actually, it’s just me and one other person right now.
I see three.
Im not gonna waste my time.
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It’s 3 now? ooh, interesting.
It’s also annoying that all English Wikipedia articles are down. It’s also annoying that Reddit is down.
Sometimes you just have to put your own comfort as a second priority. A lot of people don’t have any idea what SOPA is, I think people worry more about spreading awareness than not being annoying.
actually, just add ?banner=false to any URL to bring it back up. Yo-yo - Wikipedia
why on earth YYE would be gone? I think you guys are overreacting a little bit, like it’s gonna be the end of the world.
first off, it’s NOT gonna happen, something’s gonna happen, something bad, not as bad, but still bad. and in order to make that bad-yet-not-as-bad thing happen, they first need to get all you guys all worked up against something that promises nearly the end of the world. seriously, basic manipulation technique. Do you really think these guys don’t know the economical consequences on american companies? they’re smarter than you or I and they’re surrounded by a bunch of consultants, specialists and whatnot, even smarter.
And all and all, have faith in the rest of the world. USA is NOT the world, there are capable companies and people all over the globe. For nearly a century USA was the world’s leader, now things are changing and it’s going to go in all directions and we’re going to have to get used to that feeling.
I have nothing against protest, but on the internet, really it’s more often than not orchestrated by people who know exactly what they’re doing, we, you, all the internet users are being abused, internet only makes it easier.
truth is, we can’t do anything about it, we think we can, we are told we can, but really, we can’t. Days of civil wars and huge protests are long gone in our respective “developed” countries. If it was centuries ago, most of our leaders would have been executed for less.
But we’re drifting away from the subject here. From an outsider’s point of view, I think american people are being played, big time. To paraphrase Ron Paul, “Let’s hope and pray that I’m wrong on all accounts. If so, I would be very pleased”
since the political powers acquired the major medias, democracy is no more than an empty shell, we the people don’t decide anymore, we just do what we’re “told”, like all this build up of protest on the web, it was not only expected, but also I think it was intended.
the thing with a problem, is that if you want to solve it, first you got to acknowledge its existence. get educated about mass media manipulation (or propaganda) and take that power away from the medias, internet is pretty much doing that.
But also keep in mind, I’m one of those who witnessed the birth of computers. And there were always people in that field that were ways ahead of the political power, faster, better. Our websites aren’t going anywhere, and if it’s china or another country that’ll make it happen, so be it. Whatever happens, people will always find ways around it.
Be positive, hating won’t solve any problem, never had, never will.
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Well, we do have certain protections in place already. My Uncle and Aunt who lived part time in Saint Matin in the Carribean always used to (and still does) pirates movies and “jailbreaks” Apple devices (which i do). When he moved back to the States, Quest noticed giant amounts of data being processed. The shut his internet of for a month. Its not that we don’t do anything already, but greedy (i don’t want to say greedy, because the internet ruined there in tire business) want money
Congress is stupid. Nuf said.
I don’t know about you but everywhere i go all i hear is STOP SOPA STOP SOPA! So i decided to do some research on it and turns out i am all for stopping SOPA! Well if you don’t know what it is just PM me and ill send you some videos to watch that will explain what SOPA is to you. If you know what SOPA is i just want to know your opinion on it and if you are for it and against it?
In My Opinion: SOPA will ruin the internet and waste all the technological advances we as humans have made.
I think 99% of the internet is in agreeance that sopa can’t possible bring anything good.
piratebay will just go overseas where us jurisdiction doesn’t apply
piracy will still exist
and the interwebs as we know it will be ruined.
You’re 13/14 right? What do YOU know about politics? I’m only 16, and while I do have an opinion on this SOPA/PIPA Bill, I don’t really know enough about politics/economics to understand it. I doubt you understand it…
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Sure, be against it all you want. Just don’t expend too much energy and get your hopes up because they’re going to ram it up your… no matter what you want.
Control of the internet is too important to be done by anyone outside of the government. 
Thankfully there are some serious hackers out there that will play heck with this.
dont worry im not going to spend my whole weekend writing everywhere i can to stop SOPA i was just stating my opinion and asking for yours haha
Here is some things that we yoyoers and the entire community to be concerned and prepare for.
First and for most, with most yoyoers they tend to use copyrighted music for any of their videos on youtube, vimeo and any other form of sharing. Due to the copyright laws right now, youtube or vimeo will tend to either give you a type of 3 warnings and your account is terminated. The other possibility is they will place ads in said videos.
With SOPA possibily happening, record labels for the music can actually have the power to go to such extremes as to turn you into the police for copyright law, and could fine you up to $5,000 dollars or more AND possible jail time. You could have a record for just one single song used in a video.
Yoyo forums and blogs. One of the most informed ways of being able to share anything yoyo related like photography and videos. Forums and blogs like Yoyoskills can also be held accountable since according to SOPA, anyone that “shares” a link to said video with copyright music can be considered a criminal as well.
So what does that mean? Any forum, any blog, or facebook itself…anyone sharing a link of somekind that forum can be held account and can even be black listed so United States citizens can no longer see the website or be shutdown.
Think I am joking? Why do you think Facebook, twitter, tumblr, and Google are desperate to fight these dracian bills? Its absolutely ridiculously and then some.
While I am saying some harsh possibilities, with these bills in place they have such powers to do that. Don’t believe me? The Entertainment industry will do some disturbing low things, no doubt about it. Even to try and jail a 14 year old child for downloading one Brittany Spear song and forever smearing her name as a person.
For the future, yoyoers have to start wising up and use creative commons music and or whenever they use music, they try and get in contact with the Record labels in order to use that. Example for me is that I become good friends with some punk rock bands. I asked if they could allow me to use their music to which they told me to ask the record label. I briefly said something to them on their fanpage for facebook and they allowed me to use whatever I want.
This also effects of freestyle videos online as well as streaming freestyles. Contests organizers will have to try and buy the license for ALL the music at such a contest that is being used. This is going to raise holy heck on all levels for contest organizers across the United States. Its already difficult as it is for getting a venue, how will they be able to deal with that?
Will all record labels do that? Probably not. Not ones owned by the RIAA that is for sure.
Wise up guys. or else our videos will just be dead silence. For further discussion about this, check out Yoyoskills.com
Hadoq, to answer your question about how Yoyoexpert could be closed down.
Chris of Yoyoskills pretty much answered this question. SOPA will allow the entertainment industry to shutdown any website due to someone LINKING/SHARING a video with copyrighted music on it. This will will give them such powers of authority.
This is why google, facebook, tumblr and many other websites out there are very angry. People are starting to rise up and take notice of what is happening in the present day.
You may be right about how perhaps it is all a setup, but to be honest I do not believe that. Many people in our congress/government are a generation that can barely understand any computer terminology and therefore have no idea what they are doing or talking about.
One of the most disgusting things I heard of it was how it will supposedly be good for our economy and yet will cost so much ridiculous amounts of money.
Anyways, To Josh Yee: stare
~Z
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Useless fact of the day:
SOPA = Soup. PIPA = pipe (in the Spanish language).
SOPA will be turned to soup, PIPA will go down the pipes.
It’s definitely an ugly thing. While I don’t want to really make a duplicate thread (another one exists here: SOPA/PIPA and effects on yoyo community, and the greater internet - Unrelated Discussion - YoYoExpert), I did find it ironic that Lamar Smith, the brains behind SOPA is a hypocrite himself. His campaign site utilized someone else’s photo for the background, no credit given. So by any means, according to his proposal, he should be locked up for 5 years. He should be locked up for 5 years anyway for being a total idiot and attempt to neuter our interwebs and freedom of speech, expression, etc.
Is a dry bearing not musical enough for a trick video? 
j/k
[quote=“_Z1,post:36,topic:33980”]
The amount of times some old congressman said, “I’m no expert, but…” during the hearings was ridiculous.
While SOPA is terrible, some form of legislation to fight pirates is needed. I’ll illustrate how money goes around for websites that are dedicated to linking pirated content:
Advertisers pay services like google to put ads on these sites, the sites get money from google. So Google earns some money, the sites themselves are hauling in cash, and the advertisers are possible earning money from increased sales. The people who aren’t making money are the people who actually make the content.
This flow of money is what needs to be fixed. Sadly, SOPA won’t really fix any of it.
I have a theory:
Once congress figures out that they just got all their pron cut off, they’ll be repealing this. That and all their PTP music sites.
Let’s look at how well they’ve handled the whole spam situation. That was a whole fiasco and the passed laws have been rendered completely useless and are pretty much unenforceable. The problem here is that these new laws will take countless useless lawyers off the streets(from chasing ambulances) and into dealing with these new laws.