By VC | November 17th, 2011 | Category: Latest News | 47 comments
A screenshot from tumblr protesting against SOPA
SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) is a proposed bill that has the potential of ending freedom of speech on the internet. While it appears to be about piracy and “protecting copyrights”, the bill gives the power to corporations to complain to law enforcement to have websites shut down. To many, this is a step too and goes way beyond fighting illegal downloads. Here’s an article fromCNN Money about internet companies (many of which have close ties to the government) opposing this bill.
Tech giants say SOPA piracy bill is ‘draconian’
A proposed new bill intended to combat online piracy has sparked a giant backlash from big tech companies, including Google and Facebook, who say the proposals are far too strict and rife with unintended consequences.
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which was introduced in the House of Representatives in late October, aims to crack down on copyright and trademark issues. Its targets include “rogue” foreign sites like torrent hub The Pirate Bay.
Protecting content is a worthy goal, but here’s the flip side: Opponents say SOPA — and a similar bill called the Protect IP Act that is making its way through the Senate — effectively promotes censorship.
If SOPA passes, copyright holders would be able to complain to law enforcement officials and get websites shut down. The law would also force intermediaries like search engines and payment processors to withhold their services from targeted websites.
That would be quite a change from the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which mandates that companies “act in good faith” to remove content that infringes on copyrights and other intellectual property laws.
Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt called the bill “draconian” during a speech in Boston on Tuesday.
Google and other tech behemoths — AOL, eBay, Facebook, LinkedIn, Mozilla, Twitter, Yahoo and Zynga — also lodged a formal complaint on Tuesday in the form of a letter sent to key Senate and House lawmakers.
“We support the bills’ stated goals,” the letter reads. “Unfortunately, the bills as drafted would expose law-abiding U.S. Internet and technology companies to new uncertain liabilities [and] mandates that would require monitoring of web sites.”
The companies are asking Congress to “consider more targeted ways to combat foreign ‘rogue’ websites.”
SOPA’s critics — some of the Internet’s most heavily trafficked sites — launched an awareness campaign on Wednesday. Hundreds of sites adopted black “STOP CENSORSHIP” logos, including BoingBoing, Reddit and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
One site tried to annoy consumers into action. Blogging site Tumblr blacked outwords in its content feeds, and a message at the top of users’ dashboards read: “Stop The Law That Will Censor The Internet!”
“Congress is holding hearings today and will soon pass a bill empowering corporations to censor the Internet unless you tell them no,” Tumblr wrote in a post Wednesday, calling the bills “well-intentioned but deeply flawed.”
Meanwhile, SOPA has drawn support from groups including the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America, which say that online piracy leads to job loss.
Proponents of the bill dismiss accusations of censorship.
The legislation would “[prevent] those who engage in criminal behavior from reaching directly into the U.S. market,” Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, who introduced the bill, said in a statement Wednesday. “We cannot continue a system that allows criminals to disregard our laws.”
Related articles
- Gerd Leonhard: Read this; The SOPA Debate Ignores How Much Copyright Protection We Already Have (via The Atlantic) (mediafuturist.com)
- Senate sneaks in SOPA under a new name (rt.com)
- What’s Going on With SOPA? (inc.com)
- Tech Giants Say Sopa Piracy Bill is “Draconian” (socyberty.com)
- RIAA still raging against Google, Wikipedia for “misuse of power” in SOPA battle (arstechnica.com)
- Rand Paul Vows To Block Internet Censorship Bills (mountainrepublic.net)
- Tumblr, Firefox and Reddit Censor Websites to Protest SOPA (mashable.com)
- Is Outkast’s Big Boi A Pirate? How Twitter Cracks Down On Copyright Violations (huffingtonpost.com)
- All About SOPA, the Bill That Wants to Cripple Your Internet [Video] (gizmodo.com)
- All About SOPA, the Bill That’s Going to Cripple Your Internet [Video] (lifehacker.com)
42 comments:
I found this link to the coins, it seems to be from 2009. http://newworldorder.org/
Paranoia – A healthy understanding of the way the universe works.
Just because you are paranoid does not mean they are not out to get you.
Albert Pike, how did you predict the first two world wars with such accuracy??? And are we seeing the 3rd one play out in front of our eyes? Hmmm…. Almost as if the macro-stage is planned….
http://www.threeworldwars.com/albert-pike2.htm
“The Third World War must be fomented by taking advantage of the differences caused by the “agentur” of the “Illuminati” between the political Zionists and the leaders of Islamic World. The war must be conducted in such a way that Islam (the Moslem Arabic World) and political Zionism (the State of Israel) mutually destroy each other. Meanwhile the other nations, once more divided on this issue will be constrained to fight to the point of complete physical, moral, spiritual and economical exhaustion…We shall unleash the Nihilists and the atheists, and we shall provoke a formidable social cataclysm which in all its horror will show clearly to the nations the effect of absolute atheism, origin of savagery and of the most bloody turmoil. Then everywhere, the citizens, obliged to defend themselves against the world minority of revolutionaries, will exterminate those destroyers of civilization, and the multitude, disillusioned with Christianity, whose deistic spirits will from that moment be without compass or direction, anxious for an ideal, but without knowing where to render its adoration, will receive the true light through the universal manifestation of the pure doctrine of Lucifer, brought finally out in the public view. This manifestation will result from the general reactionary movement which will follow the destruction of Christianity and atheism, both conquered and exterminated at the same time.” 4
I used to subscribe to his newsletters on silver, until I quickly discovered he was a bit of a religious nut/fundamentalist which removed much of his credibility as a professional.
FYI, this is one of his websites: http://www.bibleprophesy.org/
I did get a good laugh out of his NWO silver rounds though, the guy does have a good sense of humour.
same logic as believe in the Constitution and you are a terrorist…
jason is an honest merchant,I find it troubling that you take exception to his religious thoughts…maybe you will buy silver from jpm instead…given your thought process
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k-WooZiEiE
Look at the premium, it will be cut in half tommorrow.
http://www.silverbulliontrust.com/net_asset_value.htm
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/09/29/fence-border-canada.html?cmp=rssfences keep people out and IN.
January 6,422,000
February 3,240,000
March 2,767,000
April 2,819,000
May 3,653,500
June 3,402,000
July 2,968,000
August 3,679,500
September 4,000,500
Total 32,951,500
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We still have tomorrow and I am pretty certain that the US Mint will update it again before the end of month.
Here’s a better idea put America under a nuke proof 20 foot thick glass bubble. Where do you find these IDIOTS who govern your country? These guys should be locked up and forced to OD on ritalin.
BTW, I know its not just the Obama regime, Bush was a fuck up too.
1) TPTB are driven by an insatiable greed, bent on enslaving all underneath them to feed their lust for power, prestige, and wealth.
2) TPTB in enslaving the world, create massively oppressive power structures and feed off of endless warfare and wanton bloodshed
Of course there are many more parallels to the current situation, and it seems that similar episodes have repeated throughout history, but the Christian apocalypse does describe a certain crisis that is a problem for all people who have longed for free and simple lives. Greed and a lust for power that have defined our age seem to be baked in the cake from the outset for all the psycopaths who aspire to power. They know no law but their own desires, and they will show no restraint in bringing them to reality. We are either looking at the edge of the end of the world in this cycle, or we will see this current corruption defeated in time and have a measure of peace before the rise of a new set of psychotic power seekers
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