The USA as a world power has lost global dominance and now is trying to flex its muscle through draconian legislation.
I agree that individuals possess very little power. Discussing the issues on forums will be read by individuals who may or may not be a member of the forum. The more the information is circulated the greater the awareness of the issues and the effect on individual rights and liberties.
Reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act “The bill would authorize the U.S. Department of Justice to seek court orders against websites outside U.S. jurisdiction accused of infringing on copyrights, or of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement. After delivering a court order, the U.S. Attorney General could require US-directed Internet service providers, ad networks, and payment processors to suspend doing business with sites found to infringe on federal criminal intellectual property laws. The Attorney General could also bar search engines from displaying links to the sites.
The bill also establishes a two-step process for intellectual property rights holders to seek relief if they have been harmed by a site dedicated to infringement. The rights holder must first notify, in writing, related payment facilitators and ad networks of the identity of the website, who, in turn, must then forward that notification and suspend services to that identified website, unless that site provides a counter notification explaining how it is not in violation. The rights holder can then sue for limited injunctive relief against the site operator, if such a counter notification is provided, or if the payment or advertising services fail to suspend service in the absence of a counter notification.”
I live in Australia. The RIAA tried to enforce USA copyright penalties in Australian Courts and those penalties were dismissed in court. Under existing Australian laws, the RIAA has to prove that the recording industry has sustained a loss by anyone pirating a song. The Australian Courts ruled that the financial loss to the recording industry was 99 cents per song and that is all the RIAA is entitled to claim if they represented the recording industry in an Australian Court.
Australia signed a free trade agreement with the USA in 2010. Depending on the terms of the agreement, an Australian citizen could be extradited to the USA and be tried for copyright infringement in USA Courts and be penalised $6000 per song by the US Courts.
Can the proposed USA legislation be interpreted that anyone involved in the CHDK development is infringing Canon copyright even though the CHDK code is separate open source code that enhances the original Canon code without altering the original Canon camera functionality.
A number of CHDK forum members live in European Union countries. In theory, if there is a USA complainant, the USA could use the NATO alliance as a back door to extradite European Union residents to the USA to enforce USA copyright penalties.
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