
In swedish the acronym SOPA literally means TRASH. Go figure ;)
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/114045-the-internet-wins-sopa-has-been-shelved-but-we-must-remain-vigilant?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ziffdavis%2Fextremetech+%28Extremetech%29
“Land of the Free” is all that comes to mind…oh the irony.
It’s not about if they care or not. It’s not about it making a difference or not. It’s a way of making people aware of the issues (much like Earth Hour in many ways).
Yes, it will make the site unavailable for a day, but if 10% of the people who see the announcement reads up on what SOPA is and will/might mean that is worth it.
You got my full support! I agree that SOPA is not the right way to fight piracy.
@Cavalicious
Wow… a day? You can’t come up with something better to do for a day? It’s not gonna change anything your right, but it’s about taking a stand and showing support.
Get a life, if you rely on this site and can’t handle it being down for a day…. wowowowowowow
I fully support XBMC and like that people are taking a stand.
Thank You!
Guys ive been following XBMC from the classic xbox days and i appreciate all your work…you guys quitting would be heart wrenching.. im with you guys 100%…
The SPOA bill has been killed.
(And so has the SOPA one :) )
The travesty of it all is just mindblowing. Argueing that its a juridicial (juridiculous ?;-p law,while it in fact is nothing more than looking after the interest of big corporate lobbies. And that’s not what government is intended for. Or is it?
Down with government, up with people! Geronimo!
100% support you….
“… keep building awesome software and in so doing waste 75% of our coding time ….”
rhetorically or literally? I’d vote for a 100% effort in getting eden out the door asap, instead of worrying about an inept bureaucracy IMHO.
Dharma v10 Jan 5, 2011 (365+ days)
Sincerely,
the silent HTPC majority.
http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/sopa-shelved-indefinitely-but-reddits-jan-18-blackout-is-still-on-as-pipa-fight-continues/
Wikipedia is joining in the Blackout
It will do everything to stop SOPA and other Bad bills like this. When there is enough uproar from the public, it can actually win against powerful corporate lobbying. Read what happened (and what is still happening) to Godaddy.com when they stupidly decided to support SOPA. One more very important thing. Boycott EVERYTHING Rupert Murdoch!
Dear XBMC team,
I am hundred percent with you guys. I mean since I’ve discovered XBMC and started using it. My all family is enjoying it %.
So, to hear that some ” People” are trying to be a pain in the xxx. And try to put an end to this…..
No way. my all family is supporting you 100%. You guys are doing a great….
How can we contribute to the fight please?????
SOPA RIP, PIPA goes on.. do blackout against PIPA! Kill pussycat! Kill! Kill! … aaww jeez.. I should lay off the caffeine..
I fully support you guys in this action against SOPA.
I’m not from America, but I see similar trends in Europe.
Instead of learning to take part of this shift of their “familiar” market, they try so fiercely to work against it.
Piracy needs to be kicked to the curb without a doubt, but this is not the way to go.
They see only Piracy and not what is happening with their own market.
Instead of holding on to old profit models they should take a look at the huge opportunities programs like XMBC – and programs alike – give to their market.
It is hard to express this properly in a foreign language and hope it comes across the way I intend.
In short, stop fighting it, play it like it is THE competition on your market and be smart with getting them out of play.
Big companies do this all the time, but can’t seem to fathom the proper way of battling this diseased competition called Piracy.
The SOPA approach will have to much Collateral damage!
I say NO to SOPA!
&
I say NO to PIRACY!
@PIPA_Blackout
Excellent point.