Say No to Ireland's SOPA

[johnc055]

SOPA is the name of a piece of US legislation, the Stop Online Piracy Act.

A similar proposal is about to become law in Ireland. And while 7 million Americans contacted their representatives to say No to SOPA in the US, Irish citizens will not get that chance because the new law in Ireland is not being voted on in the Oireachtas.

Instead, <b>the law is being enacted by ministerial order</b>. This new law will give music and movie companies the legal leverage to force Irish ISPs like UPC, Eircom and mobile networks to block access to sites suspected of having copyrighted material on them. It also means judges can order ISPs to block access to sites like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter where an individual user from anywhere in the world has shared infringing material.

[kiloaper]

So an honest question for the sites operators, who appear to be an injury solicitors. What's the deal with your Privacy Policy [1]? Is it a copy/paste from another site or did you mean it to be that bad? It's the reason I'm telling people not to supply the site with any personal details. It clearly says details will be used for "market analysis" (whatever that means) and the site operators can contact (spam) people by any means of communication the user gives them. I can't see a way to opt-out. I don't want to come across as offensive but I care about my privacy.

[1] http://stopsopaireland.com/privacy/

[handelaar]

Yeah, it looks like it's been dragged over from the solicitors' other sites, which have entirely different purposes.

(I just had a word in person - I'm the one keeping the server up but that's the beginning and ending of my involvement.)

Response: "Yes. Sorry. That needs fixing and will be fixed asafp. We're not going to mail people, and 'market analysis' means 'analytics' in this case but is moot because we have none enabled anyway. It'll get removed/replaced as soon as the phones stop melting and we can put 10 mins into it."

[markokocic]

It seems like a new course of action for MPAA.

1st they failed to push SOPA in USA.

But, they may force Ireland and other smaller countries to pass SOPA like laws.

Then, they can push again in USA claiming that it is good since everyone else is using it.

[disgruntledphd2]

Can you provide a link to the S.I. itself on the page? I'd like to read the damn thing before calling my TD's.

[johnc055]

Mr Sherlock said he would “tweet complete clarification shortly”.

Irish Times article with more information: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/0124/break...

BTW, I just posted the link to HN, I've no affiliation with the site. Fully support what they're trying to do though.

[feral]

As others have said, a large part of the problem is that the legislative change is not made public, and debated; instead the change to the existing law can be made by ministerial order - so there's no definitive text to link to, at the moment.

This FAQ: http://www.tjmcintyre.com/2012/01/irelands-sopa-faq.html written by someone who is a university law lecturer, and solicitor, is about as good as you are going to find.

This article: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2011/1219/1224... in a national newspaper (which almost reads like it could have been written by a lobbyist) provides context on what is happening here.

Basically, IANAL, but my understanding is that EMI (the recording company) took a case against UPC (a big ISP here), demanding that UPC block websites linking to illegal content (e.g. pirate bay). EMI lost the case, as the judge decided that copyright law did not provide that remedy.

But the judge in the case interpreted EU law as requiring such a remedy (I believe this is a controversial interpretation), and so the government (or rather, relevant junior minister) is going to update the law accordingly.

And that update, which we probably will not see, until after it is signed, is what the current campaign is about.

Personally, I think its great to see this campaign, and terrible that law with such potentially wide consequences could be enacted without debate. (I should note, this is all only a laymans interpretation; I'm not familiar with any legal subtitles.)

[handelaar]

You'll see it after it's been signed by Richard Bruton and it appears in Iris Oifiguil. That's rather the point here.

[donal_cahalane]

Since its been established that the Irish data protection commission has authority over Facebook (since their EMEA HQ is based in Ireland) what implications would this legislation have for FB I wonder? I know Facebook passed the recent privacy audit that the commission carried out but would the ability of record/movie companies etc. to have offending sites blocked through the courts here would obviously affect FB right?

[davej]

I don't believe the final text has been released yet but my understanding is that it wouldn't effect Facebook anymore than it would effect a website which doesn't have a base in Ireland. The law is 'SOPA-like' because it gives Irish courts the right to tell an ISP or hosting service or other third party to block the site.

It is unclear at this time if infringing websites will be given notice that they are about to be blocked. Again, the final draft hasn't been released.

The scary thing is that they are trying to get this passed without a vote in parliament.

[NSMeta]

Just a minor suggestion.

When I signed the petition, the link that says "Find out what else you can do" at the bottom does not work for me. (Windows 7, Chrome 16)

[handelaar]

Sabrina (who put the site up, and who I'm married to) reports that we think that's fixed, and thanks you for telling her.

I'll say this: Linode rocks. It's getting battered here and seems to be barely breaking sweat.

Action count just hit 14,000 since last night at 10pm local time.

[johnc055]

Same here - Chrome 16.0.912.75 on Windows XP (work machine). I'll let the site owners know.

[trusche]

Same here - Chrome 16.0.912.77 on OS X Lion.

[alan_cx]

This will pass. There are no big sites or organisations backing the opposition so there will be no world effecting black out or protest. Boot licking allies of the US gov will implement SOPA like legislation for them.

[iceberg]

Thanks for posting this! I was completely unaware of this being pushed through.

[ppod]

There is absolutely no information on that page as to what the possible ministerial order contains.