Stop Online Piracy Act

[Anthony]

Almost all the Germans I have spoken too seem to know quite a bit more than most US citizens about how horrible the Nazi's were, but I guess I did meet my friends in College environments.

[Fe 26]

You'd be surprised how little people under 25 know about ww2 in germany. A lot of them either don't know about the holocaust or think it was small and isolated. bbobb can tell you more about what the average japanese person knows about ww2.

Take Mein Kampf for example. Bavaria currently owns the copyright to the book. They have refused to allow it to be printed AND they have tried to make all other nations recognize their copyright and force them to not print it as well. Mein Kampf gives a pretty good picture of Hitler and what he wanted. And it contains many lines referencing his "Ultimate solution" This instance, combined with many other instances of german law and censorship create a distorted image of Germany in WW2 for the german people.

This can create real problems. An equivalent problem would be how Southern high school books tend to ignore the period of slavery right before the banning of the slave trade from outside countries. Right before that period, it was cheaper to buy slaves from ports than to house them humanely. So many business owners would literally work them to death and then go to a port and buy new ones as needed. Southern History books tend to focus on the period after the ban where slave worth jumped up and they were treated fairly well, as they were then seen as an asset that could be sold for a profit.

The result is that many southern people don't think slavery was as bad as it was. Which has an impact on how they see social problems and other political matters.

Whitewashing history and censoring little important tidbits can have a lasting and dangerous impact on future politics.


EDIT: I know TNL is going to TNL and take Anthony's word over mine. But I'm really not talking out my ass.

You can scroll down to the part about current availability. It says everything I've said about how Germany has used copyright law to censor the book. And you can read other pages about the level of censorship about the war in germany.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mein_Ka...t_availability

And this law has been used to keep a lot of other books from being reprinted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strafge...ch_section_86a

[Fe 26]

Almost all the Germans I have spoken too seem to know quite a bit more than most US citizens about how horrible the Nazi's were, but I guess I did meet my friends in College environments.

What kind of people were they, and how old? A lot of the people I talked to didn't know a whole lot about it with the exception being history majors and nerds. People that new how to work a computer and had the desire could easily get around book bans.

[No One]

Almost all the Germans I have spoken too seem to know quite a bit more than most US citizens about how horrible the Nazi's were, but I guess I did meet my friends in College environments.

Oh, I've no doubt. It's a relatively recent event in world history. Even if they managed to suppress every mention of it across all forms of media (which they haven't, nor do they try to), there are still survivors and/or their direct descendents to pass on the oral history. Are they open about it? No, and I think it's unreasonable to expect them to be. It's a source of national disgrace. Is the US upfront about My Lai or No Gun Ri? I'm fairly certain there really are whole generations here that are unaware those things ever happened.

[Fe 26]

They do censor ww2 related things a lot. WW2 games all have to be edited before release in germany. Inglorious Bastards had to be edited. I think Downfall may have received little or zero editing but only because how negatively it represents the 3rd Reich and was concluded that it could in no way be used to promote nazism.

[No One]

They do censor ww2 related things a lot. WW2 games all have to be edited before release in germany. Inglorious Bastards had to be edited. I think Downfall may have received little or zero editing but only because how negatively it represents the 3rd Reich and was concluded that it could in no way be used to promote nazism.

I'm well aware of this. However, your initial statement inferred that generations of the German people are unaware of their recent history, in part because documents from that era aren't in the public domain. The second part of your statement is true; it's the broad generalization preceding it, apparently based on anecdotal evidence, that I take issue with. I think the people you talked to probably should have paid better attention in school.

[Nash]

Other countries use their copy right law to censor their own people.

That's irrelevant.

[gameoverDude]

To hell with the Berne Convention. We don't need to HARMonize to other countries' laws.

Fuck Hollywood and Chris Dodd on their stance against Obama. He doesn't need those arrogant suits. I'm sure the tech companies will make up the financial support that the MPAA Empire will be withdrawing. Ron Paul's position against SOPA came as no surprise. Even Romney and all other Republican nominee candidates are with him on this.
Mitt Romney: SOPA Is a Threat to Freedom of Speech

Rupert Murdoch needs to go down hard for his role in the News Corp phone hacking scandal. RM calls Google a piracy abettor. Google fights pirates- just not with the sharia bullshit methods that Murdoch would like. The DMCA should be enough in itself, and its "Safe Harbor" exists for fairness' sake.

Spain has adopted a new law very similar to SOPA. Copyright sharia indeed.

[Thief Silver]

America told Spain to adopt that too!

[Diff-chan]

Chill out.