Amplifier : SOPA/PIPA have been shelved, but ACTA is even more freedom-restricting. SOPA and PIPA: you’ve probably heard of them by now. They have become famous on the internet for attempting to restrict our freedom, and censor websites. More light was shed on the two bills after the internet-wide blackout on Jan. 18. In the blackout, major sites such as Google, Wikipedia, Reddit and Mozilla completely shut down or posted banners about the bills. On Jan. 19, 18 more senators withdrew their support, bringing the total number of senators opposed to 205. After this, SOPA/PIPA were indefinitely shelved. Now there is a new trade agreement that has come to many wary internet-goers’ attention: the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.
ACTA is attempting to alter the idea of internet as we know it, worldwide. So far, over 20 countries have already signed the bill, including the United Kingdom, the United States, and Japan, many of these behind closed doors. If you want to help stop ACTA, there are a few things that can be done. The Newest American Startup Hub. What’s the city with the largest venture capital fund, a rumored daily deal IPO of massive proportions, and the fifth largest amount of venture capital in the United States? While locals have become accustomed to Washington D.C.’s massive tech upheaval, this “northern city with southern charm” is surprising outsiders as a burgeoning startup hub. In December 2010, we gave you a list of 10 D.C. startups to look out for, whether the companies were the most profitable or had raised the most money, garnered the most buzz or were the most visionary. Since then, numerous media outlets have reported on D.C.’s massive growth, relative to other U.S.
Cities. In fact, in October of 2011, Bloomberg News reported that employee earnings in Washington D.C. made the U.S. capital richer than Silicon Valley. Companies that Pop The capital city has billion dollar startups, M&A, and fast-growing mid-size companies. Abundant Venture Capital It’s All in the Family Douglas Litchfield via shutterstock. Resistance to sopa. SOPA: Stop Online Piracy Act [Infographic] SOPA In Infographic Format. SOPA PIPA Internet Censorship. #SOPA. SOPA.
Once More, With Feeling: It Wasn't Silicon Valley Or Google That Stopped SOPA/PIPA, It Was The Internet. Over the last week, after SOPA and PIPA were put on life support, we've noticed an incredibly tone deaf response from the supporters of these bills, lashing out at the wrong parties and trying to figure out where to place the blame. The usual target has been "the tech industry," by which they usually mean "Google. " That's why the MPAA's Chris Dodd wants to sit down with "tech companies" at the White House to discuss this. It's why the head of the movie theaters' lobbying group, NATO, brushes this whole thing off as Google "flexing" its muscles. As we've said all along, that not only misses the point, and is totally tone deaf to what happened, but it pretty much guarantees the wrong response from supporters of the bill. Larry Downes has a great piece over at Forbes making this point and tracing back who really "stopped" SOPA and PIPA (full disclaimer: Downes gives me unnecessarily nice billing in the piece, providing too much credit for my early coverage of the bills).
The Feds Just Took Down Megaupload And Did It Without SOPA. Patrick Ruffini: Beyond SOPA: A New Birth of Internet Freedom. The first TV signals were beamed from the New York's World Fair in 1939, but it took until 1952 -- and arguably 1960 -- for television to make a difference in who we elected. The promise of the Internet to transform politics was hyped in its early days, but not until 2008 did one campaign, Barack Obama's, so thoroughly master the medium did it help decide a presidential election. And not until Wednesday's blackout did the Internet truly and finally bring its power to bear on the the problem of governance in Washington, D.C. -- leading to the demise of both the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act for the foreseeable future.
The impact of disruptive innovations don't manifest themselves overnight. In each of the cases cited above, it took 15 years or more for their world-changing impact to become apparent. Moving forward, there will be a temptation to conclude that Silicon Valley needs to play the inside game better. SOPA and PIPA were not about right vs. left. 26 New Senators Oppose PIPA After Yesterday's Protests. SOPA and PIPA 2012. SOPA/PIPA. CISPA / TPP / ACTA / SOPA / PIPA / COICA. SOPA / PIPA. SOPA, PIPA Opponents Prepare for Capitol Hill Piracy Showdown CIO. CIO — Opponents of controversial anti-piracy legislation are gearing up for a major fight in both the House and the Senate as they press for support for an alternative bill they say would avoid draconian measures that, if enacted, could create major security vulnerabilities in the architecture of the Internet.
The two lawmakers leading the charge, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), took to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week to press their case — a fitting setting, as the mammoth trade show gives an annual coming out party for tech firms' latest innovations. "We have been teaming up on this and have been working on this for some time," Wyden said of his partnership with Issa, who in turn added that the two "in many ways are not predictable partners. " Continue Reading. Readers react to SOPA/PIPA - In Depth.
SOPA STRIKE - Largest online protest in history - January 18 - blackout your site.
Mozilla, Firefox join anti-SOPA strike. News January 18, 2012 06:26 AM ET Computerworld - Mozilla, the open-source organization responsible for Firefox, joined other major technology companies today to protest anti-piracy legislation by blackening the browser's home page. From 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. ET, Firefox's default home page -- essentially a search field for Google -- will change from its usual white background with the Firefox logo to a blacked-out version displaying a modified graphic emblazoned with "Stop Censorship. " Meanwhile, the English language versions of Mozilla's sites -- mozilla.com and mozilla.org -- will redirect visitors to an "action page" asking for their support in stopping what it called "Internet blacklist legislation.
" Mozilla and an estimated 7,000 other sites, including Google, Wikipedia and Reddit, went on a "virtual strike" today to voice their opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA), legislation being considered by the U.S. . See more articles by Gregg Keizer. A preview of SOPA: Web shut down before my eyes. Big Security for Big Data Sysadmin blog On Saturday, 7 January, a Canadian DNS host named EasyDNS winked out of existence. This was a preview of what SOPA promises to be like. Suffering from a massive DDoS, all DNS services provided by EasyDNS simply ceased to function.
Metacritic and DSL Reports are two examples of sites that affected me directly. Random but important elements of my virtual world - including all my personal and client domains - were shut down entirely without notice. EasyDNS babied me through by providing stellar customer support throughout, and a few hours later life was back to normal. While frustrating, the DDoS incident is something that your average systems administrator or internet punter can understand. Yet as you read this, the United States Congress is pondering bills like SOPA and PIPA. The mainstream press has largely remained mum on the subject. It hasn't gone unnoticed. Big Security for Big Data. The Gauntlet - The Gauntlet to go dark to protest SOPA PIPA tomorrow.
SOPA & PIPA: The Pirate Bay Worried About The Internet, Not Itself. The Pirate Bay has long been the favored whipping boy of anti-piracy advocates everywhere. Attempts to block it have been made in many countries, and it is one of the sites that draws the most attention – and ire – in pro-SOPA/PIPA rhetoric. The Pirate Bay, so the argument goes, is exactly the kind of site SOPA and PIPA are designed to protect the entertainment industry from. The people who run The Pirate Bay say they aren’t worried, though. In an interview with TorrentFreak they admit to having some concerns, but not for The Pirate Bay itself. They are worried “for democratic reasons.” What really concerns The Pirate Bay about SOPA/PIPA is what it means about the political power of the entertainment industry in the United States.
The Pirate Bay emphasized the global nature of the internet, and the fact that it “can’t be run in one single country.” [Source: TorrentFreak] SOPA & PIPA: The Pirate Bay Worried About The Internet, Not Itself. SOPA, PIPA and Open Thread. SOPA creator caught in own web - WTOL.com: News, Weather and Sport for Toledo, Ohio. (RNN) - The author of the controversial SOPA bill, which seeks to introduce stricter penalties for companies and individuals caught violating copyright laws online, has been caught in his own web. An archived screen shot of the website of House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-TX, shows a beautiful lush forest in the background. This stock image has been traced back to photographer DJ Schult, according to an article by Vice.com. The photographer protects his image under the Creative Commons license, which allows anyone to use an image as long as it is attributed to the photographer and not used for commercial purposes.
But attribution for the forest image does not appear on Smith's website. If the congressman's proposed legislation were to pass, action could be taken against it. While Smith's website no longer utilizes stock images, save for one banner strip across the top, the incident has exposed the faults and vagueness that critics point out in the congressman's bill.
SOPA, PIPA, the AVN Expo and Porn! (Oh My) This would literally be what you would see if SOPA passed. The porn industry and the free internet: two massive forces that simultaneously help and hinder each other in a sometimes-dysfunctional marriage of convenience. Tomorrow is a big day for both. January 18th is the opening day of AVN Adult Entertainment Expo, the porn trade show that for the first time in its history is not happening concurrently with CES. The Adult Expo started life as a sort of porn alley within CES, grew big enough to require its own space, and now has such a draw that AVN has decided hold it the week after CES. According to The Street, "some estimates claim up to 40% of attendees go to both expos," so it's a bold move. January 18th is also the day the internet—or parts of it—are going dark to protest SOPA and PIPA, the House and Senate's internet-killing anti-piracy bills.
Reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet it still insists that. SOPA, PIPA: What you need to know - Political Hotsheet. Wikipedia's homepage, just after midnight on Jan. 18, 2011 Wikipedia Having trouble using Wikipedia today? That's because the popular crowd-sourced online encyclopedia is participating in an "Internet blackout" in protest of two controversial anti-piracy bills: The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its Senate companion, the Protect IP Act (PIPA).
Pictures: Websites go dark to protest SOPA The bills are intended to strengthen protections against copyright infringement and intellectual property theft, but Internet advocates say they would stifle expression on the World Wide Web. "It's not a battle of left versus right," said progressive activist Adam Green, whose organization Progressive Change Campaign Committee on Tuesday hosted a press conference with opponents of the bills. Here's a basic look at the actions taking place today and the legislation causing all the fuss. What's going on today? The popular link-sharing site Reddit got the ball rolling for today's 24-hour Internet blackout.
SOPA/Blackoutpage. Thank you. The Wikipedia blackout is over — and you have spoken. More than 162 million people saw our message asking if you could imagine a world without free knowledge. You said no. You shut down Congress’s switchboards. You melted their servers. For us, this is not about money. Our mission is to empower and engage people to document the sum of all human knowledge, and to make it available to all humanity, in perpetuity.
SOPA and PIPA are not dead: they are waiting in the shadows. We’re turning the lights back on.
S.968: PROTECT IP Act of 2011. Letters to Congress: S.968: PROTECT IP Act of 2011. Who Writes the Bills Anyways? Ahead of the December 15 Judiciary Committee markup, the corporate sponsors of the SOPA web censorship bill are making some last minute tweaks to the legislative language: The Motion Picture Association of America is willing to change some of the language to tone-down the controversial, much-maligned Stop Online Piracy Act that it supports, according to a report in the New York Times late Wednesday.MPAA exec Michael O’Leary said in an afternoon press call that the agency “will come forward with language that will address some of the legitimate concerns,” of those opposed to the bill, including Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Zynga and myriad other Web companies and advocacy groups.
Back in the old days, Congress was a branch of the federal government, separate from corporations, that wrote and passed laws to defend the general welfare of the United State. Pictured above is Sen. Thank You For Taking A Stand Against SOPA. Strike Against SOPA & PIPA. SOPA battle: Boulder techies join fray over anti-piracy bill. By Alicia WallaceThe Camera Posted: 01/16/2012 08:48:45 AM MST | Updated: 2 years ago "Fast Five" was the most downloaded film of 2011, racking up 7 million more downloads than DVD sales. This week, members of Congress will renew discussion on a pair of controversial anti-piracy measures that have many in the Boulder tech scene worried about the future of the Internet. ( | ) Last year, the movie "Fast Five" was downloaded 9.26 million times via BitTorrent, making the high-octane sequel the most pirated movie in 2011, according to blog TorrentFreak.
By comparison, 2.06 million copies were sold after the action flick's DVD release on Oct. 4. Grappling with what they believe to be the loss of millions of dollars in revenue, filmmakers and their brethren in the music industry have thrown their weight behind bills in Congress designed to block the flow of pirated material online. Rep. Get more at DailyCamera.com. White House criticizes SOPA/PIPA - calls for "sound legislation" against foreign content piracy. Momentum shift: SOPA, PIPA opponents now in driver's seat | Media Maverick. ON STRIKE | STRIKE AGAINST SOPA. WordPress Comes Out STRONGLY Against SOPA/PIPA « Motley News. Stop SOPA/PIPA! | Campaign for Liberty. Al Gore Comes Out Against SOPA/PIPA. News - Video Game Generation Going Dark January 18th in SOPA/PIPA Blackout Protest. SOPA/PIPA Strike January 18 [Crime And Law « Miami News] – Downtown Miami News.
SOPA: Firefall, Runic, Destructoid, Minecraft, Bungie decry bill. US Can Extradite UK Student For Copyright Infringement, Despite Site Being Legal In The UK. Protesting SOPA: There's An App (Actually Several) For That. Software Developers Join The Fight Against SOPA,PIPA | TheUrbanTwist.com. Raging Grannies Come Out Against SOPA/PIPA. Reddit shutting down to protest SOPA/PIPA, Wikipedia may follow suit [UPDATE: Minecraft, too] WordPress Stands Up Against SOPA and PIPA. SOPA. SOPA: So how much does it cost to buy off America's Internet freedom? 'Internet is for Porn' pops up during House SOPA debate | Privacy Inc. US considers law against online piracy - Americas. Stop Online Piracy Act vote delayed. SOPA votes derailed by politician's 'offensive' tweet - ZDNet. Delegation must protect Internet freedom. A quick introduction to the Stop Online Piracy Act — a.k.a. SOPA.
» Stopping Online Piracy – One Way or Another - Big Government. Sense & censor ability: Congress defers SOPA vote. Uld US legislation break the internet? - Technology. SOPA Hearings to Resume Wednesday. Question of the day: What is the scariest thing about SOPA, and how scared are you? Bill Nelson: Campaign Finance/Money - Industries - Senator Career. Roy Blunt: Campaign Finance/Money - Industries - Senator Career. Kirsten Gillibrand: Campaign Finance/Money - Industries - Senator Career. Al Franken: Campaign Finance/Money - Industries - Senator Career. Patrick Leahy: Campaign Finance/Money - Industries - Senator Career. Dianne Feinstein: Campaign Finance/Money - Industries - Senator Career. Charles E. Schumer: Campaign Finance/Money - Industries - Senator Career. Tom Marino: Campaign Finance/Money - Industries - Representative Career. Dennis Ross: Campaign Finance/Money - Industries - Representative Career. Bill Owens: Campaign Finance/Money - Industries - Representative Career.
Steve Scalise: Campaign Finance/Money - Industries - Representative Career. Karen Bass: Campaign Finance/Money - Industries - Representative Career. John Carter: Campaign Finance/Money - Industries - Representative Career. Melvin L. Watt: Campaign Finance/Money - Industries - Representative Career. Elton Gallegly: Campaign Finance/Money - Industries - Representative Career. Debbie Wasserman Schultz: Campaign Finance/Money - Industries - Representative Career. John Barrow: Campaign Finance/Money - Industries - Representative Career. Marsha Blackburn: Campaign Finance/Money - Industries - Representative Career. Bob Goodlatte: Campaign Finance/Money - Industries - Representative Career. Lamar Smith: Campaign Finance/Money - Industries - Representative Career.
Mary Bono Mack: Campaign Finance/Money - Industries - Representative Career. John Conyers Jr: Campaign Finance/Money - Industries - Representative Career. Adam Schiff: Campaign Finance/Money - Industries - Representative Career. Lobbying Spending Database-National Assn of Broadcasters, 2011.