Imagine a World Without Free Knowledge or Speech.
Today, over 7,000 websites -- including Wikipedia and Google -- will protest anti-piracy legislation currently making its way through Congress. Sites in opposition to the measures will either "going dark" or post information to educate visitors about bills H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), and S. 968, the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), two pieces of legislation meant to curb copyright infringement.
While many may support the bills' intentions, opponents and civil libertarians are worried that their passage would give the government powerful censorship tools that could threaten free speech.
When a site "goes dark," or participates in a "blackout," the site will in some way restrict its usual content. For example, the English-language version of Wikipedia, which will be dark from midnight January 18 until midnight January 19, will feature information about SOPA and PIPA and encourage visitors to contact their representatives, in place of its usual encyclopedia entries.
11 comments:
This is the 1st I have heard about this, I need to stay with the current events better.
As I understand, in this bill, if a blogger merely LINKS to something that violates a copyright, whether that blogger is aware of the violation or not, the violated party (sounds like I'm talking about a sex-crime) can demand that the blog with the link be shut down INDEFINITELY. Now, this far exceeds the laws that govern traditional media. In the non-virtual world, if the Reader's Digest reprints an article from Time without that magazines permission, the mighty Time Warner conglomerate can demand the Digest remove the pirated article. Furthermore, Time Warner can sue Reader's Digest for damages, though they would, of course, have to prove in a courtroom of 12 impartial jurors (preferrably jurors who haven't been screwed over by Time Warner Cable's billing division), that they did indeed suffer a monetary loss. What Time Warner CAN'T do, even if a judge and jury rules in their favor, is demand that Reader's Digest stop publishing forever. Yet that's exactly what the media companies could do to, say, that pesky Huffington Post or Daily Beast or your own blog if this bill becomes law.
While it's the movie studios that pushing for this law, I just read the latest from Michael Moore. He finds it strangely coincidental that this is happening at end of a year of unprecidented, internet-driven worldwide protests, included right here in the good ol' US of A. I wouldn't be at all surprised if that didn't figure in the minds of some congressmen as they drew up such legislation.
Thank you, Kass.
the legislation's being dropped.
the guy who originally sponsored this bill (whose name escapes me right this minute) initially backed away from his own bill, and is now saying it's ok, but with changes.
can these idiot legislators ever talk out of only one side of their mouths?
and on another note, just how scared are they, that the masses now know too much?
The über powerful are afraid of losing their power, and stupid enough to think that shutting down blogs will help them keep it.
Nice to see you, x
EVERYONE - Any mention of censorship of our right to express ourselves really gets me going.
I think it is a worthy battle but I am betting on Big Brother in the end.
Because I cannot keep up with all that is out there, my son has reported on all this and I understand that legislators have backed away from the measures. It seems not having access to Wikimedia was the deal-breaker. And the beat goes on, between President Obama and threats from the MPAA. Of course this isn't about piracy, it's about further erosion of freedom. xo
Thanks Kass, I've been out of touch with the world of the internet lately,TV also for that matter so this is the first I'm hearing about this issue. And after I blatantly riffed off South Park this morning.
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