Topic: COPYRIGHT - on January 16, 2012 at 9:33:00 PM CET
Wikipedia to Shut Down in Protest of SOPA
Wikipedia will shut down for 24 hours Wednesday to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act, founder Jimmy Wales announced on Monday.
In doing so, Wikipedia joins a long list of web companies such as Reddit and Mozilla that are taking similar measures against the proposed legislation.
Wales used his Twitter account to spread the news, writing “Student warning! Do your homework early. Wikipedia protesting bad law on Wednesday! #sopa”
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Topic: COPYRIGHT - on January 15, 2012 at 1:33:00 PM CET
SOPA Opera - Where Do Your Members of Congress Stand on SOPA and PIPA?
Well-funded interests on either side of SOPA and PIPA are lining up support among members of Congress. This database keeps track of where members of Congress stand. Findings are based on two factors: whether a member is a sponsor of the proposed bills, and each member's voting record on the current bills' precursors and alternatives. Click the links on the left to filter the supporters list.
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Topic: COPYRIGHT - on January 15, 2012 at 1:31:00 PM CET
White House Will Not Support SOPA, PIPA
Saturday marked a major victory for opponents of proposed anti-piracy legislation Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), which would target foreign-based websites violating U.S. copyrights.
House of Representatives bill SOPA and its Senate counterpart PIPA are designed to punish websites that make available, for example, free movies and music without the permission of the U.S. rights holders. Opponents of the bills, however, worry that the proposed laws would grant the Department of Justice too much regulatory power. Google Chairman Eric Schmidt has called the measures "draconian." Other Internet giants who oppose the bill include Facebook, eBay, Mozilla, Twitter, and Huffington Post parent company AOL.
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Topic: COPYRIGHT - on January 14, 2012 at 1:06:00 PM CET
German Court: ISP Must Not Block Access To Foreign Sites, Even If They Are Illegal
Against a background where some European courts are telling ISPs that they must block access to certain sites (in Finland and the UK, for example), this news from Germany comes as a refreshing change (original German article in Der Spiegel):
Deutsche Telekom must allow access to online betting sites, even if they are illegal in Germany. So ruled the Cologne Administrative Court on Thursday.</p>
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Topic: COPYRIGHT - on January 12, 2012 at 12:16:00 PM CET
Wikipedia’s Wales wants to join Reddit’s SOPA blackout
Wikipedia founder James Wales has floated the idea of a Wikipedia blackout to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act in the past, but has had a renewed burst of interest following the announcement that Reddit — the Web news and aggregation site — will black out its services in protest of online piracy bills Jan. 18.
The protest coincides with a House Oversight Committee hearing called by Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) to take a close look at the impact that domain name service and search engine blocking will have on national security and the American Internet community.
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Topic: COPYRIGHT - on January 12, 2012 at 12:14:00 PM CET
WordPress Stands Up Against SOPA and PIPA
You are an agent of change. Has anyone ever told you that? Well, I just did, and I meant it.
Normally we stay away from from politics here at the official WordPress project — having users from all over the globe that span the political spectrum is evidence that we are doing our job and democratizing publishing, and we don’t want to alienate any of our users no matter how much some of us may disagree with some of them personally. Today, I’m breaking our no-politics rule, because there’s something going on in U.S. politics right now that we need to make sure you know about and understand, because it affects us all.
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Topic: COPYRIGHT - on January 11, 2012 at 2:31:00 PM CET
List of Those Expressing Concern With #SOPA and #PIPA
Share this page and show our strength.
If you oppose SOPA and PIPA and want to take action, please consider contacting Congress. For a list of letters to Congress, press, and blog posts opposing SOPA, click here. Companies, Online Services, and Websites.
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Topic: COPYRIGHT - on January 11, 2012 at 12:44:00 PM CET
Boycott SOPA for Android Scans Products, Warns You If the Manufacturer Supports SOPA
Armchair activists now have a tool that can transport their SOPA protestations into the real world: Boycott SOPA, an Android app that scans barcodes and tells you whether an object’s manufacturer/publisher is a supporter of the much maligned Stop Online Piracy Act.
If you’ve ever scanned a barcode on your Android phone to look up a book or CD on Amazon, Boycott SOPA works in exactly the same way: First you have to install the ZXing Barcode Scanner app, but then you simply go around pointing your phone’s camera at product barcodes. Boycott SOPA gives you a big red cross if the product is distributed by a SOPA supporter, or a green tick if it’s “clean.” Much to my chagrin, Coca-Cola supports SOPA — but Smirnoff, on the other hand, does not. If you ever needed a sign from Above that you ought to drink more, there it is.
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Topic: COPYRIGHT - on January 10, 2012 at 11:15:00 AM CET
Geeks to Testify (Finally!) About SOPA Blacklisting Implications
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-California), a major opponent of the Stop Online Piracy Act, announced Monday he is bringing in the techies to hold a public hearing highlighting the online security implications of a proposed bill that would force changes to internet infrastructure to fight online copyright infringement.
The announcement came three weeks after a markup of SOPA in the House Judiciary Committee was abruptly postponed amid concerns over its blacklisting element, which lets the attorney general order changes to core internet infrastructure in order to stop copyright infringement.
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Topic: COPYRIGHT - on December 26, 2011 at 9:12:00 AM CET
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.
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Topic: COPYRIGHT - on December 25, 2011 at 3:01:00 PM CET
Godaddys SOPA Actions has lost them 30,000+ domains
On the site godaddy is showing 32,000+ changes/deleted domains from domaincontrol.com
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Topic: COPYRIGHT - on December 25, 2011 at 1:52:00 PM CET
Go Daddy Lost 21,054 Domains Yesterday
It’s going to get worse before it gets better for domain registration company Go Daddy. Yesterday, we reported that Go Daddy had reversed its decision to support SOPA. Its customer service reps are even taking to the phones to beg you to keep your domains with the company.
It looks like these PR moves to save face, and business, are completely futile. According to TheDomains, 21,054 domains were transferred away from Go Daddy on Friday alone. At $6.99 a pop, that would make for a loss of $147,167, not taking future renewals into account. The day before wasn’t a good one for the company either, with 15,000 people taking their domains elsewhere. That means that even though Go Daddy changed its stance, people have had enough.
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