The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and it's supporters.

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The SOPA act/bill has been classified as a blacklist/censorship bill.

And it is.


[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJIuYgIvKsc&feature=channel_video_title]Be a HERO and Help STOP SOPA Now!! I'll tell you How! This Video that Must Be SHARED! - YouTube[/ame]

Basically what the video says is that the backers of SOPA are the distributors of the file sharing software which condones piracy. So he shows proof that the backers of SOPA backed piracy for years.

The SOPA act will basically make you a convicted felon for posting a video of you reciting a copyrighted song over karaoke at your wedding, or displaying a cartoon character on your facebook page.

And websites like youtube, facebook, tumblr, reddit, yahoo mail, email sites, and EVEN this website, the site where you post your opinions on political manners and such could be indefinitely blocked! What would YOU do if that happens?

Basically the internet would become like China's censored internet while the slightest thing will send the police arresting you and charging you with felonies.

 

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One supporter of the SOPA bill, GoDaddy has recently backed out, claiming to be "Neutral" on the bill since thousands of customers have left GoDaddy, Taking their 14,000+ Domains with them.

And now since the backlash is growing, GoDaddy is now obstructing the process of domain transfers.
What does that mean? They aren't letting you transfer your domain because they want your money and they want this backlash to stop.

GoDaddy Dickheads May Be Delaying Domain Transfers On Purpose (Updated)



Do YOU want to browse the internet in a police state?
And what would you do when you are affected by this bill? Nothing?

You could basically say goodby to your fair use rights and first amendment rights.

Fair use is a limitation and exception to the exclusive right granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work. In United States copyright law, fair use is a doctrine that permits limited use of copyrighted material without acquiring permission from the rights holders. Examples of fair use include commentary, criticism, news reporting, research, teaching, library archiving and scholarship. It provides for the legal, unlicensed citation or incorporation of copyrighted material in another author's work under a four-factor balancing test. The term fair use originated in the United States. A similar principle, fair dealing, exists in some other common law jurisdictions. Civil law jurisdictions have other limitations and exceptions to copyright.

So are you willing to live with the same conditions as China?

 

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SOPA/PIPA Explained; GoDaddy loses 21,000 domains and stops supporting SOPA « Business News « News « pnosker.com

Late last week saw the domain registrar Go Daddy lose over 21,000 domains. Why did this happen to a service which was doing pretty well for itself for so long? In an acronym, SOPA.

Go Daddy along with several other organizations, most notably the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America, was in support of the controversial “Stop Online Piracy Act” or SOPA. But due to the growing community of opposition to the bill, coupled with a boycott of Go Daddy, forced the web hosting company’s CEO Warren Adelman to make a public announcement stating that it would end its support of the bill until the time “when and if the Internet community supports it.”

All this was thanks to an anti-Go Daddy thread on Reddit and Godaddyboycott.org. The latter was set up specifically to let people point out their disapproval of the company’s stance on the bill.

But what is all the fuss about? Well, SOPA, along with PIPA (Protect IP Act) are bills that were introduced to congress this fall and would make it easier for the Justice Department, and copyright holders, to shut down websites allegedly dedicated to piracy. This bill would make unauthorized streaming of copyrighted material a crime, punishable with a maximum penalty of five years in prison. And while you might agree that there needs to be some policy in place to protect copyrighted material online (as I do), this is not the bill to do it.

First, its main goal, to stop piracy, would not even be achieved as Edward Black (president and CEO of the Computer and Communications Industry Association) noted in the Huffington Post that “it would do little to stop actual pirate websites, which could simply reappear hours later under a different name, if their numeric web addresses aren’t public even sooner. Anyone who knows or has that web address would still be able to reach the offending website.” But more importantly, it is a slippery slope to begin censoring the internet, a terrible thing to happen to a country which prides itself on its right to freedom of speech. And I’d like to note how strange it is that congress is even considering this bill after criticizing China for having a censored internet.

Other problems that would stem from the bill if it should pass would include a degradation of cyber security due to the harmful process of enforcing the law, hurting the Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC), and the negative impact it would have on the only part of the US economy giving it an edge; the tech industry and web-related startups.

But perhaps the greatest threat is to websites that rely on user generated content. Sites like YouTube and Facebook would be put in the awkward position of having to police their sites or be branded a pirating websites and thus be shut down. And if they are moderated and policed, they are effectively no longer the YouTube and Facebook we’ve grown to know and love.

Both these bills, although delayed are very much still alive in congress and will be discussed and put up to a vote once congress returns from its winter recess. To find out more information on the bills that Google, Yahoo!, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, AOL, eBay, Mozilla Corporation, Wikimedia Foundation, Reporters Without Borders, ACLU and Human Rights Watch are all opposing and the issues at stake, please take a few minutes to watch the video below and go to FightForTheFuture.org to sign a petition opposing the bills that will be sent to your representative.


So thats about $7 for a domain name and $10 a year to host (the lowest service)

Thats $357,000 down the crapper!

 

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(Even PCWorld is AGAINST the SOPA act/bill, claiming GoDaddy has lost 70,000+ domains)



Why Aren't Other SOPA Supporters Being Punished Like GoDaddy? | PCWorld

Even though it recanted (somewhat unconvincingly) its support of the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), domain registrar GoDaddy continues to lose thousands of domains as an online campaign to punish GoDaddy is proving highly effective.

The boycott campaign began on reddit on December 22. A day later GoDaddy announced its withdrawal of support for the House legislation it actually helped craft.

And still GoDaddy has lost more than 70,000 domains in less than a week, with the prospect of more if the reddit-inspired day of boycott set for December 29 goes off as planned.

GoDaddy goes from racy ads to the truly offensive

Make no mistake: The boycott's impact on GoDaddy is minimal at the moment. With more than 50 million domains under its management (according to GoDaddy, anyway), 70,000 domains is a little more than a tenth of one percent of the total.

But what if that 70,000 grows to 700,000, or 1 million? That's what GoDaddy is reacting to, because the Achilles heel of nearly every Internet company is the low barrier to switching. Online consumers have an inordinate amount of power, because they have to ability to just walk away.

Unlike utility companies that charge hefty termination fees or require contracts, Internet companies must constantly be on guard against offending or outraging customers, because if there are viable alternatives available, the customers will walk.

Just look what happened to Netflix this year when it announced a 60% price hike. Or Digg when it unveiled an unpopular redesign. Or Myspace when Facebook gave users a more satisfying experience.

Transferring a domain is a hassle, but it's a low barrier in the big picture, especially if you're fueled by anger and outrage. The problem for GoDaddy is its abandonment of SOPA is reactive and transparently insincere.

“Fighting online piracy is of the utmost importance, which is why Go Daddy has been working to help craft revisions to this legislation – but we can clearly do better,” said GoDaddy CEO Warren Adelman in a statement. “It’s very important that all Internet stakeholders work together on this. Getting it right is worth the wait. Go Daddy will support it when and if the Internet community supports it.”

So worth the wait that GoDaddy was lobbying for passage of the bill it helped craft even though the legislation actually didn't "get it right"! Way to stick up for us against this intrusive and abusive legislation, GoDaddy!

SOPA would empower the U.S. Department of Justice and copyright holders to seek court orders blocking payment processors and online ad networks from conducting business with foreign sites suspected of copyright infringement.

It also would allow the DoJ to seek court orders barring search engines from linking to sites reportedly posting copyrighted content, as well as forcing domain registrars and ISPs to block access to such sites.

It's probably shouldn't be a surprise that GoDaddy appears to have been singled out for punishment by opponents of SOPA, since it's so easy to punish an Internet company. Here's a list of the other companies that SOPA opponents want boycotted.

Among the unsurprising on the list are Time Warner, Wal-Mart, Sony Music Entertainment and CBS. But what are Taylor Guitars and Tiffany doing there? Newt, can you put in a word with your friends at Tiffany?

 

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(TorrentFreak, a file sharing provider has CONFIRMED that the US House harbors bit torrent pirates!)

http://torrentfreak.com/while-drafting-sopa-us-house-harbors-bittorrent-pirates-111226/

In recent weeks we discovered BitTorrent pirates at the RIAA, Sony, Fox, Universal and even law-abiding organizations such as the Department of Homeland Security. By now it should be clear that people are using BitTorrent pretty much everywhere, and not only for lawful downloads. Today we can add the U.S. House of Representatives to that list, the place where lawmakers are drafting the much discussed “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA).

houseYouHaveDownloaded is a treasure trove full of incriminating data on alleged BitTorrent pirates in organizations all across the world.

Unauthorized downloads occur even in the most unexpected of places, from the palace of the French President, via the Church of God, to the RIAA.

Although we don’t plan to go on forever trawling the archives, we felt that there was at least one place that warranted further investigation – the U.S. House of Representatives. Since it’s the birthplace of the pending SOPA bill, we wondered how many of the employees there have engaged in unauthorized copying.

The answer is yet again unambiguous – they pirate a lot.

In total we found more than 800 IP-addresses assigned to the U.S. House of Representatives from where content has been shared on BitTorrent. After a closer inspection it quickly became clear the House isn’t just using it for legitimate downloads either, quite the opposite.

Below we’ll list a few of the 800 hits we found on YouHaveDownloaded, which in turn represent just a fraction of total downloads since the site only tracks a limited percentage of total BitTorrent traffic. Again, this is real and confirmed data that is just as good as the evidence used by the RIAA when they sued tens of thousands of people for file-sharing.

Something that immediately caught our eye are the self-help books that are downloaded in the House. “Crucial Conversations- Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High,” for example, may indeed be of interest to the political elite in the United States. And “How to Answer Hard Interview Questions And Everything Else You Need to Know to Get the Job You Want” may be helpful for those who aspire to higher positions.

Books tend to be popular in the House because we found quite a few more, including “Do Not Open – An Encyclopedia of the World’s Best-Kept Secrets” and “How Things Work Encyclopedia”. But of course the people at the heart of democracy are also downloading familiar content such as Windows 7, popular TV-shows and movies.

And there was another category we ran into more than we would have wanted too. It appears that aside from self-help books, House employees are also into adult themed self-help videos. We’ll list one of the least explicit here below, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

While Drafting SOPA, the U.S. House Harbors BitTorrent Pirates

Ernesto
December 26, 2011
13
ip address,
sopa
Print

In recent weeks we discovered BitTorrent pirates at the RIAA, Sony, Fox, Universal and even law-abiding organizations such as the Department of Homeland Security. By now it should be clear that people are using BitTorrent pretty much everywhere, and not only for lawful downloads. Today we can add the U.S. House of Representatives to that list, the place where lawmakers are drafting the much discussed “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA).

houseYouHaveDownloaded is a treasure trove full of incriminating data on alleged BitTorrent pirates in organizations all across the world.

Unauthorized downloads occur even in the most unexpected of places, from the palace of the French President, via the Church of God, to the RIAA.

Although we don’t plan to go on forever trawling the archives, we felt that there was at least one place that warranted further investigation – the U.S. House of Representatives. Since it’s the birthplace of the pending SOPA bill, we wondered how many of the employees there have engaged in unauthorized copying.

The answer is yet again unambiguous – they pirate a lot.

In total we found more than 800 IP-addresses assigned to the U.S. House of Representatives from where content has been shared on BitTorrent. After a closer inspection it quickly became clear the House isn’t just using it for legitimate downloads either, quite the opposite.

Below we’ll list a few of the 800 hits we found on YouHaveDownloaded, which in turn represent just a fraction of total downloads since the site only tracks a limited percentage of total BitTorrent traffic. Again, this is real and confirmed data that is just as good as the evidence used by the RIAA when they sued tens of thousands of people for file-sharing.

Something that immediately caught our eye are the self-help books that are downloaded in the House. “Crucial Conversations- Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High,” for example, may indeed be of interest to the political elite in the United States. And “How to Answer Hard Interview Questions And Everything Else You Need to Know to Get the Job You Want” may be helpful for those who aspire to higher positions.

house

house

Books tend to be popular in the House because we found quite a few more, including “Do Not Open – An Encyclopedia of the World’s Best-Kept Secrets” and “How Things Work Encyclopedia”. But of course the people at the heart of democracy are also downloading familiar content such as Windows 7, popular TV-shows and movies.

house

house

And there was another category we ran into more than we would have wanted too. It appears that aside from self-help books, House employees are also into adult themed self-help videos. We’ll list one of the least explicit here below, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

house

Although the above is interesting, as the House is the place where lawmakers are currently trying to push though SOPA, this revelation might actually help their cause. If even people at the House are “stealing” content, we really need SOPA to counter it, they may say.

The question is though, whether SOPA will be able to break the habits of millions of Americans, as there will always be alternatives available. And even if it manages to put a dent in the current piracy rates, is that really worth it considering the potential damage SOPA can do to the open Internet and legal businesses?

Let’s see if “[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Conversations-Tools-Talking-Stakes/dp/0071401946"]Crucial Conversations – Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High[/ame]” has some advice….

 

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White House to respond to petition urging veto of online piracy bill - The Hill's Hillicon Valley

An online petition urging President Obama to veto a controversial anti-online piracy bill has passed the number of signatures required to receive an official response.

The petition, which is on the White House's official "We the People" page, urges the president to veto the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and "any other future bills that threaten to diminish the free flow of information."

The petition now has more than 34,000 signatures. It needed 25,000 before Jan. 17 for the White House to issue an official response.

SOPA would empower the Justice Department and copyright holders to demand that search engines, Internet providers and ad networks 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.

A broad coalition, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Hollywood, the recording industry and organized labor, strongly back the legislation. They argue online copyright infringement is hurting businesses and destroying jobs.

But consumer groups and major Web companies, including Google, Yahoo and Facebook, warn SOPA would stifle innovation and censor free speech.

The White House petition, which gained popularity on the discussion site Reddit, includes a link to an image of a person behind bars and the headline, "This is a copyrighted image."

The link is meant to demonstrate that websites should not be blocked just because their users post copyrighted material.

"It would be ridiculous for an [Internet service provider] to block the entire whitehouse.gov domain on court order because a single user posted a link," the petition author wrote. "It is difficult for any web administrator to know which links to copyrighted material are done with permission."

SOPA would require a court to determine that a website is "dedicated" to copyright infringement, so it is unlikely that a single infringing link would result in a website being blocked.

“This petition is irrelevant because it does not apply to the Stop Online Piracy Act," House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas), SOPA's sponsor, said in an email. "Contrary to what the petition says, the Stop Online Piracy Act specifically targets foreign criminals that steal America’s products and profits. This bill applies to foreign illegal websites, not lawful domestic sites like whitehouse.gov. And it requires a court order before any action is taken, not just a claim by an individual as some critics wrongly assert."

"The petition is meaningless because it is based on fiction rather than facts. This bill protects America’s innovations, preserves American jobs and promotes the American economy,“ Smith said.

President Obama has not yet taken a position on the bill, but Smith told The Hill last week he expects the president will sign it.

The House Judiciary Committee is expected to vote on the legislation when Congress is back in session. The Senate version of the bill, the Protect IP Act, passed the Senate Judiciary Committee in May and will come up for a vote in the full chamber next month.

 

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GoDaddy not only helped write #SOPA they are also exempt from it. Scumbags.

You may have heard about the mass exodus of customers from GoDaddy due to their support of SOPA. You may have also heard that GoDaddy no longer supports SOPA. The problem is, only one of those things is true. While GoDaddy no longer publicly supports SOPA, that is just a PR move. They have not withdrawn official support for the bill, let alone actually come out in opposition to it. But it gets worse. According to [THIS ARTICLE], not only did GoDaddy help write the damn thing, they are also exempt from complying with the law!

Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO), the only member of Congress present at the hearing with any tech experience, having founded several web companies, introduced two amendments: one to exclude universities and non-profits from being subject do having to shut down their own domain servers if accused of piracy under SOPA, and the other to exempt dynamic IP addresses, such as those found on web-enabled printers. Both were voted down.

Polis pointed out that SOPA and Smith’s amendment already excluded certain operators of sub-domains, such as GoDaddy.com, from being subject to shutdowns under SOPA.

“If companies like GoDaddy.com are exempt, why aren’t non-commercial domain servers exempt?” Polis asked.

I was willing to forgive and forget if they actually changed sides and informed Congress of their official opposition to this bill. But they never will. They are too far in bed with the scumbags in Congress who are writing the bill. In my opinion GoDaddy is a lost cause. Let the boycott continue!

UPDATE: This post is currently on Reddit’s front page. Thanks! I’m getting tons of views but not a lot of people are clicking through to the linked article. Be sure to go read it. Don’t just take my word. I’ve also been seeing comments around the internet about this issue which point out that GoDaddy is not specifically named as exempt in this bill. This is true, but that’s not what the article claims. It claims that companies like GoDaddy are exempted and that GoDaddy helped write it.

UPDATE 2: There is a little controversy and confusion in the comments section. The fact that GoDaddy helped write the law and the fact that they are exempt are not necessarily related. We don’t know that they wrote an exemption for themselves. Please don’t jump to conclusions. GoDaddy themselves just say, via their press release, that they helped redefine terms in the law and proposed limitations on DNS filtering, etc. I see where the confusion comes from. But please, read the article I sourced AND THAT ARTICLE’S SOURCES. Again, don’t take my word on any of this. Read things for yourself. It will be made much more clear. Honestly, this post is just blog spam that got lucky on Reddit. The original article that I linked to is what should have been posted to Reddit, but since it was me, I feel obligated to make sure as many people as possible actually read the source. Thanks!




GoDaddy not only helped write #SOPA they are also exempt from it. Scumbags. |

 

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memcpy comments on To any posts saying r/politics is too over-reactive (re: NDAA, SOPA/PIPA, etc.): Perhaps if we had been more "over-reactive" 10-15 years ago (Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, PATRIOT Act), we would not be i

What happened in Denmark (quoted from someone).

7 years ago we got a child pornography filter on the Internet in Denmark. Some people said that it was a bad idea, but others said these people were just paedophiles, or trying to help paedophiles. Some people said that it was against our constitution, which it was. So the censorship was implemented in a way so it was formally (but not in reality) voluntary, which ensured that it was not formally a violation of our constitution.

Some people warned that once the censorship infrastructure was in place, it would most likely be used to censor other things. But they were told "Never! This is ONLY to prevent this horrible crime, and will never be used for other censorship."

Fast-forward a few years, and the Danish recording industry did not like allofmp3.com, so they went to court to get a court order against the Danish ISPs to start censoring allofmp3 off the Danish Internet. The judge basically said "ahh, you already have the infrastructure in place, so there will be no extra cost", and issued the order to censor allofmp3.com. It was not a violation of our constitution because it was ordered by a judge.

Since then other "pirate" sites have been censored. Most notably The Pirate Bay, which found out that the court would not even allow them to speak their case in court, or even submit a written brief.

Then our politicians found out that they wanted to protect and expand income from taxes. In particular the high taxes gambling providers pay. The official excuse was to limit the horrible disease of ludomania. So they decided that foreign gambling providers had to pay the taxes in Denmark too if they were on the Internet and could be seen in Denmark. If they refused to pay taxes, they should be censored off the Danish internet. So they passed a law saying that if a foreign gambling provider refused to pay taxes in Denmark, a court would - on the request of our government - have to order ISPs to censor its sites off the net, and payment processors to block all payments to it. If an ISP does not censor, or a payment processor or bank does not block payment, hefty fines are issued.

Now our politicians worry that some foreign companies selling medicines on the net are not licensed to sell medicines in Denmark. So they are preparing new legislation that will censor these sites off the net, and block payments to them.

So our Internet censorship started a few years ago with a very limited purpose and good intentions. And it was solemnly promised that nothing else than child pornography would be censored.

But once the infrastructure for censorship was in place, the censorship started spreading to other areas. And the censorship is getting more and more widespread.



How SOPA Creates The Architecture For Much More Widespread Censorship | Techdirt

 

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And one last thing until more events unfold.

Guess where YOUR tax dollars are going if this gets passed?
YOU GUESSED IT! TO BE WASTED IN ALL THE COURTS WHILE VIOLATING YOUR RIGHTS IN ATTEMPT TO MAKE YOU A FELON AND EXTORT YOU OF $$$

 

[LAfrique]

Man, land piracy is of more concern to me. You are beginning sound more like our space nuts who would like to spend billions to explore space and find out if we can grow vegetation in space, while humankind on Planet Earth has its hand full with troubles.

 

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Man, land piracy is of more concern to me. You are beginning sound more like our space nuts who would like to spend billions to explore space and find out if we can grow vegetation in space, while humankind on Planet Earth has its hand full with troubles.

So you rather create more problems for everyone to deal with in the first place?

 

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(this particular topic was allready covered, but this is confirmed by cnet)

GoDaddy accused of interfering with anti-SOPA exodus | Privacy Inc. - CNET News

NameCheap, whose chief executive last week likened the Stop Online Piracy Act to "detonating a nuclear bomb" on the Internet, said today that GoDaddy has intentionally thrown up technical barriers to prevent its customers from leaving. It lost over 70,000 domains last week.
NameCheap has seized on a dispute over the Stop Online Piracy Act as a way to lure new customers.

NameCheap has seized on a dispute over the Stop Online Piracy Act as a way to lure new customers.

It's not alone: at least half a dozen GoDaddy rivals have seized on their competitor's pro-SOPA lobbying to lure its customers away. NameCheap dubbed December 29 "move your domain" day, offering below-cost transfers with the coupon "SOPASUCKS" plus a $1 donation to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Other registrars such as Dreamhost, HostGator, and Hover.com, and Name.com have offered similar SOPA-related promotions.

"GoDaddy appears to be returning incomplete Whois information to Namecheap, delaying the transfer process" in violation of rules established by ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, NameCheap wrote in a blog post today. By this afternoon, the company said that GoDaddy had "finally unblocked our queries" and that transfers should now "go smoothly."

For its part, GoDaddy, which has reportedly called customers to ask them to return, denies any wrongdoing. In a statement sent to CNET this afternoon, the company said:

Namecheap posted their accusations in a blog, but to the best our of knowledge, has yet to contact Go Daddy directly, which would be common practice for situations like this. Normally, the fellow registrar would make a request for us to remove the normal rate limiting block which is a standard practice used by Go Daddy, and many other registrars, to rate limit Whois queries to combat WhoIs abuse.

Because some registrars (and other data gathering, analyzing and reporting entities) have legitimate need for heavy port 43 access, we routinely grant requests for expanded access per an SOP we've had in place for many years. Should we make contact with Namecheap, and learn they need similar access, we would treat that request similarly.

As a side note, we have seen some nefarious activity this weekend which came from non-registrar sources. But, that is not unusual for a holiday weekend, nor would it cause legitimate requests to be rejected. Nevertheless, we have now proactively removed the rate limit for Namecheap, as a courtesy, but it is important to point out, there still may be back-end IP addresses affiliated with Namecheap of which we are unaware. For complete resolution, we should be talking to each other -- an effort we are initiating since they have not done so themselves."

Namecheap CEO Richard Kirkendall did not respond to a request from CNET asking what kind of contact he had with GoDaddy before accusing his competitor of interfering with the transfer process. In a separate post, however, a Namecheap community manager said the company tried "reaching out to GoDaddy" but received "no response."

Criticism of GoDaddy coalesced around a protest thread on Reddit and was aided by Jimmy Wales' announcement last week that "Wikipedia domain names will move away from GoDaddy." It inspired GoDaddyBoycott.org, which urged Internet users and companies to "boycott GoDaddy until they send a letter to Congress taking back any and all support of the House and Senate versions of the Internet censorship bill, both SOPA and PIPA." The Protect IP Act, or PIPA, is the Senate version of SOPA.

On December 23, GoDaddy partially caved, announcing that it was no longer backing SOPA, but stopping short of saying it will oppose the legislation. And not until today did it post a clarification saying GoDaddy "does not support" Protect IP, either. (The GoDaddyBoycott.org site, which hasn't been updated, continues to say that GoDaddy endorses the Senate bill.)

SOPA, of course, 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.

It would allow the Justice Department to obtain an order to be served on search engines, Internet providers, and other companies forcing them to make a suspected piratical Web site effectively vanish, a kind of Internet death penalty. It's opposed (PDF) by many Internet companies and Internet users. (See CNET's FAQ on SOPA.)

Accusations of hypocrisy help any boycott, and, as TechDirt helpfully noted, GoDaddy condemns intellectual property theft while encouraging customers to buy domains "that are perfect for infringing sites." If you try to buy the domain Chanel.com, for instance, you'll get offered "RealChanel.com" as an option.

Prior to its current public relations debacle, GoDaddy had been an enthusiastic supporter of expanding copyright law to deal with "parasite" Web sites. In testimony (PDF) before a House of Representatives hearing this spring, GoDaddy general counsel Christine Jones endorsed Domain Name System (DNS) blocking as a way to prevent Americans from accessing suspected piratical Web sites.

Jones said that DNS blocking is an "effective strategy for disabling access to illegal" Web sites. It can "be done by the registrar (which provides the authoritative DNS response), or, in cases where the registrar is unable or unwilling to comply, by the registry (which provides the Root zone file records -- the database -- for the entire TLD)," she said.

 

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Movie Studios Caught Pirating Movies

The same copyright barons pushing SOPA, the awful internet, are enormous hypocrites, TorrentFreak reports. They want the law as a means of stopping online piracy—but maybe they should start with their own employees.

A Russian BitTorrent tracking firm traced pirated movies and television show downloads back to IP addresses from Sony, Fox, and NBC—as TF points out, "these are the same companies who want to disconnect people from the Internet after they've been caught sharing copyrighted material."

This shouldn't surprise anyone. When studios push fascist copyright law, they're speaking on behalf of their shareholders, not the thousands of people they employ. Those people are ordinary people, who, yes, sometimes pirate albums, movies, shows, and games, like millions of other ordinary people around the world. But the hypocrisy is more than superficial. We shouldn't ever let companies that can't control their own miscreant employees shape federal legislation for all of us.

 

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Graphic Artists Guild Changes Mind: Withdraws SOPA Support | Techdirt

It seems that many of the supporters of SOPA blindly signed on thinking things like "gee, protecting copyrights sound good," but without looking at the details (or recognizing the implications). The latest to change their position is the Graphic Artists Guild (sent in by Ross Pruden), which has put out a statement saying that, after hearing from a number of concerned members, it no longer supports SOPA:

We have been closely following online anti-piracy legislation since we submitted a Comment Letter to the study conducted by Victoria Espinel, the Intellectual Property Enforcement Commissioner, in 2010. We supported the IPEC’s recommendations in her 2010 report. The “Stop Online Piracy Act” has different terms that we can no longer support.

We are concerned that the bill may have unintended consequences that may do more harm than good.

At this time, we are withdrawing our support for SOPA. We don’t see the Committee making significant changes during the mark-ups that would narrow the scope and process outlined in the bill that so many of you are concerned about. We’re doing our best, watching out for you.

The key point is that a big part of what caused them to change their minds was that they heard from many members questioning the decision to publicly support the bill:

We further want to thank everyone who has emailed or Tweeted the Guild expressing dissent. Your comments helped us decide to take another look at the bill and to withdraw our support at this time. For the record, we have not spent a dime on any lobbyist in Congress for this bill.

Looks like all that hyped up "support" for the bill continues to crumble.

 

[PredFan]

This is a bad bill no matter what side of the fence you are on.

 

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This is a bad bill no matter what side of the fence you are on.

This. Not only are the backers of the bill the cause of the problem, they want to make themselves exempt from the bill!

 

[nitroz]

Why We Must Stop SOPA - Death Rattle Sports | Death Rattle Sports



Right now, there are two pieces of legislation in Congress that would change the Internet forever if they are enacted. The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) would give the federal government the ability to potentially shut down millions of websites. SOPA (the version being considered in the U.S. House of Representatives) is the more dangerous of the two. It would essentially be the equivalent of a nuclear bomb being dropped on the Internet. It would give government officials unlimited power to very rapidly shut down any website that is found to "engage in, enable or facilitate" copyright infringement. That language is very broad and very vague. Many fear that it will be used to shut down any websites that even inadvertently link to "infringing material". Can you imagine a world where there is no more Facebook, Twitter or YouTube? Sites like those would be forced to hire thousands of Internet censors to make sure that no "infringing material" is posted, and many prominent websites may simply decide that allowing users to post content is no longer profitable and is just not worth the hassle. Are you starting to get the picture? That is why we must stop SOPA. If SOPA is enacted, it could be the death of the free Internet.

But this is exactly the kind of bill that the establishment media has been waiting for. It would give them back control. SOPA is being heavily promoted by big media corporations. If they are able to shut down free speech on the Internet, then suddenly everyone would be forced to rely on them for news and entertainment once again.

That is why SOPA and PIPA must be stopped. A recent editorial in the New York Times described how these new laws would work....

The bills would empower the attorney general to create a blacklist of sites to be blocked by Internet service providers, search engines, payment providers and advertising networks, all without a court hearing or a trial. The House version goes further, allowing private companies to sue service providers for even briefly and unknowingly hosting content that infringes on copyright — a sharp change from current law, which protects the service providers from civil liability if they remove the problematic content immediately upon notification. The intention is not the same as China’s Great Firewall, a nationwide system of Web censorship, but the practical effect could be similar.

Everyone would be deathly scared of allowing anything to be posted on their websites in such an environment. Free speech on the Internet would be a thing of the past.

An article on lifehacker.com explained how easy it would be to bring a claim against a website under SOPA....

If it's possible to post pirated content on the site, or information that could further online piracy, a claim can be brought against it. This can be something as minor as you posting a copyrighted image to your Facebook page, or piracy-friendly information in the comments of a post such as this one. The vague, sweeping language in this bill is what makes it so troubling.

Fortunately, some of the biggest names on the Internet are rallying to defeat SOPA. For example, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt says that he believes that SOPA will actually "criminalize" links....

"By criminalizing links, what these bills do is they force you to take content off the Internet"

Another huge name, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, is alarmed that SOPA would give the U.S. government the power to censor search results without even having to go through a court trial....

"Imagine my astonishment when the newest threat to free speech has come from none other but the United States. Two bills currently making their way through congress -- SOPA and PIPA -- give the U.S. government and copyright holders extraordinary powers including the ability to hijack DNS and censor search results (and this is even without so much as a proper court trial)"

In the United States, we used to believe that the government should not take our property away without a fair trial.

But now SOPA would allow the U.S. government to hit Internet websites with a "death penalty" without even having to go to court.

If SOPA becomes law, the Internet will change dramatically.

If there were no websites where people could post thoughts and ideas, what would the world look like?

Over recent months we have seen how sites like YouTube, Twitter and Facebook can literally change the face of the globe. The following comes from the same New York Times article referenced above....

YouTube, Twitter and Facebook have played an important role in political movements from Tahrir Square to Zuccotti Park. At present, social networking services are protected by a “safe harbor” provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which grants Web sites immunity from prosecution as long as they act in good faith to take down infringing content as soon as rights-holders point it out to them. The House bill would destroy that immunity, putting the onus on YouTube to vet videos in advance or risk legal action. It would put Twitter in a similar position to that of its Chinese cousin, Weibo, which reportedly employs around 1,000 people to monitor and censor user content and keep the company in good standing with authorities.

Do we really want Chinese-style Internet censorship in America?

Thankfully, the Internet community is fighting back against SOPA really hard.

Initially, GoDaddy.com was publicly supporting SOPA, but a boycott organized on Reddit has hit them really hard. In fact, GoDaddy lost more than 70,000 domains just last week.

All of this pressure forced GoDaddy to renounce its support for SOPA. However, they are not actively opposing the bill at this point.

Congress is in recess right now, so action on SOPA and PIPA is stalled for now. But the battle is far from over.

And the stakes are incredibly high. One blogger recently put it this way....

“If either the U.S. Senate’s Protect IP Act (PIPA) & the U.S. House’s Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) become law, political blogs such as Red Mass Group [conservative] & Blue Mass Group [liberal] will cease to exist”

Yes, the free Internet that we all love and enjoy today is under assault.

If we do not stand up now, we may lose it forever.

Every single day, control of the Internet gets tighter and tighter. For example, did you know that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is now watching everything that is said on Facebook and Twitter?

The following comes from a recent Daily Mail article....

The Department of Homeland Security makes fake Twitter and Facebook profiles for the specific purpose of scanning the networks for 'sensitive' words - and tracking people who use them.

Simply using a word or phrase from the DHS's 'watch' list could mean that spies from the government read your posts, investigate your account, and attempt to identify you from it, acccording to an online privacy group.

But it is one thing for them to watch the Internet.

It is another thing for them to shut down free speech on the Internet entirely.

Please do what you can to save the open and free Internet.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is helping to organize users of the Internet to protest this draconian legislation. The following is from a statement that the EFF recently put out....

As drafted, the legislation would grant the government and private parties unprecedented power to interfere with the Internet's domain name system (DNS). The government would be able to force ISPs and search engines to redirect or dump users' attempts to reach certain websites' URLs. In response, third parties will woo average users to alternative servers that offer access to the entire Internet (not just the newly censored U.S. version), which will create new computer security vulnerabilities as the reliability and universality of the DNS evaporates.

It gets worse: Under SOPA's provisions, service providers (including hosting services) would be under new pressure to monitor and police their users’ activities. While PROTECT-IP targeted sites “dedicated to infringing activities,” SOPA targets websites that simply don’t do enough to track and police infringement (and it is not at all clear what would be enough). And it creates new powers to shut down folks who provide tools to help users get access to the Internet the rest of the world sees (not just the “U.S. authorized version&#8221.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has created a page that makes it very easy to send a letter about SOPA to your representatives in Congress. You can find it right here.

There is also a website called "Stop American Censorship" that has even more ways to let the federal government know that you do not want SOPA to pass. You can find that site right here.

We must stop SOPA. The Internet has made it possible for average people all over the world to communicate with one another on a grand scale, and this is a direct threat to the establishment and the big media corporations that they control. They are going to try again and again to take back control over the flow of information. We must not allow them to succeed.

Please share this article with as many people as you can, and please do what you can to help defeat SOPA.

 

[Flopper]

Why We Must Stop SOPA - Death Rattle Sports | Death Rattle Sports



Right now, there are two pieces of legislation in Congress that would change the Internet forever if they are enacted. The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) would give the federal government the ability to potentially shut down millions of websites. SOPA (the version being considered in the U.S. House of Representatives) is the more dangerous of the two. It would essentially be the equivalent of a nuclear bomb being dropped on the Internet. It would give government officials unlimited power to very rapidly shut down any website that is found to "engage in, enable or facilitate" copyright infringement. That language is very broad and very vague. Many fear that it will be used to shut down any websites that even inadvertently link to "infringing material". Can you imagine a world where there is no more Facebook, Twitter or YouTube? Sites like those would be forced to hire thousands of Internet censors to make sure that no "infringing material" is posted, and many prominent websites may simply decide that allowing users to post content is no longer profitable and is just not worth the hassle. Are you starting to get the picture? That is why we must stop SOPA. If SOPA is enacted, it could be the death of the free Internet.

But this is exactly the kind of bill that the establishment media has been waiting for. It would give them back control. SOPA is being heavily promoted by big media corporations. If they are able to shut down free speech on the Internet, then suddenly everyone would be forced to rely on them for news and entertainment once again.

That is why SOPA and PIPA must be stopped. A recent editorial in the New York Times described how these new laws would work....

The bills would empower the attorney general to create a blacklist of sites to be blocked by Internet service providers, search engines, payment providers and advertising networks, all without a court hearing or a trial. The House version goes further, allowing private companies to sue service providers for even briefly and unknowingly hosting content that infringes on copyright — a sharp change from current law, which protects the service providers from civil liability if they remove the problematic content immediately upon notification. The intention is not the same as China’s Great Firewall, a nationwide system of Web censorship, but the practical effect could be similar.

Everyone would be deathly scared of allowing anything to be posted on their websites in such an environment. Free speech on the Internet would be a thing of the past.

An article on lifehacker.com explained how easy it would be to bring a claim against a website under SOPA....

If it's possible to post pirated content on the site, or information that could further online piracy, a claim can be brought against it. This can be something as minor as you posting a copyrighted image to your Facebook page, or piracy-friendly information in the comments of a post such as this one. The vague, sweeping language in this bill is what makes it so troubling.

Fortunately, some of the biggest names on the Internet are rallying to defeat SOPA. For example, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt says that he believes that SOPA will actually "criminalize" links....

"By criminalizing links, what these bills do is they force you to take content off the Internet"

Another huge name, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, is alarmed that SOPA would give the U.S. government the power to censor search results without even having to go through a court trial....

"Imagine my astonishment when the newest threat to free speech has come from none other but the United States. Two bills currently making their way through congress -- SOPA and PIPA -- give the U.S. government and copyright holders extraordinary powers including the ability to hijack DNS and censor search results (and this is even without so much as a proper court trial)"

In the United States, we used to believe that the government should not take our property away without a fair trial.

But now SOPA would allow the U.S. government to hit Internet websites with a "death penalty" without even having to go to court.

If SOPA becomes law, the Internet will change dramatically.

If there were no websites where people could post thoughts and ideas, what would the world look like?

Over recent months we have seen how sites like YouTube, Twitter and Facebook can literally change the face of the globe. The following comes from the same New York Times article referenced above....

YouTube, Twitter and Facebook have played an important role in political movements from Tahrir Square to Zuccotti Park. At present, social networking services are protected by a “safe harbor” provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which grants Web sites immunity from prosecution as long as they act in good faith to take down infringing content as soon as rights-holders point it out to them. The House bill would destroy that immunity, putting the onus on YouTube to vet videos in advance or risk legal action. It would put Twitter in a similar position to that of its Chinese cousin, Weibo, which reportedly employs around 1,000 people to monitor and censor user content and keep the company in good standing with authorities.

Do we really want Chinese-style Internet censorship in America?

Thankfully, the Internet community is fighting back against SOPA really hard.

Initially, GoDaddy.com was publicly supporting SOPA, but a boycott organized on Reddit has hit them really hard. In fact, GoDaddy lost more than 70,000 domains just last week.

All of this pressure forced GoDaddy to renounce its support for SOPA. However, they are not actively opposing the bill at this point.

Congress is in recess right now, so action on SOPA and PIPA is stalled for now. But the battle is far from over.

And the stakes are incredibly high. One blogger recently put it this way....

“If either the U.S. Senate’s Protect IP Act (PIPA) & the U.S. House’s Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) become law, political blogs such as Red Mass Group [conservative] & Blue Mass Group [liberal] will cease to exist”

Yes, the free Internet that we all love and enjoy today is under assault.

If we do not stand up now, we may lose it forever.

Every single day, control of the Internet gets tighter and tighter. For example, did you know that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is now watching everything that is said on Facebook and Twitter?

The following comes from a recent Daily Mail article....

The Department of Homeland Security makes fake Twitter and Facebook profiles for the specific purpose of scanning the networks for 'sensitive' words - and tracking people who use them.

Simply using a word or phrase from the DHS's 'watch' list could mean that spies from the government read your posts, investigate your account, and attempt to identify you from it, acccording to an online privacy group.

But it is one thing for them to watch the Internet.

It is another thing for them to shut down free speech on the Internet entirely.

Please do what you can to save the open and free Internet.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is helping to organize users of the Internet to protest this draconian legislation. The following is from a statement that the EFF recently put out....

As drafted, the legislation would grant the government and private parties unprecedented power to interfere with the Internet's domain name system (DNS). The government would be able to force ISPs and search engines to redirect or dump users' attempts to reach certain websites' URLs. In response, third parties will woo average users to alternative servers that offer access to the entire Internet (not just the newly censored U.S. version), which will create new computer security vulnerabilities as the reliability and universality of the DNS evaporates.

It gets worse: Under SOPA's provisions, service providers (including hosting services) would be under new pressure to monitor and police their users’ activities. While PROTECT-IP targeted sites “dedicated to infringing activities,” SOPA targets websites that simply don’t do enough to track and police infringement (and it is not at all clear what would be enough). And it creates new powers to shut down folks who provide tools to help users get access to the Internet the rest of the world sees (not just the “U.S. authorized version”).

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has created a page that makes it very easy to send a letter about SOPA to your representatives in Congress. You can find it right here.

There is also a website called "Stop American Censorship" that has even more ways to let the federal government know that you do not want SOPA to pass. You can find that site right here.

We must stop SOPA. The Internet has made it possible for average people all over the world to communicate with one another on a grand scale, and this is a direct threat to the establishment and the big media corporations that they control. They are going to try again and again to take back control over the flow of information. We must not allow them to succeed.

Please share this article with as many people as you can, and please do what you can to help defeat SOPA.

Bills such as these have far reaching unexpected effects. If this bill passes it will effectively block Americans from acquiring safe and affordable medication from pharmacies outside the U.S. Hundreds of thousands of people in the US purchase their prescription drugs from Canada saving millions of dollars. The drug companies have been trying to stop this for years. This legislation will be a godsend for the drug companies and will put a financial burden on many Americans who can't afford to spend hundreds or thousands a month on medicine.

SOPA | Online Pharmacy and Prescription Drug Review

 

[nitroz]

Cloud provider says SOPA would lead to censorship - The Hill's Hillicon Valley

A controversial online piracy bill in the House would force Web companies to censor their customers with limited legal oversight, according to cloud and hosting provider Rackspace.

Rackspace CEO Lanham Napier published a blog post on Saturday blasting the Stop Online Piracy Act, which is currently awaiting a vote in the House Judiciary Committee.

"Part of the professional code of physicians is that, when they’re treating a patient’s ailment, they should 'first, do no harm.' I wish more members of Congress would follow that rule," Napier wrote.

"Instead, in the name of policing the online theft of intellectual property, key lawmakers are pushing a cure that’s worse than the disease."

The legislation would force search engines and other Web firms to delete links to foreign sites deemed to be "dedicated to theft of U.S. property." The bill has drawn a strong backlash from the technology community, which claims it would lead to censorship and stifle innovation.

"SOPA would require that Rackspace and other Internet service providers censor their customers with little in the way of due process, trumping the protections present in the current Digital Millennium Copyright Act," Napier said.

The bill still has strong support from the content industry as well as powerful interests including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO. It's expected to pass the Judiciary Committee but encounter more resistance on the House floor thanks to the growing opposition online.

Update: Judiciary chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) sent the following response via email - "Now more than ever, we must help our economy by ensuring that legitimate companies are not competing with those that profit by illegally selling stolen goods online. Companies that benefit from working with rogue websites will continue to criticize the Stop Online Piracy Act, but they use fear instead of facts to discredit the bill. We cannot let misinformation distract us from making the online marketplace safe and fair for American consumers.

SOPA only targets conduct that is already illegal. The bill merely makes it possible to enforce the law against foreign pirates and counterfeiters, and it would create a significant barrier to online thieves who profit from selling counterfeit goods. Just because some thieves may find a way around the law does not mean that we should abandon trying to enforce intellectual property rights.

There is no langugage in SOPA that would require Internet Service Providers (ISPs) such as Rackspace to “censor” the Internet. It will only require ISPs to take reasonable action when they receive a court order, and only after a judge has decided that the site is dedicated to the sale and distribution of illegal or infringing material. This is why the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, which represents the nation’s largest ISPs, supports SOPA.

SOPA only applies to websites operated by foreign criminals who steal and sell America's products and intellectual property. We enforce laws against criminals in the brick and mortar world. It is not censorship to enforce the law online and stop foreign criminals from stealing America's intellectual property.”

 

[nitroz]

SOPA: Bloggers and Libertarians vs. Hollywood | Care2 Causes

Just before the holidays, the House held a hearing about the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which would give the US Justice Department new powers to clamp down on websites that host material with disputed copyrights. The bill is hotly opposed by a number of internet giants including including Wikipedia owner Wikimedia, eBay, Google, Twitter and, as of last Friday, GoDaddy. The domain registration company had been one of the few internet companies speaking up in support of SOPA but reversed course after Reddit and other companies led a grassroots boycott campaign.

SOPA would affect all of us by ”censoring any web site capable of providing its users with the means of promoting pirated content or allowing the process,” writes Adam Dachis of Lifehacker. That is, any site that allows you to post pirated content — Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr, etc., etc. — can have a claim brought against it even for “something as minor as you posting a copyrighted image to your Facebook page, or piracy-friendly information in the comments of a post such as this one.” Under SOPA, a site would have only five days to submit an appeal if a claim of piracy is brought against it.

In addition, SOPA would create an “Internet blacklist” that would promote online censorship, eliminate jobs and squash freedom of speech. Under SOPA, the US Justice Department would have the right to police websites that host material whose copyright is disputed and not only sites in the US, but aboard. Even more, the US could shut down websites and also go after the companies that support them technically or through payment systems, such as Paypal.

SOPA Supporters and Opponents

Dachis notes that SOPA could “negatively change the internet as we know it.” Many of SOPA’s supporters are from the Internet community, but also from the political right and hold libertarian views. As Timothy B. Lee at Ars Technica points out, SOPA’s opponents include GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul as well as members of libertarian Think Tanks including the Cato Institute and Erick Erickson of the conservative political blog RedState. James Gattuso, a senior research fellow from the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, argues that SOPA “enforces private property rights at the expense of other values, such as innovation on the Internet, security of the Internet, and freedom of communication.”

SOPA was sponsored by a Republican Rep. Lamar Smith (TX). The House anti-piracy bill and a Senate version, the Protect IP Act (PIPA), have powerful backers in the form of the the United States Chamber of Commerce, Americans for Tax Reform, the Motion Picture Association of America, the American Federation of Musicians, the Directors Guild of America, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the Screen Actors Guild. SOPA, says Declan McCullagh on CNET, ”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.” The issues of online piracy that SOPA addresses reveal a new kind of divide.

SOPA: Bloggers and Libertarians vs. Hollywood

by Kristina Chew
December 28, 2011
4:19 pm

2 comments

2 of 2

Writes Ars Technica‘s Lee:

…the fight over SOPA is less about left versus right than it is about declining industries—Hollywood and major labels—versus the Internet community. Conservative bloggers like Erickson, Matt Drudge, and Glenn “Instapundit” Reynolds are as offended by the legislation as are their liberal and libertarian counterparts. Conversely, even staunch civil libertarians seem to get confused about copyright issues if they’re too closely tied to Hollywood.

Other conservative and liberal bloggers are speaking out against SOPA, saying that it could mean the literal end of them.

After the drawn-out hearings about SOPA on December 15 and 16 — which also revealed how little politicians understand about the workings of the internet — lawmakers agreed to table discussion until Congress meets again in January and SOPA’s opponents have been gathering their forces. Conservative Rep. Darrell Issa (CA), Senior House Republican and chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee, has been leading the hearings and has said that SOPA should not be brought to the House floor.