If you critique SOPA, read the text. If you read the text, read it right. Earlier this week Eriq Gardner speculated in a tweet that less than one tenth of one percent of folks have actually read the SOPA legislation. I bet he’s right. It’s good to read the statute. But what might be worse than not reading it is reading it wrongly and thereafter propagating misunderstanding. One of the motifs that has permeated the SOPA discussion is this idea that evil (usually corporate) interests could shut down entire, innocent sites based on one piece of user generated content on that site that is, or links to, infringing material. Some commentators, such as the usually astute Khan Academy in the video embedded below, have gone so far as to say that one little transgression by one user could bring down all of Facebook, YouTube, or Vimeo. We are fortunate to have the means and motivation to rally around an issue like SOPA and make it a topic of worldwide discussion. If that federal judge were to so conclude, then he would likely be smoking dope.
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). The House Judiciary chairman, also Hollywood's favorite House Republican , has scheduled discussion of the bill to resume at 7a.m. Smith announced a revised version of SOPA earlier this week. SOPA represents the latest effort from the Motion Picture Association of America, the Recording Industry Association of America, and their allies to counter what they view as rampant piracy on the Internet, especially offshore sites such as ThePirateBay.org. Keep reading for the full text of Cerf's letter to Smith. December 14, 2011 The Honorable Lamar Smith Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary U.S. Dear Chairman Smith: Sincerely, Vint Cerf
Coders Are Already Finding Ways Around SOPA Censorship - Politics A developer who calls himself T Rizk doesn't have much faith in Congress making the right decision on anti-piracy legislation, so he's built a work around for the impending censorship measures being considered: DeSOPA. The Firefox add-on is stunningly simple as the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) would block specific domain names (e.g. www.thepiratebay.com) of allegedly infringing sites, T Rizk's lightweight tool allows you to revert to the bare internet protocol (IP) address (e.g. 194.71.107.15) which takes you to the same place. “I feel that the general public is not aware of the gravity of SOPA and Congress seems like they are about to cater to the special interests involved, to the detriment of Internet, for which I and many others live and breathe," T Rizk told the site TorrentFreak -- and you can pretty easily guess whose side they're on. If that doesn't work, TorrentFreak points to another developer-made anti-SOPA solution that's also in the works. Meanwhile, Rep.
SOPA hearing delayed, likely until early next year News By Grant Gross December 20, 2011 03:46 PM ET IDG News Service - A hearing to debate and amend the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. House of Representatives has been delayed, likely until early next year. The House Judiciary Committee had planned to continue with a third day of markup hearings on SOPA on Wednesday, if the House was still in session. The continued markup has been "postponed until the House is again in session," the spokeswoman said Tuesday. The Judiciary Committee held a 10-hour bill markup session last Thursday, then met again for a short time Friday before being interrupted by votes on the House floor. So far, the committee has voted down about 20 amendments designed to address concerns by Web-based companies, Web security experts and digital rights groups. SOPA would allow the U.S. Also on Tuesday, the White House Office of U.S. The list shows the need for Congress to pass SOPA or the similar Protect IP Act (PIPA), the U.S.
Internet 2012 – Hadopi3 Acta C11 | Openskill - Agence Web Luxembourg This article is available in English Cet article essaye de donner une vue d’ensemble sur la situation actuelle concernant la propriété intellectuelle sur Internet. En effet, depuis quelques semaines, Internet traverse un cyclone sans précédent dont l’œil est la protection de la propriété intellectuelle. D’un côté les gouvernements ont tous des propositions de lois plus caduques les unes que les autres (SOPA, PIPA, Hadopi 3, …), de l’autre côté, les spécialistes et grandes entreprises d’internet crient à l’hérésie en voyant les mesures proposées. Depuis quelques jours, on sait que SOPA et PIPA sont ajournées , voila qu’ACTA ( 1 et 2 ) repointe le bout du nez en Europe et C-11 au Canada : le combat n’est pas fini. Comment des projets de loi tant controversés par le public arrivent-ils à disposer d’un tel rebond politique? Ce raisonnement est fallacieux dés le début, car il ne fait aucune différence entre les produits numérisables et ceux qui ne le sont pas:
Consent of the Networked Part Three of the book is titled “Democracy’s Challenges.” At the end of Chapter 7, dealing with copyright enforcement and free speech, I conclude: It is a moral imperative for democracies to find new and innovative ways to protect copyright in the Internet age without stifling the ability of citizens around the world to exercise their right to freedom of speech, access information they need to make intelligent voting decisions, and use the Internet and mobile technologies to organize for political change. Balanced, citizen-centric solutions will require innovation, creativity, and compromise. This weekend, the Washington Post is running a piece by me about the clash between Washington culture and Internet culture in the wake of last week’s battle in Washington over copyright law. In late 2010, on the eve of the Arab Spring uprisings, a Tunisian blogger asked Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel Fattah what democratic nations should do to help cyberactivists in the Middle East. I conclude:
Online piracy laws must preserve Web freedom Egyptian anti-government bloggers work on their laptops from Tahrir Square during last year's uprising to oust Hosni Mubarak Ivan Sigal and Rebecca MacKinnon say Congress is mulling bills to stop online piracyLaws would make social media platforms proactively police for copyright violations, they sayThey say drafters mean to protect copyright, but effect will be to stifle dissentWriters: Laws should reflect Congress' stated aim to protect rights of Internet users globally Editor's note: Ivan Sigal is executive director and Rebecca MacKinnon is co-founder of Global Voices Online, an international citizen media network. MacKinnon is also a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and author of the forthcoming book "Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom." (CNN) -- One year ago, a Tunisian street vendor set himself on fire, igniting a storm of protest that toppled his country's oppressive government in less than a month. Ivan Sigal Rebecca MacKinnon
:: The Future of the Internet — And How to Stop It Public Opposition Accelerates As Latest Anti-SOPA Petition Hits Goal In Two Days One of the tactics deployed by supporters of SOPA is that there is no real concern from the public regarding the legislation. They like to claim that only those who profit from piracy really want to block this bill. Yet, we see time and time again this is not true. With letter writing campaigns from groups such as the EFF, Public Knowledge and Demand Progress having generated hundreds of thousands of letters, emails and phone calls from concerned citizens, the pro-SOPA groups have had to resort to drastic inflation to defend their side. The first of these petitions, titled "Stop the E-PARASITE Act", was created back on October 31 when SOPA was known as E-PARASITES. Fast forward to December 18. If there is no real public concern over SOPA, as supporters of the bill claim, who are these people?
SOPA – tout le monde est concerné | Openskill - Agence Web Luxembourg Mise à jour du 23 Janvier: SOPA et PIPA ont été postposés aux Etats-Unis, plus d’informations dans notre nouvel article sur le sujet . La où la France ciblait les connexions des particuliers, les États-Unis ciblent le système DNS comme solution au piratage en ligne. En Europe, nous ne sommes pas assez informés des conséquences dramatiques que pourrait avoir cette loi si elle était adoptée. Nous remercions chaleureusement la “Stanford Law Review”, qui a eu l’extrême amabilité de nous autoriser à traduire et à publier un de leurs articles, passionnant à ce sujet. L’article d’origine, en anglais, est disponible sur le site de Stanford Law Review – Essay – Don’t break the Internet. Cette traduction a été réalisée et publiée par Open Skill avec la permission de la Stanford Law Review, mais ni celle-ci, ni les auteurs du texte, ne cautionnent cette traduction. Texte écrit par Mark Lemley , David S. Mark Lemley , Professeur William H.
SOPA explained: What it is and why it matters - Jan. 17 SOPA's backers say the sweeping anti-piracy bill is needed to squash sites like The Pirate Bay (left), but the tech industry says the bill is rife with unintended consequences. NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The tech industry is abuzz about SOPA and PIPA, a pair of anti-piracy bills. Here's why they're controversial, and how they would change the digital landscape if they became law. What is SOPA? SOPA is an acronym for the Stop Online Piracy Act. SOPA's main targets are "rogue" overseas sites like torrent hub The Pirate Bay, which are a trove for illegal downloads. Content creators have battled against piracy for years -- remember Napster? That means sites like Google wouldn't show flagged sites in their search results, and payment processors like eBay's (EBAY, Fortune 500) PayPal couldn't transmit funds to them. Both sides say they agree that protecting content is a worthy goal. Isn't copyright infringement already illegal? Let's say a YouTube user uploads a copyrighted song.
Piracy vs. an open Internet To avoid the reach of U.S. copyright laws, numerous online pirates have set up shop in countries less willing or able to enforce intellectual property rights. Policymakers agree that these “rogue” sites pose a real problem for U.S. artists and rights holders who aren’t getting paid for the rampant distribution of their music, movies and other creative works. The question is how to help them. Lawmakers keep offering proposals, but they don’t seem to be getting any closer to the right answer. The latest, HR 3261, comes from House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and a dozen co-sponsors. Both bills go to risky extremes, however, in their efforts to stop these sites from attracting an audience. Supporters of the bills emphasize the proliferation of pirated content online, which they argue has cost the entertainment industry billions of dollars in sales and thousands of jobs.
Firefox Add-On Bypasses SOPA DNS Blocking The pending Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) continues to inspire opponents to come up with creative solutions to circumvent it. A new anti-SOPA add-on for Firefox, titled “DeSopa,” is such a counter measure. When installed, users can click a single button to resolve a blocked domain via foreign DNS servers, bypassing all domestic DNS blockades and allowing the user to browse the site though the bare IP-address (if supported). “I feel that the general public is not aware of the gravity of SOPA and Congress seems like they are about to cater to the special interests involved, to the detriment of Internet, for which I and many others live and breathe,” DeSopa developer T Rizk told TorrentFreak. “It could be that a few members of congress are just not tech savvy and don’t understand that it is technically not going to work, at all. Indeed, having several workarounds in place long before the bill is signed into law doesn’t promise much good for SOPA’s effectiveness.
Boehner’s office cuts off C-SPAN cameras as GOP takes verbal beating By Stephen C. WebsterWednesday, December 21, 2011 13:36 EDT A strange thing happened Wednesday morning on Capitol Hill. As Rep. Moments later, C-SPAN took to the Internet to explain that it wasn’t their doing, but someone working for House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH). The incident occurred mere moments after the House went into session. “As you walk off the floor, Mr. “We regret, Mr. And that’s when the audio cut out. Moments later, someone at C-SPAN took to Twitter and explained: “C-SPAN has no control over the U.S. It’s for reasons just like this, one might infer, that Boehner told C-SPAN back in February it would not be allowed control its own cameras. The non-partisan political network, produced as a courtesy by the nation’s cable operators, had said it wanted to offer a more “journalistic product,” but the speaker denied their request to place and operate more cameras. This video is from C-SPAN, broadcast Dec. 21, 2011. (H/T: ThinkProgress) Stephen C. Stephen C.