What Everyone Who Uses The Internet Needs To Know About CISPA. By Annie-Rose Strasser and Scott Keyes on April 27, 2012 at 5:10 pm "What Everyone Who Uses The Internet Needs To Know About CISPA" Congress is on the cusp of passing a new bill that could threaten any internet user’s civil liberties. The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, a digital equivalent of allowing the government to fight perceived threats by monitoring which books citizens check out from the library, passed the House yesterday and will now be taken up by the Senate. Online advocates, fresh off their victory against the Stop Online Piracy Act, are now gearing up to oppose CISPA because of the disastrous effect the bill could have for private information on the internet.
The bill’s opponents argue that it goes too far in the name of cybersecurity, endangering citizens’ personal online information by giving the government access to anything from users’ private emails to their browsing history. Insanity: CISPA Just Got Way Worse, And Then Passed On Rushed Vote. We Don't Need SOPA Because DMCA Is Already Broken Enough. Freakonomics: Piracy Costs the Economy $200 B. a Year? ‘These Figures Were Made Up Out of Thin Air’ | Betabeat — News, gossip and intel from Silicon Alley 2.0.
Attempts to quantify the cost of IP piracy have failed, say Kal Raustiala and Chris Sprigman. By Adrianne Jeffries 1/23/12 8:31am Share this: Anti-piracy rhetoric holds that online piracy is a devastating force on the U.S. economy, responsible for the theft of between $200 billion and $250 billion per year and the loss of 750,000 good American jobs. “These numbers seem truly dire: a $250 billion per year loss would be almost $800 for every man, woman, and child in America. And 750,000 jobs – that’s twice the number of those employed in the entire motion picture industry in 2010,” write the economists over at Freakonomics.
But those numbers are wrong, the authors say, citing a breakdown by the Cato Institute’s Julian Sanchez. In 2010, the Government Accountability Office released a report noting that these figures “cannot be substantiated or traced back to an underlying data source or methodology,” which is polite government-speak for “these figures were made up out of thin air.” Lululemon. How the Internet blackout affected congressional support for PIPA/SOPA. Meet ACTA; It’s SOPA and PIPA on steroids, the Global Edition. SOPA and PIPA have been shelved, however, the government’s plan to censor the public is an ongoing threat. It’s disconcerting that each government is initiating censorship tactics spontaneously while attacking our fundamental rights. Have you met the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement aka: ACTA? — an international trade agreement negotiated by the EU, the United States, Japan, Canada, South Korea, Australia, among others whose supposed sole purpose is to forge ahead with tackling counterfeited goods and copyright infringement.
This treaty is SOPA and PIPA on steroids globally censoring the public world wide. They are allowed to negotiate in secret and force other countries into implementing file sharing policies with a 3 strikes you’re out practice while net filtering. ACTA explained. Further more, existing ISPs may no longer host free software that can access copyrighted media, and DRM protected media would not be legally playable with free software. From StopACTA.info: ShareThis. The Sopa blackout protest makes history | Amy Goodman. Wednesday 18 January marked the largest online protest in the history of the internet.
Websites from large to small "went dark" in protest of proposed legislation before the US House and Senate that could profoundly change the internet. The two bills, Sopa in the House and Pipa in the Senate, ostensibly aim to stop the piracy of copyrighted material over the internet on websites based outside the US. Critics – among them, the founders of Google, Wikipedia, the Internet Archive, Tumblr and Twitter – counter that the laws will stifle innovation and investment, hallmarks of the free, open internet. The Obama administration has offered muted criticism of the legislation, but, as many of his supporters have painfully learned, what President Barack Obama questions one day, he signs into law the next.
First, the basics. Sopa stands for the Stop Online Piracy Act, while Pipa is the Protect IP Act. "Last year alone, we acted on copyright takedown notices for more than 5 million webpages. : Information Clearing House.
The Definitive Post On Why SOPA And Protect IP Are Bad, Bad Ideas. There's been plenty of talk (and a ton of posts here on Techdirt) discussing both SOPA (originally E-PARASITE) and PROTECT IP (aka PIPA), but it seemed like it would be useful to create a single, "definitive" post to highlight why both of these bills are extremely problematic and won't do much (if anything) to deal with the issues they're supposed to deal with, but will have massive unintended consequences. I also think it's important to highlight how PIPA is almost as bad as SOPA.
Tragically, because SOPA was so bad, some in the entertainment industry have seen it as an opportunity to present PIPA as a "compromise. " It is not. Both bills have tremendous problems, and they start with the fact that neither bill will help deal with the actual issues being raised. That main issue, we're told over and over again, is "piracy" and specifically "rogue" websites. Thus, the real issue is that this is a business model problem. So...
Controversial Copyright Bills Would Violate First Amendment–Letters to Congress by Laurence Tribe and Me « Marvin Ammori. Today, both Professor Laurence Tribe and I submitted letters and legal memoranda to Congress explaining that proposed copyright legislation would violate the First Amendment and be struck down in court. (His letter is available here, and mine is available here.) Who Else Opposes the Bills? Professor Tribe and I both felt compelled to write because of the threat to freedom of speech from the PROTECT IP Act in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (or SOPA) in the House.
Others have also come out to oppose the bills, including the leading civil liberties organizations (at home and abroad), venture capitalists, the leading technology platforms from Facebook and Google to Tumblr and Zynga, and (today) hundreds of entrepreneurs. Who are Professor Tribe and I? Professor Tribe is perhaps the nation’s leading constitutional law expert and among its greatest Supreme Court advocates. Why SOPA and PROTECT IP Violate the First Amendment. Who in Congress Supports SOPA and PIPA/PROTECT-IP? | SOPA Opera.
Informed Comment: Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion. 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. Wikipedia to shut for 24 hours to stop anti-piracy act. White House Airs Objections to SOPA, PIPA Anti-Piracy Bills. Score one for Google. The White House raised concerns Saturday about aspects of pending anti-piracy legislation that has been strongly backed by the Motion Picture Assn. of America, Hollywood's chief lobbying arm. In an unusually blunt statement, Obama administration officials signaled that the White House would not support parts of two bills wending their way through Congress -- the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) that critics say would limit freedom of speech on the Internet and unfairly punish legitimate websites.
The statement is a setback for the major Hollywood studios and unions that have been mounting a lobbying campaign in support of the bills, which would give the Justice Department more tools to shut down foreign websites involved in the piracy of movies and TV shows. The House Judiciary Committee is expected to vote on the SOPA bill later this month, while the Senate could take up its PIPA anti-piracy bill next month.
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. Rupert Murdoch squares off with Obama over online piracy legislation | Technology. The gathering storm over online piracy legislation being debated in the US Congress has sucked two more heavy hitters into the fray, with the Obama administration and Rupert Murdoch lining up on opposite sides of the argument. The controversy over the Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa) going through the House of Representatives and its Senate equivalent, the Protect Intellectual Property Act (Pipa), has intensified. Websites including Reddit and possibly Wikipedia are planning to "go dark" on Wednesday in protest at the proposals, which they say will lead to government censorship of the internet and be disastrous for innovation.
On Saturday, the Obama administration made clear that it would not tolerate several of the more controversial aspects of the two bills, particularly the power to interfere with the architecture of the web by tampering with its Domain Name System (DNS). The White House statement was not a simple denunciation of Sopa and Pipa.
Hollywood or Silicon Valley? — Obama faces a difficult choice on SOPA. A controversial online piracy bill could force President Obama to choose between two of his most important allies: Hollywood and Silicon Valley. Obama hasn’t taken a position yet on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) that has divided senior lawmakers in both parties, but that will have to change if it clears Congress. If Obama signs the bill, he will dash the hopes of Silicon Valley executives who donated heavily to his 2008 campaign and are vehemently opposed to the anti-piracy measure. But the entertainment industry would see a veto as a betrayal by the administration on its most significant priority.
SOPA would empower the Justice Department and copyright holders to demand that search engines, Internet providers and payment processors cut off access to sites “dedicated” to copyright infringement. The legislation is aimed at blocking foreign sites such as The Pirate Bay that offer illegal copies of movies, music and television shows with impunity. Free Press | Media reform through education, organizing and advocacy. Stop Online Piracy Act.
Failed United States bill 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 existing 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. The bill received strong, bipartisan support in the House of Representatives and the Senate.
It also received support from the Fraternal Order of Police, the National Governors Association, The National Conference of Legislatures, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National Association of Attorneys General, the Chamber of Commerce, the Better Business Bureau, the AFL–CIO and 22 trade unions, and the National Consumers League.[2] History[edit] Goals[edit] According to Rep. Sponsor Rep. Stay On Top of the Fight Against SOPA/PIPA with These Tools.