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SOPA: Stop Online Piracy Act


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Wikipedia may temporarily blank out its pages in self-sacrifice to draw attention to the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act. While the bill aims to protect copyrighted material, critics fear corporate manipulation could lead to greater censorship.

The US lawmakers behind the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) say it would deal a blow to online pirates and producers of counterfeit brand products like designer fashion items or medicines.

The bill is intended to crack down on websites operating outside of the United States. If passed, the legislation would allow the US government to shut down any site illegally hosting copyrighted content.

However, not everyone supports the move. Wikipedia is the latest to join internet industry giants in the fight to stop the bill from being pushed through the Senate.

While there are legitimate reasons behind showbiz’s drive in favor of SOPA – the industry is losing millions of dollars in revenue – some feel the legislation is overkill on internet piracy

Internet companies, the Consumer Electronics Association and others have argued that the measure goes too far and the wording is too ambiguous.

In reality, the real use of the bill could be much wider. If approved, SOPA will enable individuals or organizations claiming copyright to effectively block any website they suspect of infringing their rights. No court decision would be necessary, and third parties would be granted immunity from any reprisals resulting from their voluntary action against the alleged offenders.Consequently, popular sites like Wikipedia would be responsible for the material that is uploaded onto their site.

Fearing that a medium based on the free sharing of information could be targeted, Wikipedia has chosen to fight back with a highly symbolic act.

The “self-censorship” idea came to Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales after Italian Wikipedia blanked out its site a few months ago in an effort to oppose a law in the country which would infringe on their editorial independence.

“The Italian Parliament backed down immediately,” Wales writes. “As Wikipedians may or may not be aware, a much worse law going under the misleading title of ‘Stop Online Piracy Act’ is working its way through [the Senate] on a bit of a fast track.”

However, Wales is not quick to jump into action without consultation and approval from the site’s users and editors. The online information straw poll has been posted online so everyone can have their say before Wales makes a decision.

A ‘grave threat’…

The strongest lobbyist for SOPA is the US entertainment industry, which wants the government to act against what it labels “digital theft”.

Creative America, an organization fighting against online piracy is the biggest advocate for SOPA. In this fight Creative America is backed by an unprecedented coalition of major entertainment unions, guilds, studios and networks.

The organization warns of the “grave threat content theft poses” to industry’s “livelihood and creativity,” blaming pirates for making millions of dollars on illegal trafficking and undermining the legitimate online content providers.

…And corporate censorship

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt, speaking at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, referred to the controversial legislation as a form of censorship.

"The solutions are draconian," he said, as cited by Reuters. "There's a bill that would require (internet service providers) to remove URLs from the web, which is also known as censorship last time I checked."

The remarks followed a letter to lawmakers opposing the bills from a

group of internet companies including Google, AOL Inc, eBay Inc, Facebook, Yahoo Inc and Twitter.

"We are concerned that these measures pose a serious risk to our industry's continued track record of innovation and job creation, as well as to our nation's cyber security," the companies wrote.

Essentially the fight is between entertainment industry and internet and consumer electronics industries. While the first one, rightfully defending its rights, vigorously supports SOPA, the latter one opposes it with an equal force.

Will Wikipedia’s strike tilt the scales in favor of online and electronics industry, before the bill is rammed through in Washington, is yet unknown. However, blanking out one of the most visited sites with billions of page views per month will definitely send a strong message to lawmakers in Washington. Maybe just in time.

RT

Edited by Mini0n
Nome do tópico actualizado
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GoDaddy lost 72,354 domains this week. It's not enough.

Despite a massive

Twitter campaign and a blog post that claims “Go Daddy no longer supports SOPA legislation” the company and their CEO have dodged questions about opposing the bill. In essence, they are taking a lesser role by not showing support for the bill. They have not opposed it.

This week, they

lost around 72,000 domain registrations. At a yearly discounted rate of $6.99 (most registrations are higher), that’s over half a million dollars per year. It is apparently not enough for them to speak out against the bill.

How many domains is the company willing to lose before they oppose this abomination of legislation? Do they believe that when they “step back and let others take leadership roles” that we are going to see it as something other than a “duck and cover” public relations move to try to get out of the spotlight and hope someone else takes the brunt of the attacks while they quietly support the bill?

Is 72,354 domains enough? Not even close. It’s a drop in the bucket. The have anywhere from 15,000 to 40,000 domains added daily. Despite cries from the internet, yesterday was a good day with over 32,000 added. Go Daddy has not felt much pain yet. The “PR nightmare” that many of us in the tech industry perceive is happening to them hasn’t hit their pocketbooks in any real form, yet.

Until the effect is more pronounced, they can afford to deflect questions and let the negative PR pass. More must be done.

http://www.techi.com/2011/12/godaddy-lost-72354-domains-this-week-its-not-enough/

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  • 3 weeks later...

Isto é muito assustador mesmo, mais para os states do que nos Europeus, mas já sério que seguimos às pisadas.

Só o facto de ganharem poderes para fecharem um website baseado em suposições,e não em factos ou provas, acho que diz tudo.

Acho muito bem que a google, facebook, wikipedia protestem. Só se fizerem um blackout, é que as pessoas vão reparar.

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Acho pouco provável que tal aconteça. Há mesmo muita gente oposta, incluindo grandes companhias.

Sera assim ? A maioria dos membros do senado que aprovam as leis são velhos de 50+ que mal sabem mexer no word e sua maioria esta a favor. Alem disso para a google amazon yahoo etc estarem dispostos a fazer um blackout de um dia também serve para ver o quanto estão assustados e que isto é a valer.

Na america este assunto nem é noticia o que querem fazer é aprovar a lei por baixo das barbas sem ninguém dar conta ja que a maioria das estações pertence aos grupos que apoiam.

Edited by WormMeteor
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Acho pouco provável que tal aconteça. Há mesmo muita gente oposta, incluindo grandes companhias.

Sera assim ? A maioria dos membros do senado que aprovam as leis são velhos de 50+ que mal sabem mexer no word e sua maioria esta a favor. Alem disso para a google amazon yahoo etc estarem dispostos a fazer um blackout de um dia também serve para ver o quanto estão assustados e que isto é a valer.

Na america este assunto nem é noticia o que querem fazer é aprovar a lei por baixo das barbas sem ninguém dar conta ja que a maioria das estações pertence aos grupos que apoiam.

Basta o Facebook e Google fecharem as portas por 24h, com uma mensagem a dizer que estão fechados devido à SOPA, que toda a gente fica logo a saber o que é, e passa a noticia ;)

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White House opposes online piracy proposal

By April Dembosky in San Francisco and David Gelles in New York

The White House has spoken out against proposed legislation intended to reduce online piracy, inviting a strong response from Rupert Murdoch, and fuelling a battle between the technology and entertainment industries.

US Congress is considering two laws – the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect Intellectual Property Act – that would make internet companies accountable for hosting and linking to websites offering illicit downloads of movies, TV shows and music.

Media companies say piracy is costing them billions of dollars per year and killing jobs. Technology companies, including Facebook and Google, say such laws censor the internet and choke innovation.

On Saturday the White House appeared to side with the tech companies.

“While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global internet,” the White House said in a blog post.

The comments prompted News Corp chief executive Rupert Murdoch to make his first public comments on the issue.

“So Obama has thrown in his lot with Silicon Valley paymasters who threaten all software creators with piracy, plain thievery,” Mr Murdoch wrote on his new Twitter account. “Piracy leader is Google who streams movies free, sells advts around them. No wonder pouring millions into lobbying.”

In fact, the entertainment industry is outspending Silicon Valley in lobbying efforts, said Alan Webber, an analyst with the Altimeter Group.

Internet companies, including many start-ups and “hacktivists”, have instead taken their protests directly to consumers in grassroots campaigns online.

Anonymous, the online activist group, recently made public personal details of media executives including Time Warner chief executive Jeff Bewkes, Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone, and other supporters of the new anti-piracy legislation.

“[stop Online Piracy Act] is the first step limiting what you watch online and allowing the government to know what you watch online,” Anonymous said in one of the postings.

Hundreds of websites have called for large and small internet companies to participate in an online “blackout”, so when internet users try to visit popular sites, they will be greeted with a black screen and a Stop SOPA message encouraging them to write to their representatives and ask them to block the legislation.

More than 19,000 people have changed their Twitter profile pictures to a “Stop SOPA” image.

Lawmakers have been scurrying in the wake of the protests, calling for additional hearings to discuss the technical issues of the bills, then cancelling them, or vowing to add amendments that would require impact studies before implementation.

The Senate is scheduled to debate the Protect IP Act on January 24. Politicians are likely to delay any vote until after the 2012 election in November.

“I will be amazed if they actually passed anything this year,” Mr Webber said. “There is no way that any Congress member is going to give their opponent ammunition for an election battle for something like SOPA.”

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'Piracy' student Richard O'Dwyer loses extradition case

Mr O'Dwyer's mother criticised the UK's extradition treaty with the US

A Sheffield student can be extradited to the US to face copyright infringement allegations, a judge has ruled

http://www.bbc.co.uk...kshire-16544335

http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2012/jan/13/tvshack-student-founder-extradition

Basicamente só metia os links no site dele, nao transpôs nenhuma lei no UK e mesmo assim vao extraditar o rapaz.. ? US e UK a bombar.

Edited by WormMeteor
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Internet wins a victory as SOPA is shelved

It’s okay folks, the Internet can finally relax as today the highly controversial SOPA bill was set aside.

The Stop Online Piracy Act has had the Internet in a rage for the past few months. Several companies such as Google, Twitter and Facebook all highly opposed the bill which fundamentally gave the government power to shut down sites that were in breach of copyright – the bigger issue was that the bill also gave power for them to take down websites even if they linked to a website that had copyrighted material on it.

There were big efforts by the people to boycott companies that supported the bill. Popular social website Reddit fronted the boycotts and led a large initiative to reduce the amount of domain names that GoDaddy was selling. The attack worked and after GoDaddy attempted to brush it off but they eventually fell and pulled their support of the SOPA bill. GoDaddy was just one of the targets.

Whilst the Internet was a rage, the White House failed to give a proper position on SOPA, until now. Yesterday the Obama administration responded to a petition that was posted on the ‘We The People’ section of the White House website. “While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.” The statement read. “Any effort to combat online piracy must guard against the risk of online censorship of lawful activity and must not inhibit innovation by our dynamic businesses large and small”

Darrell Issa, house oversight chairman said that Majority Leader Eric Cantor vowed that the house would not vote on the bill until there is a general consensus on the bill. “While I remain concerned about Senate action on the Protect IP Act, I am confident that flawed legislation will not be taken up by this House,” That said, the politicians should have realized by the outrage of the American people and the world that the idea of SOPA was a bad one from the start.

Google and Reddit have already threatened blackouts in opposition of the bill, a move that would have cost both companies a huge sum of money, however, it's money both companies were willing to risk in order to make sure SOPA didn't pass. It’s still possible that SOPA could come back at some point; after all it was only shelved.

Good riddance.

link

De nada FNF...

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Internet wins a victory as SOPA is shelved

It’s okay folks, the Internet can finally relax as today the highly controversial SOPA bill was set aside.

The Stop Online Piracy Act has had the Internet in a rage for the past few months. Several companies such as Google, Twitter and Facebook all highly opposed the bill which fundamentally gave the government power to shut down sites that were in breach of copyright – the bigger issue was that the bill also gave power for them to take down websites even if they linked to a website that had copyrighted material on it.

There were big efforts by the people to boycott companies that supported the bill. Popular social website Reddit fronted the boycotts and led a large initiative to reduce the amount of domain names that GoDaddy was selling. The attack worked and after GoDaddy attempted to brush it off but they eventually fell and pulled their support of the SOPA bill. GoDaddy was just one of the targets.

Whilst the Internet was a rage, the White House failed to give a proper position on SOPA, until now. Yesterday the Obama administration responded to a petition that was posted on the ‘We The People’ section of the White House website. “While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.” The statement read. “Any effort to combat online piracy must guard against the risk of online censorship of lawful activity and must not inhibit innovation by our dynamic businesses large and small”

Darrell Issa, house oversight chairman said that Majority Leader Eric Cantor vowed that the house would not vote on the bill until there is a general consensus on the bill. “While I remain concerned about Senate action on the Protect IP Act, I am confident that flawed legislation will not be taken up by this House,” That said, the politicians should have realized by the outrage of the American people and the world that the idea of SOPA was a bad one from the start.

Google and Reddit have already threatened blackouts in opposition of the bill, a move that would have cost both companies a huge sum of money, however, it's money both companies were willing to risk in order to make sure SOPA didn't pass. It’s still possible that SOPA could come back at some point; after all it was only shelved.

Good riddance.

De nada Mundo.

Best regards and yours truly,

FNF

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E é agora que entra em cena o Protect IP..

Ora bem.

"Ok não passamos a SOPA, que realmente era muito abusiva, vamos só passar a PIPA, que é uma medida mais razoável e branda. Ah e btw, era precisamente este o plano desde o início."

Não tenham muita fé na administração Obama no que toca à protecção da liberdade individual.

Ao pé da NDAA, isto da SOPA e PIPA são brincadeiras de meninos.

Edited by P4rthen0n
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