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). How SOPA would affect you: FAQ. When Rep.
Lamar Smith announced the Stop Online Piracy Act in late October, he knew it was going to be controversial. But the Texas Republican probably never anticipated the broad and fierce outcry from Internet users that SOPA provoked over the last few months. It was a show of public opposition to Internet-related legislation not seen since the 2003 political wrangling over implanting copy-protection technology in PCs, or perhaps even the blue ribbons appearing on Web sites in the mid-1990s in response to the Communications Decency Act. Consider the concerted protest on January 18 by high-profile Web companies and organizations. Wikipedia's English-language pages, for instance, went completely black, while Google put a big black box over the prominent logo on its home page, with a link to a page from which users could sign a petition entitled "Tell Congress: Don't censor the Web.
" Stop Online Piracy Act. Proponents of the legislation said it would protect the intellectual-property market and corresponding industry, jobs and revenue, and was necessary to bolster enforcement of copyright laws, especially against foreign-owned and operated websites.
Claiming flaws in present laws that do not cover foreign-owned and operated websites, and citing examples of active promotion of rogue websites by U.S. search engines, proponents asserted that stronger enforcement tools were needed. Opponents claimed that the proposed legislation threatened free speech and innovation, and enabled law enforcement to block access to entire internet domains due to infringing content posted on a single blog or webpage. They expressed concerns that SOPA would bypass the "safe harbor" protections from liability presently afforded to websites by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Overview[edit] BILLS-112hr3261ih.pdf. Stop Online Piracy Act: The Details - Information Technology and Telecoms. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Tex.), Ranking Member John Conyers (D-Mich.), IP Subcommittee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), and former Subcommittee Chairman Howard Berman (D-Calif.), together with a number of other Republican and Democratic House Members, have introduced H.
R. 3261, the "Stop Online Piracy Act," to "promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation by combating the theft of U.S. property. " The bill empowers the U.S. Attorney General to take court action "to protect U.S. customers and prevent U.S. support of foreign infringing sites" and creates a "[m]arket-based system to protect U.S. customers and prevent U.S. funding of sites dedicated to theft of U.S. property. " The bill also imposes important obligations on service providers, Internet search engines, payment network providers, Internet advertising services, and other parties. 112th Congress (2011-2012. Msj_decision. Why SOPA Threatens the DMCA Safe Harbor. Explanation of Bill and Summary of Concerns. SOPA Still Stings: Wikipedia Officially Ditches GoDaddy. It feels like it's been forever since the SOPA debate dominated headlines.
That particular discussion largely subsided after an unprecedented show of Web-fueled outrage forced members of Congress to rethink their support for the controversial anti-piracy legislation. Before the anti-SOPA blackout, there was the backlash against GoDaddy, which stuck out like a sore thumb as the only prominent Internet company on the list of SOPA supporters. Boycott threats were quickly followed by a flood of domain transfers, which succeeded in causing GoDaddy to reverse their position. The SOPA blackout: Wikipedia, Reddit, Mozilla, Google, and many others protest proposed law.
Two new laws proposed by US legislators, the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act, have been attracting a very negative reaction from the web community over the past couple of months, which is today culminating in a day of protests.
Aiming to curtail copyright infringement on the web by giving the US government unprecedented new powers, both SOPA and PIPA have been rejected as overreaching and unhelpful laws that cannot coexist with a free and open internet. The most outspoken protester of the bills today will be Wikipedia, whose English site will be going dark for the full 24 hours on January 18th, starting at midnight ET. It's also joined by Reddit, which will replace its usual "glorious, user-curated chaos" with a message noting its opposition to SOPA and PIPA, accompanied by links to more information about the bills and suggested ways to express your own dissatisfaction with them. SOPA - H.R.3261: Stop Online Piracy Act. OpenCongress Summary This bill would establish a system for taking down websites that the Justice Department determines to be dedicated to copyright infringment.
The DoJ or the copyright owner would be able to commence a legal action against any site they deem to have "only limited purpose or use other than infringement," and the DoJ would be allowed to demand that search engines, social networking sites and domain name services block access to the targeted site. It would also make unauthorized web streaming of copyrighted content a felony with a possible penalty up to five years in prison.