Sopa what is happening

While the first point is more of a legal argument for most, the second point targets the masses. While SOPA is currently dead, the underlying issues are not. Another bill is likely to succeed SOPA implementing a new strategy to combat copyright infringement and counterfeit goods. The consensus amongst all is that greater protection measures should be employed to defend content creators. The disagreement lies in the implementation. A telling quote is that of respected Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak who is quoted in the Vancouver Sun on January 24 th as follows:.

They need to be protected. I am an inventor with patents and I understand the need for protection. I do have strong feelings that what SOPA is trying to do is proper and needed.

It gives them far too much power. It looks like the electronic version of the Patriot Act, which I am also against. Our own civil liberties and constitutional rights would be trampled again. This sentiment seems to be echoed by the majority of the parties involved in that the ideal of superior intellectual property protection should not be achieved by restricting internet neutrality and fundamental rights.

That's why we call these the censorship bills. The bills, she says, are the creation of the entertainment, or "content", industries: "Sopa, in particular, was negotiated without any consultation with the technology sector.

They were specifically excluded. He said in a December House judiciary committee hearing, "We're basically going to reconfigure the Internet and how it's going to work, without bringing in the nerds.

Pipa sponsor Senator Patrick Leahy Democrat, Vermont said in a press release, "Much of what has been claimed about [Pipa] is flatly wrong and seems intended more to stoke fear and concern than to shed light or foster workable solutions. Said Dodd of the broadbased, grassroots internet protest, "It's a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts to incite their users in order to further their corporate interests.

People are really rising up and saying: 'Don't interfere with basic Internet infrastructure. We won't stand for it. As the internet blackout protest progressed 18 January, and despite Dodd's lobbying, legislators began retreating from support for the bills. The internet roared, and the politicians listened , reminiscent of the popular uprising against media consolidation in proposed by then Federal Communications Commission chairman Michael Powell, the son of General Colin Powell.

Information is the currency of democracy, and people will not sit still as moneyed interests try to deny them access. When internet users visited the sixth-most popular website on the planet during the protest blackout, the English-language section of Wikipedia , they found this message:.

Or can you? Quick question: all of the ways to do our part to help stop this, seem to be for Americans only. Yeah, and if this is the case, then, they are killing the entertainment industry, not supporting it.

So, businesses outside the U. I encourage anyone reading this to join or publicly support any movement for limiting corporate power. The occupy movement would be a good start — the people who arguably fight debt and financial speculation, which is another side of the same coin.

Thanks Sonia for bringing this up. I think SOPA is the perfect way to stifle innovation at a time when our economy and country needs it the most.

Thank you for the introduction and summary of this topic. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. Yup, and look online what happened to Go Daddy also. Does that mean that if every American were to point to some DNS servers that are in another country, then we could all effectively avoid this issue altogether?

What Chaim says. I suppose this is quite what John Gilmore was talking about. The idea behind SOPA sounds unreasonable. This bill is a particular threat to New York City, and will greatly affect the up and coming tech industry. Brad is joining Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanan and other tech industry leaders next week to testify against SOPA in front of congress.

This article gives a preview of what he will say next week. If you have good contents, accept the fact that you will be going to be pirated in one way or another. If it is not the case, you will never be popular as you expected. To site a good example. Windows can be easily pirated, and windows dominated the O. If one artist become so popular today, it is because it spreads very fast thru pirating process, though not always the case.

I wrote my Congresswoman about the issue. To her credit, she did reply to me, but her response seemed completely out of touch with all of the issues outlined here. Brian, hats off for writing as it is the right thing to do. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out? Get the money out and suddenly things will start to look a bit more reasonable.

These acts just seem stupid and a waste. But I think there are a few other ways like focusing on developing the IPs that are overly involved with the acts of piracy and being able to shut them down that we can move around this very thing and be able to have an appropriate way to ensure that things go smoothly and can the real pirates in the process. A well argued article. As, from what I have observed, the support for this bill tends to be founded in the assumption that pirates need to be forced to stop, instead of motivated to buy.

Small effort on my part, but my small voice joined with others to up the volume on an important issue. I must also add that one does NOT need the internet to pirate anything the entertainment industry is complaining about. Bootlegging existed long before the internet.

Which leads me to believe this is really about something else…. Incidentally, my blog is non-profit, fact-based and aimed at providing research information to the public about politics and current events.

I have been scrupulous about linking and attributing original sources- far more than most sites. According to the email. According the email, a full explanation of the complaint without the identity of the complainant could be found at a linked site. That link was not working. I was told that I was perfectly free to delete the alleged copyrighted material despite the fair use protections that should have applied and I could re-post.

However, since I have no clue where exactly the problems lies, I have no idea what to remove and what to keep. The email also adds that should I chose to repost without removing the material, my entire site could be banned and legal action could be taken.

With heavy handed threats like this, is this NOT censorship? Another link found on the email. However, the information there advised me to contact legal counsel and that, should I chose to file a challenger, my personal contact information would be given to the original complainant!

Most people I know do not have the time nor the financial resources to hire a personal legal team to defend their freedom of speech. Had the original accuser contacted me directly and informed me of the offending material, I would certainly have given careful consideration to the request.

Photos could be removed. Even quotes which are, in fact linked to their original sources could be summarized and paraphrased or shortened. No problem. Copyright violation was merely the excuse to silence. SOPA and all of the alphabet soup legislation will be one step on the same path, make no mistake.

SOPA will never stand a chance, except maybe picking on the little guys, at times. Sopa is just a fantasy. And what about Facebook? How are they going to control what people are going to share, if is copyrighted or not? Will they employ guardians manually scanning the posts on Facebook and Twitter in search for copyrighted content? No matter how much damage a government might want to do to the Internet, there is a limit.

The Internet is a power on its own, and unless they shut down the Internet, there is not much to do about it. Skip to primary navigation Skip to content Skip to primary sidebar. Maybe you believe that the internet has always found a way around censorship and always will. Problem 7: It backs the wrong horse The entertainment business adds lots of dollars to our economy.

As John Gilmore once said, The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. Your website being blocked to access by your customers. An immediate loss of revenue as PayPal or your merchant account stops sending you the money customers have paid you for your legitimate product or service. Lengthy and expensive legal battles despite the fact that you have done nothing wrong. But they will happen to some.

What you should do next I totally get that you may have neither the time nor the inclination to do a lot of political activism around this. How do they plan on doing that? It will be interesting to see what economic damage is done when Google is turned off. And for the purposes of this law, they will see Canada as part of the US.

Thanks for writing about this. I dropped Sens. Kerry and Brown a note. Thanks for the info. Glad to see Copyblogger take a stand on this. Probably the same with the emails now.