Today I read in The Examiner that the SOPA bill was killed in the House of Representatives. I understand that the Senate version, PIPA, is still alive. It is interesting to see the list of sponsors (by far mostly Democrats) and how much money they received from various companies.
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PIPA is less well known than SOPA, but the provisions are basicly the same. It still includes the same DNS blocking and censoring system that the original SOPA did, just without the SOPA name. There are around 40 co-sponsors of the bill in the Senate so far, with no word on how many senators support the bill in addition to that. There will most likely need to be 60 votes in the Senate in order to invoke cloture and end an almost guaranteed filibuster.
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What is SOPA? What is PIPA? The Examiner URL did not define them.
SOPA was certainly not the solution to our piracy problems, but as a blogger who depends on my intellectual property to generate income, I sincerely hope that a better effort is made soon. When I was in college I took advantage of freely available MP3s and even full copies of expensive software, but I eventually saw the light and understood that I was stealing. Too many people seem to believe that they are entitled to everything for free thanks to the internet.
I thought it ironic that companies like Google and Facebook, who trample people’s rights when it’s profitable, were threatening to black out.
Great, now I want a sopapilla.
Wikipedia to Go Dark on Wednesday to Protest Bills on Web Piracy, by Jenna Wortham.
I second the ‘Arcardnal’s’ motion above: what are SOPA and PIPA.
Better to spell out acronyms at least once at the start. I guess you have so much to do, Fr Z, that shortcuts are understandable – though this has me foxed!
SOPA = Stop Online Piracy Act
PIPA = Protect IP Act
I haven’t researched as much about PIPA, but the gist of SOPA is that it empowers the U.S. government to eliminate access to foreign websites that host pirated or otherwise stolen material (ie. movies, mp3s, or even knock-off designer purses). The government can already seize websites based in the U.S. One concern is that the government’s power would be abused, and that YouTube or similar generally harmless sites could be shut down entirely if one user posted stolen content…or, if a commenter somehow slipped through and linked to stolen content on Fr. Z’s blog it could theoretically be shut down (personally I think that idea is a bit far-fetched and paranoid, since there is a legal process involved, but whatever). An even bigger concern is that SOPA encourages private companies (ie. Comcast) to block stolen content on their own, without any involvement of the courts. People think this would definitely be abused by large companies wanting to limit competition and they could just block sites willy-nilly.
There’s a lot more to it, but that’s my limited understanding. I find the whole thing quite interesting…reminds me of the big healthcare debate. The very people who were making fun of many of us then are the ones who could probably do with tinfoil hats now.
House was not in session today. It was a federal holiday.
House will only consider, under a Rule, the Resolution of Disapproval for the Debt Limit Increase this week.
No way they would try to moves these bills under anything but a rule.
To help non-Americans could you explain the meaning of the abbreviations, please. Without an explanation, the article is meaningless.
Thanks
We do not need these bills. Big Brotherism…never give away a freedom you would not give to your enemy.
Fr. K –
The Beeb has a useful discussion of what the two bills contain:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16596577
I noticed Wikipedia is set to be blacked out in protest tomorrow, so, recalling an earlier story, the Vatican press office will have to get the cardinals’ bios somewhere else for the time being…
All of us internationally should pay attention to these types of bills. Here is a good link from Wiki-the only thing they have up today. I recommend reading it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Learn_more
If we slowly lose all of our rights, we only have ourselves to blame.
Since I run dnscache and root servers at work and home, I have not used any ISP’s DNS for a bit over 12 years. If the People’s Commisar of Communication requires me to use them, I will find a way to bypass them or stay off the Internet. Think of all the time and money we would save!