PROTECT IP Act Breaks The Internet. Summary, problems and implications. Looks like Congress has declared war on the internet. Firewall Law Could Infringe on Free Speech. Free Speech's Weak Links Under Internet Blacklist Bills. The Internet Blacklist bills — the House’s Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Senate’s PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) — would have a disastrous effect on online freedom of speech. In order to understand the ways a site placed on the blacklist could be denied a chance to connect with an audience, we’ve used our Free Speech is Only as Strong as the Weakest Link chart. The Internet Blacklist bills would subject non-domestic platforms and webhosts to the possibility of court injunctions that could require to payment interruptions or even DNS blocking in the U.S.
Preparing for and responding to this legal action would be expensive, and would create an incentive for those platforms to impose more restrictions on user uploads. Further, platforms that haven't yet been developed will have more difficulty getting off the ground without a legal team. Under the Internet Blacklist Legislation search engines would be required to remove blacklisted sites from their results.
Constitutional Scholars Explain Why SOPA & PROTECT IP Do Not Pass First Amendment Scrutiny. Obama administration joins the ranks of SOPA skeptics. The Obama administration has joined the ranks of skeptics of the Stop Online Piracy Act. In an online statement released Saturday, three senior White House officials wrote that the administration "will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet. " The statement was made in response to a petition on the White House's "we the people" site asking the president to veto SOPA if it reached his desk.
The officials—IP enforcement coordinator Victoria Espinel, CTO Aneesh Chopra, and cybersecurity coordinator Howard Schmidt—did not commit the president to vetoing SOPA. However, they laid out criteria for an anti-piracy bill that seems to clearly rule out SOPA and the Senate's Protect IP Act in their current form. The White House seems most concerned with DNS-blocking, which is becoming the red-headed stepchild of SOPA provisions.
Issa hearing postponed Meanwhile, Rep. Under voter pressure, members of Congress backpedal (hard) on SOPA. The public outcry over the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act seems to have gotten so loud that even members of Congress can hear it. On Thursday we covered the news that Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) was expressing second thoughts about SOPA's DNS provisions. He said he changed his mind after he "heard from a number of Vermonters" on the issue. On Friday, several Republicans started backpedaling as well. SOPA sponsor Lamar Smith (R-TX) announced that he would be pulling the DNS-blocking provisions from his own bill. Meanwhile, six GOP senators who served on the Senate Judiciary Committee (which unanimously approved the legislation last year) wrote a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid asking him to postpone a vote on PIPA to give them more time to study the legislation.
"We strongly believe that the theft of American intellectual property is a significant problem that must be addressed," they wrote. Another member of Congress that has been feeling the heat from voters is Rep. House Kills SOPA - PIPA still alive ! In a surprise move today, Representative Eric Cantor(R-VA) announced that he will stop all action on SOPA, effectively killing the bill. This move was most likely due to several things. One of those things is that SOPA and PIPA met huge online protest against the bills. Another reason would be that the White House threatened to veto the bill if it had passed. However, it isn't quite time yet to celebrate, as PIPA(the Senate's version of SOPA) is still up for consideration. The online protests about the bill were surprising and large. They ranged anywhere from callng Representatives, companies, and senators to get them to change their mind, to actively moving domain's away from and targeting the business model of the companies that supported/lobbied for the bill.
PIPA is less well known than SOPA, but the provisions are basicly the same. New update: Henry reid and Lamar Smith have also stated that they are placing indefinite holds on the bills as well. So, what are your thoughts? PIPA Senate vote to be delayed, Reid announces. Posted at 11:16 AM ET, 01/20/2012 Jan 20, 2012 04:16 PM EST TheWashingtonPost Update, 11:16 a.m.: Rep. “I have heard from the critics and I take seriously their concerns regarding proposed legislation to address the problem of online piracy,” Smith said in a statement. Senate Majority Leader Harry M.
In a statement, Reid said he would delay the vote scheduled for Tuesday to begin consideration until the Senate Judiciary Committee could make more progress. The announcement by Reid comes two days after Wikipedia, Reddit and other prominent Web sites protested the planned vote by blacking out their sites -- a move that drew widespread attention and spurred a swift reaction from many lawmakers who had previously been supportive of or ambivalent toward the anti-piracy measures.
Among the lawmakers who reversed their positions on the measures was Sen. Reid’s full statement is below: “In light of recent events, I have decided to postpone Tuesday’s vote on the PROTECT I.P. The Fix: S.C. SOPA and PIPA prompt Reddit, Mozilla, and 73 others to ask Congress to halt work on intellectual property laws. We are the media, and so are you. Change like this needed a fresh set of voices.
The established tech giants may have newfound political influence, but their fights are still the same closed-door tussles over minor details. They have been at the table, and they have too much invested in the process to change it. More important, they are constrained by obligations to their shareholders and investors, as well as by the need to maintain relationships with their advertisers, partners and customers. Wikipedia, its users and its contributors don’t have the same constraints.
We don’t rely on advertising dollars or content partnerships. The billions of words and millions of images in our projects come from the same place as our financial support: the voluntary contribution of millions of individuals. The result is free knowledge, available for anyone to read and reuse. Wikipedia is not opposed to the rights of creators — we have the largest collection of creators in human history. Because we are the media industry.
Take Action. Companies pro SOPA. Examples of Consequences. Politicians and SOPA. Previously known as COICA. SOPA architect now pushing for “IP Attaché” legislation. Another week, another controversial intellectual property enforcement bill hits Capitol Hill. This time, it’s called the IP Attaché Act, and while a draft bill has been released so far, it hasn’t officially been introduced in Congress. The bill, its proponents say, "streamlines" the process of intellectual property enforcement abroad.
Meanwhile, opponents charge that this is wholly unnecessary, given the myriad of federal agencies that already do this, in addition to the fact that this bill has been drafted in secret. Some media outlets have charged that this new bill is a way to re-introduce SOPA, the controversial bill that died in Congress earlier this year. Indeed, this bill is sponsored chiefly by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), who also was one of the primary architects of SOPA. Strong copyright for all Those officers would then ultimately report to a new Commerce position, called the "Assistant Secretary for Intellectual Property," which would be appointed by the President.
Internet Freedom Day.