us opposition to SOPA
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SOPA and You - The Internet Should Be Free
SOPA and You - The Internet Should Be Free As if you were going to be surprised on which side I came down on this one. Even if I get a paycheck from a Hollywood studio, I just can't fathom any reason why we should take steps towards a world like China and block, limit or restrict where and what people see on the internet in America. We are, after all, home of the brave and land of the free. But with that said, I'm going off the assumption that you even know what the fuck I'm talking about when I say SOPA or NDAA is.Turntable.fm's Clever Anti-SOPA Protest
Even new social music streaming startup Turntable.fm is in on protests against the Stop Online Piracy Act and its companion Senate bill, the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act. In the screenshot above, the laptops before each avatar would normally have the logo of the user's operating system — Mac, Windows, Ubuntu and so on. But the service has modified its user experience so that the logo sprites are replaced with an an anti-SOPA and anti-PIPA logo. Turntable has also "redacted" its own logo. <p style="text-align:right;color:#A8A8A8"></p>
Though Facebook itself hasn’t made much of a public stance for or against SOPA and PIPA, it’s safe to say that the company has now made its feelings known, through the words of its CEO. Mark Zuckerberg, on his personal Facebook profile , has stated the following: “The internet is the most powerful tool we have for creating a more open and connected world. We can’t let poorly thought out laws get in the way of the internet’s development. Facebook opposes SOPA and PIPA, and we will continue to oppose any laws that will hurt the internet.” Zuck then continues with his thoughts, saying that we need better representation in Government:
Zuckerberg comes out against SOPA on Facebook, gets 75k likes in 10 minutes
Red 5 Starts League For Gamers as Alternative to ESA, to Fight SOPA/PIPA
Red 5 Studios, and its CEO Mark Kern, have announced a pledge of $50,000 and the creation of the League for Gamers (LFG) , a new organization dedicated to fighting SOPA and PIPA and to bring members of the gaming community together as an alternative to the ESA (Entertainment Software Association and their Video Game Voters Network, VGVN. This is in response to the ESA funding and supporting both SOPA and PIPA which the LFG believes is not in the best interest of gamers or companies in the long run. President Obama said from the White House the SOPA bill was ’draconian’ and he will not support it. Red 5 will shut down Firefall and its website on January 18th in a 24 hour show of solidarity, encouraging gamers, developers and all industry supporters to join LFG and stand together against misguided and overbearing legislative initiatives such as SOPA, (Stop Online Privacy Act), and PIPA, (Protect IP), in order to perpetuate and continue industry growth.
ITIF against SOPA
Opponent says SOPA may be stalled in Congress
News By Grant Gross January 16, 2012 01:30 PM ET IDG News Service - Controversial online copyright enforcement bill the Stop Online Piracy Act may be stalled in the U.S. House of Representatives as lawmakers try to iron out a compromise, an opponent of the legislation said. Representative Darrell Issa, a California Republican, said he's been assured by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor that SOPA will not move forward unless consensus is reached.
Tim O'Reilly As the debate about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) rages on from Silicon Valley to Washington DC, a number of the technology industry’s most influential leaders have come out against the proposed legislation, which would give the government and private corporations unprecedented powers to remove websites from the internet for any alleged copyright infringement. On Thursday, I interviewed Tim O’Reilly about why he believes SOPA is wrong and what the tech industry can do to stop it. His concerns fell into five main categories: Piracy is not a real problem The way I see it, there’s a lack of need for any legislation at all.
Tim O’Reilly: Why I’m fighting SOPA
Laurence Tribe against SOPA
Cambridge, Mass - SOPA - the Stop Online Piracy Act - and a sister bill, PIPA - the Protect IP Act - seek to minimise the dissemination of copyrighted material online by targeting sites that promote and enable the sharing of copyright-protected material, like The Pirate Bay. While this goal may be laudable, entrepreneurs, legal scholars and free speech activists are worried about the consequences of these bills for the architecture of the internet. At the MIT Media Lab, we share those concerns, and we oppose SOPA and PIPA as threats to innovation on the internet. To limit access to rogue sites, SOPA and PIPA would:
Why we need to stop SOPA and PIPA
Internet Experts to Testify on SOPA at Congressional Hearing
Cyberspace analysts and experts now have the chance to take the stand on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in Congress. SOPA’s passage as a US law is under constant debate among drivers, mostly high-profile media companies, and antagonists and now news broke out that online tech experts would finally get their say on the controversial bill. On January 18, witnesses will testify at the congressional hearing headed by US House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. “An open Internet is crucial to American job creation, government operations, and the daily routines of Americans from all walks of life,” said Darrell Issa, head of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. “The public deserves a full discussion about the consequences of changing the way Americans access information and communicate on the Internet today.”
In a statement from his office Thursday evening, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D - Vt.), who co-authored the current version of the PROTECT-IP bill (also known as PIPA) along with Sen. Orrin Hatch (R - Utah), said he is now willing to set aside the most controversial aspect of the anti-piracy legislation currently under discussion.
Breaking: Leahy Recommends Setting Aside Controversial PROTECT-IP Court Provision
MC Hammer Speaks Out Against SOPA
MC Hammer , rap phenomenon and self-confessed geek, doesn’t want Congress to pass the pending SOPA and PIPA bills. Hammer has been very active on Twitter posting anti-SOPA messages and was one of the first to use the blackoutsopa service to change his profile picture. While blacked out pictures will do little to change the positions of lawmakers, it does help to raise awareness for the general message. You can’t touch this… This post is from the News Bits section of TorrentFreak where we present stories from around the web in a concise summary format. Full TorrentFreak articles can be found here .
Reddit Going Dark Jan. 18 to Protest SOPA
LAS VEGAS—Reddit on Tuesday announced plans for a Web site blackout on Jan. 18 in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act and its Senate companion, the PROTECT IP Act. From 8am to 8pm Eastern next Wednesday, Reddit.com will display nothing but information about SOPA. "Instead of the normal glorious, user-curated chaos of reddit, we will be displaying a simple message about how the PIPA/SOPA legislation would shut down sites like reddit, link to resources to learn more, and suggest ways to take action," the site said in a blog post . SOPA would expand the ability of the Justice Department to go after "rogue" Web sites overseas that traffic in fake goods like counterfeit purses or prescription drugs. According to the bill's sponsor, Rep.Well, check this out. Al Gore has come out strongly against SOPA and PIPA , angrily denouncing the bill and its supporters. It's a quick 2-minute video taken at a CareerBuilder event, and it's in response to an audience question. The actual question isn't heard in the video, but he's clearly talking about SOPA/PIPA and appears to be well-informed on the issue: A quick transcript (the very beginning is cut off, so it comes in mid-sentence):
Al Gore Comes Out Against SOPA/PIPA
At 9:30pm PST on February 11, US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) seized the domain mooo.com. They ordered the domain name's registrar to redirect all traffic headed for mooo.com to a government IP address, one which displayed a single stark warning that the domain name had been seized for involvement with child pornography.
Silicon Valley Congresswoman: Web seizures trample due process (and break the law)
Google's Sergey Brin, left, says SOPA would put the U.S. "on par with most oppressive nations in the world." Even as Congress vacations, opposition to online piracy act bubbles online SOPA would crack down on rogue sites by letting government shut them down Critics fear that the bill would crush online freedom (CNN) -- Members of Congress may be on vacation, but that hasn't calmed critics who say an effort to stamp out online piracy would create an unprecedented threat to free speech on the Internet.
With Congress on break, SOPA fight continues
Daniel Castro of The Information Technology & Innovation Fund recently published a paper supporting the Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA) currently being debated in congress. In that report, he claims that research performed by us supports the domain name system (DNS) filtering mechanisms mandated by SOPA. This claim is a distortion of our work.
Hal Roberts / Our Circumvention Research Does Not Support SOPA
list SOPA supporters