Access. The Stop Online Piracy Act: A Blacklist by Any Other Name Is Still a Blacklist. During the past week, momentum against the House’s draconian copyright bill has gained steam, as venture capitalists, Internet giants and major artists have denounced it for handing corporations unprecedented power to censor countless websites and stifle free speech. In response, the bill’s big-pocketed supporters have gone on the offensive, attempting to mislead the public about the bill’s true reach. In a particularly egregious example, the Chamber of Commerce posted an attack on its website insisting that the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is not a “blacklist bill. " Before they even saw the House bill, they started calling it the “New Internet Blacklist Bill.” Blacklist? Of course the word “blacklist” does not appear in the bill’s text—the folks who wrote it know Americans don’t approve of blatant censorship.
First, the new law would allow the Attorney General to cut off sites from the Internet, essentially “blacklisting” companies from doing business on the web. How PIPA and SOPA Violate White House Principles Supporting Free Speech and Innovation. Over the weekend, the Obama administration issued a potentially game-changing statement on the blacklist bills, saying it would oppose PIPA and SOPA as written, and drew an important line in the sand by emphasizing that it “will not support” any bill “that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet. " Yet, the fight is still far from over. Even though the New York Times reported that the White House statement "all but kill[s] current versions of the legislation," the Senate is still poised to bring PIPA to the floor next week, and we can expect SOPA proponents in the House to try to revive the legislation—unless they get the message that these initiatives must stop, now.
So let’s take a look at the dangerous provisions in the blacklist bills that would violate the White House’s own principles by damaging free speech, Internet security, and online innovation: The Anti-Circumvention Provision The “Vigilante” Provision. Fights for the Internet’s Future. Starting at midnight, Mozilla will join other leading Internet companies, public interest groups and citizens in opposing The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the US House of Representatives.
We’re censoring the Mozilla logo on many of our web sites as part of American Censorship Day and we sent Congressional leaders a joint letter together with AOL, eBay, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, Yahoo! , and Zynga raising our concerns with the bill. This marks the first time we’ve come together with these giants of the Internet on any policy issue.
The decision to inform legislators and users of our serious reservations with SOPA was a no-brainer and fell into place quickly over just a few days of discussion. For Mozilla, we see this as a fight for the future of the Internet. We encourage you to take action today and tell your Congressional representatives how you feel about SOPA! Here’s a copy of our letter to Congressional leaders: Don't Break the Internet - Stanford. Two bills now pending in Congress—the PROTECT IP Act of 2011 (Protect IP) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House—represent the latest legislative attempts to address a serious global problem: large-scale online copyright and trademark infringement. Although the bills differ in certain respects, they share an underlying approach and an enforcement philosophy that pose grave constitutional problems and that could have potentially disastrous consequences for the stability and security of the Internet’s addressing system, for the principle of interconnectivity that has helped drive the Internet’s extraordinary growth, and for free expression.
To begin with, the bills represent an unprecedented, legally sanctioned assault on the Internet’s critical technical infrastructure. Based upon nothing more than an application by a federal prosecutor alleging that a foreign website is “dedicated to infringing activities,” Protect IP authorizes courts to order all U.S. Dozens of law professors: PROTECT IP Act is unconstitutional. An ideologically diverse group of 90 law professors has signed a letter opposing the PROTECT IP Act, the Hollywood-backed copyright enforcement/Internet blacklist legislation now working its way through Congress. The letter argues that its domain-blocking provisions amount to Internet censorship that is barred by the First Amendment. Jointly authored by Mark Lemley, David Levine, and David Post, the letter is signed not only by prominent liberals like Larry Lessig and Yochai Benkler, but also by libertarians like Post and Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds.
"The Act would allow courts to order any Internet service to stop recognizing [a] site even on a temporary restraining order... issued the same day the complaint is filed," they write. Such a restraining order, which they describe as "the equivalent of an Internet death penalty," raises serious constitutional questions. The Supreme Court has held that it's unconstitutional to suppress speech without an "adversary proceeding. " Vint Cerf: SOPA means 'unprecedented censorship' of the Web. Vint Cerf, the legendary computer scientist who's known as one of the fathers of the Internet for his work on TCP/IP, is the latest technologist to oppose the Stop Online Piracy Act .
Cerf, a onetime DARPA program manager who went on to receive the Turing Award, sent a letter yesterday warning of the dangers of SOPA to its author, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas). The House Judiciary chairman, also Hollywood's favorite House Republican , has scheduled discussion of the bill to resume at 7a.m. PT tomorrow. Smith announced a revised version of SOPA earlier this week. SOPA represents the latest effort from the Motion Picture Association of America, the Recording Industry Association of America, and their allies to counter what they view as rampant piracy on the Internet, especially offshore sites such as ThePirateBay.org. Keep reading for the full text of Cerf's letter to Smith. December 14, 2011 The Honorable Lamar Smith Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary U.S. Dear Chairman Smith: Sincerely, Nancy Pelosi, Ron Paul join SOPA opposition.
We've already written about the wide variety of groups outside of Congress, including legal scholars, high-tech investors, and network engineers, that oppose the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its Senate counterpart, the PROTECT IP Act. More recently, we've seen growing opposition within Congress itself. The latest SOPA opponent: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). Reacting to a tweet from San Francisco resident Jeffrey Rodman, the San Francisco Democrat tweeted on Thursday that her colleagues "need to find a better solution than #SOPA. " She also urged Congress: "#DontBreakTheInternet. " And Pelosi is far from the only member of Congress opposed to the legislation.
SOPA, they write, is "overly broad and would cause serious and long term damage to the technology industry, one of the few bright spots in our economy. " Also opposed to the legislation is Rep. We haven't seen any reason to believe that Rep. Al Gore Comes Out Against SOPA/PIPA. NY Times & LA Times Both Come Out Against SOPA & PIPA. We've written a few times about how columnists at various mainstream press outlets have been speaking out against SOPA and PIPA, showing that the story is catching on in the mainstream media. However, some of our critics have complained that since these are just writers for those publications, it's unfair to suggest that the publication itself has come out. Okay... if that's the way you want it. Let's try this one on for size: the New York Times has officially come out against SOPA and PIPA.
No, not a columnist, but an official editorial, meaning that it's the official stance of the paper. The purpose of the legislation is to stop business flowing to foreign rogue Web sites like the Pirate Bay in Sweden. While most of the editorial focuses on SOPA, it also mentions that PROTECT IP "has serious problems that must be fixed. " The bill should be made to stipulate clearly that all of its provisions are aimed only at rogue Web sites overseas. Going After the Pirates. Piracy vs. an open Internet. To avoid the reach of U.S. copyright laws, numerous online pirates have set up shop in countries less willing or able to enforce intellectual property rights. Policymakers agree that these "rogue" sites pose a real problem for U.S. artists and rights holders who aren't getting paid for the rampant distribution of their music, movies and other creative works.
The question is how to help them. Lawmakers keep offering proposals, but they don't seem to be getting any closer to the right answer. The latest, HR 3261, comes from House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and a dozen co-sponsors. Dubbed the Stop Online Piracy Act, it's designed to isolate foreign websites that commit or "facilitate" willful copyright infringements by cutting off their funding and shrinking their U.S. audience. Both bills go to risky extremes, however, in their efforts to stop these sites from attracting an audience. Online piracy laws must preserve Web freedom. Egyptian anti-government bloggers work on their laptops from Tahrir Square during last year's uprising to oust Hosni Mubarak Ivan Sigal and Rebecca MacKinnon say Congress is mulling bills to stop online piracyLaws would make social media platforms proactively police for copyright violations, they sayThey say drafters mean to protect copyright, but effect will be to stifle dissentWriters: Laws should reflect Congress' stated aim to protect rights of Internet users globally Editor's note: Ivan Sigal is executive director and Rebecca MacKinnon is co-founder of Global Voices Online, an international citizen media network.
MacKinnon is also a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and author of the forthcoming book "Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom. " (CNN) -- One year ago, a Tunisian street vendor set himself on fire, igniting a storm of protest that toppled his country's oppressive government in less than a month. Ivan Sigal Rebecca MacKinnon. Why We're Against PIPA/SOPA And For the Internet. A Personal Democracy Media Editorial Last year, when Senator Patrick Leahy introduced the Protect IP Act (PIPA) and when House Judiciary Committee Chair Rep.
Lamar Smith introduced the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), they probably had no idea that they, along with a bipartisan group of cosponsors, would awaken a sleeping tiger. After all, the proposed legislation was fairly technical in nature and would cost the government little to implement. But in the days and weeks that followed, it has become exceedingly clear that Leahy and Smith and their allies in the entertainment industry misread the political landscape. Instead of a slam dunk designed to crack down on so-called "online piracy," the bills have backfired on Hollywood, fostering the emergence of a significant new force: a civic-business alliance to defend the freedom of online speech and sharing and to protect the basic values and structure of the open Internet.
Now lots of folks are joining in. This is exhilarating. Why We've Censored Wired.com. We’ve blacked out the headlines on our website homepage today as part of a global internet protest against two radical anti-piracy bills pending in Congress — legislation that threatens to usher in a chilling internet censorship regime here in the U.S. comparable in some ways to China’s “Great Firewall.” SOPA and PIPA, the bills in question, are in tactical retreat as this story goes live, but it is almost certain their backers are already planning the next round, in a process that will continue in one form or another ad infinitum.
Under the current wording of the measures, the Attorney General would have the power to order ISPs to block access to foreign-based sites suspected of trafficking in pirated and counterfeit goods; order search engines to delist the sites from their indexes; ban advertising on suspected sites; and block payment services from processing transactions for accused sites. If the same standards were applied to U.S. Photo: David Papazian/Corbis. Tim O’Reilly: Why I’m fighting SOPA. MC Hammer Speaks Out Against SOPA. How The Web Became a Political Force vs. SOPA. Good ideas aren’t enough. They need champions and constant vigilance, or Congress will take them from you. Many problems arise when your country’s legislature is consistently more responsive to its donors than its constituents. One of these problems is that simple good ideas can’t just be left alone to bask in their goodness.
The Internet is clearly a good idea — not tautologically good, but certainly one of the better things that’s happened to human communication and the spread of knowledge in recent centuries. But now some people in Congress who didn’t know what an MP3 was until their granddaughter got an iPod a few years ago, want to go and ruin the web to benefit a few reactionary trade groups who would prefer censorship to innovation. A bill that was introduced into the House last month, called the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), aims to penalize or eliminate websites that have pirated content, and the repercussions for Internet users could be far-reaching. The result?
SOPA vs Innovation and jobs.