background preloader

SOPA/PIPA

Facebook Twitter

DNS provision pulled from SOPA, victory for opponents | Media Maverick. In a move the technology sector will surely see as a victory, a controversial antipiracy bill being debated in Congress will no longer include a provision that would require Internet service providers to block access to overseas Web sites accused of piracy. Rep. Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas), one of the biggest backers of the Stop Online Piracy Act, today said he plans to remove the Domain Name System requirements from the Stop Online Piracy Act .

"After consultation with industry groups across the country," Smith said in a statement released by his office, "I feel we should remove DNS-blocking from the Stop Online Piracy Act so that the [U.S. House Judiciary] Committee can further examine the issues surrounding this provision. "We will continue to look for ways," Smith continued, "to ensure that foreign Web sites cannot sell and distribute illegal content to U.S. consumers. " Smith's decision comes a day after Sen. "Saying no to debating the [Pro IP Act] hurts the economy," Leahy wrote. The SOPA and How it Can Effect Online Businesses.

CevherShare If you spend a lot of time using the internet as a source for media, whether it is news, sports, music, movies, blogs, or any of the thousands of forms of information now available, then you have likely run into the discussion about the SOPA. In today’s blog post we will discuss what it is and how it can effect regular users like you.

Here’s how Wikipedia explains the bill: The originally proposed bill would allow the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as copyright holders, to seek court orders against websites accused of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement. Depending on who requests the court orders, the actions could include barring online advertising networks and payment facilitators such as PayPal from doing business with the allegedly infringing website, barring search engines from linking to such sites, and requiring Internet service providers to block access to such sites. Tagged as: google, organic ranking, search, seo, sopa. SOPA is for lazy companies and campaign donations — not piracy prevention | VentureBeat. Behind SOPA: What It Means for Business and Innovation.

Defend the Internet. A Businessperson’s SOPA Primer | Avoiding a Goat Rodeo. If you own or operate a small business you need to know about SOPA. You need to understand how it can affect your business and what you can do should you agree with many citizens of the web that it is bad legislation. The “Stop Online Piracy Act”[1] is a bad piece of legislation and it is up to all of us to let Congress know we won’t stand for it. This article gives a non-partisan, non-technical, business oriented look at the major problems with the bill. It then calls them to action in protecting this bill.

If DMCA was a hammer, SOPA is a Jack-hammer In 1998, President Bill Clinton signed the “Digital Millennium Copyright Act” (DCMA) into law. The important thing to note is that Warner admitted to sending incorrect takedown notices without apology. These are two of many egregious abused of the DMCA. Artists don’t need SOPA, Media Companies Do Large media associations like the RIAA and the MPAA want you to believe that they are doing this to protect artists’ rights. Rep. Call to Action. Sopainternet.png (PNG Image, 972x5500 pixels) Sen. Wyden proposes alternative to SOPA.

What SOPA means for business & innovation (infographic) Several tech companies and online communities have come out against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a recently proposed piece of legislation that many feel will bring unnecessary censorship to the web. But much less attention has been given to how the bill will affect the overall landscape of business and innovation. The bill, introduced by Rep. Lamar Smith in late October, gives both the U.S. government and copyright holders the authority to seek court orders against websites associated with infringing, pirating and/or counterfeiting intellectual property.

So for example, a website that provides a collection of links to sites that illegally stream copyrighted video content could get shut down and taken to court under SOPA, despite the fact that the site isn’t streaming the content itself. If the government had the sole responsibility of policing websites that violated copyrighted intellectual property, it would be a much different scenario. The U.S. The Myth That SOPA & PIPA Will Stop Infringement By 'Educating' The Public. One of the key arguments we've heard about SOPA and PIPA in defending the fact that dedicated infringers will always find their way around the blocks to continue infringing, is that it's really intended as an "educational" mechanism, based on the assumption that people going to certain "rogue sites" don't know they're rogue -- but with a big DOJ banner, perhaps they'll be educated.

This has never made much sense, frankly. The entertainment industry has been betting its legacy business model for quite some time on the myth that all it takes is a little "education" to fix things. Multiple studies have shown that nothing is further from the truth. People who infringe know they're infringing. And they still do it. Education won't make a lick of difference. As Vixie notes, "from a high level policy perspective... we really can put "unintended infringer" into the "myth" category. " PIPA/SOPA: Responding to Critics and Finding a Path Forward. Intellectual property (IP) infringement on the Internet is not limited to digital content. Counterfeit goods, often of poor quality, are widely available online through retail websites and online auctions. Counterfeiters sell goods such as infant formula or baby shampoo that expose young children to serious health risks.

Illegal online pharmacies sell counterfeit prescription and non-prescription drugs to consumers for a variety of health conditions. At best, these drugs may simply be ineffective; at worst, they can be harmful, or even lethal, to consumers. Consumers shopping online may inadvertently purchase counterfeit goods, especially luxury goods such as jewelry, cosmetics, handbags, garments and shoes. Often these products are sold on sites that appear legitimate, charge reasonable prices, and may even link to the customer service of the brand owner.

PIPA/SOPA has generated considerable controversy, much of it driven by false or misleading information. Official list of SOPA supporters includes the X-Men, bible publishers & country music. The U.S. House judiciary committee responsible for the Stop Online Piracy Act (or SOPA) has released a list of companies (PDF) that have publicly expressed their support for the legislation. SOPA gives both the U.S. government and copyright holders the authority to seek court orders against websites associated with infringing, pirating and/or counterfeiting intellectual property. The implication of having the bill pass is that it could drastically change the way the Internet operates. For example, if a website is accused of containing copyright-infringing content (such as a song, picture or video clip), the site could be blocked by ISPs, de-indexed from search engines and even prevented from doing business with companies like PayPal.

However, as the judiciary committee’s list shows, 142 companies and organizations publicly support the act. The list is dominated by music labels, book publishers, television networks and movie studios. Alexander Howard: What You Need to Know About the Stop Online Piracy Act in 2012. A colleague asked me today for a crash course on the "Stop Online Privacy Act" (SOPA). I sent him my feature at the O'Reilly Radar, where I wrote about how Congress is considering anti-piracy bills that could cripple Internet industries and harm digital innovation.

The thing is, that post is about 6,000 words long and is now a month out of date. So here's the briefing I sent back. First, you should know the major players in the House of Representatives: Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX), chairman of House Judiciary Committee. His staffers had a major hand in drafting it.

He supports it. So do Reps. Who else supports SOPA? Who's against SOPA? Rep. Key counterproposal: An "OPEN" bill from Rep. Prospects for SOPA: mixed. On the other hand, there have been significant cybersecurity concerns raised about the bills because of what it would do to DNSSEC, including by DHS officials. Need to stay up to date on SOPA? What's the date of next markup? Other key date: Jan. 24. Sopainternet.png (PNG Image, 972x5500 pixels)