H.R. 3261 - SOPA Act - Keep The Web Open - Must Read!

[Ridge]

There was a post a week or two ago about the Appellate court shutting down sites and grabbing domains. Basically Guilty until Proven innocent. Not good for web companies or websites in general. I'm very surprised with all the money google sunk into the 2008 election that they alone have not found a way to kill this bill. So that means there is another driving force, perhaps even bigger/stronger than google. Which is just crazy scary.

You can stay updated here: KeepTheWebOpen.com

Here are a few good articles:

San Diego News | SOPA Regulation Mixes Internet Piracy and Online Censorship

Google Claims Censorship as Hollywood Fights for Piracy Bills - Businessweek

Also some cliff notes:

The House Judiciary Committee met Thursday to decide the next steps for the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which has been the center of controversy among technologists and privacy advocates for months. If the bill passes, popular sites such as YouTube, Wikipedia and even Google would be held responsible for content users post to their sites. They argue that the U.S. government could reshape the Internet, thanks to vague language and imprecise wording.

Read more: Censoring Clicks Or Saving The Web? SOPA Hearing May Shape Net's Future | Fox News

"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 cybersecurity," the letter argues. It was co-signed by the creators of more than a dozen blue-chip websites including PayPal, Yahoo, Google and more and developers as AOL, eBay, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Mozilla, Twitter, Yahoo and Zynga.

Read more: Censoring Clicks Or Saving The Web? SOPA Hearing May Shape Net's Future | Fox News

All in all, we have to find a way to get this stopped, but its a serious moment for the Internet

[Laurence]

I noticed some time ago that I can't do anything about this as a non-US which sucks. Many people are standing up to this already but I'm afraid it may not be enough because they pass bills like lightning these days.

[Laurence]

It's been delayed until 2012 now, small win. Stop Online Piracy Act Vote Delayed | Threat Level | Wired.com

[Ridge]

Yup good news! Was about to post an update, but ya beat me to it. There really isn't a lot of talk about this. I honestly don't think most people understood what was about to happen if they was passed.

[Laurence]

Like with the indefinite detention thing, people won't realize it until someone actually says; 'Hey you remember your old friend Benjamin? Yeah he was protesting on wall street, flagged as a low level terrorist and is now in indefinite detention'

[Ridge]

Yea and some of the provisions in some of these bills, Terrorists -

Seriously, watch this:

[Laurence]

This is some shit. Apparently they silently postponed it to the 21st and not 2012 in the hopes it will pass by the public without notice SOPA Markup Runs Out Of Time; Likely Delayed Until 2012 [Update: Or Not...] | Techdirt

Update.... Or not. Despite the fact that Congress was supposed to be out of session until the end of January, the Judiciary Committee has just announced plans to come back to continue the markup this coming Wednesday. This is rather unusual and totally unnecessary. But it shows just how desperate Hollywood is to pass this bill as quickly as possible, before the momentum of opposition builds up even further.

[Ridge]

Man, this is serious. This is the type of move they pulled with the UIGEA - This really worries me as a forum owner, because if someone posts some copy protected material. Torrents, Key Codes, Movie Clips, etc. I can be held responsible.

Again, and I said this in another post, idiot appointed judges will see this new bill, read the legal brief, see a vague reference to the recent appellate court ruling, and allow domains/websites to be shutdown!

[Laurence]

More on SOPA, Godaddy actually helped write it and is now losing an average of 25,000 domains (moved to other registrars like namecheap who are capitalizing with bonus codes like 'SOPAsucks') every day. I have around 60 domains with them and I may be looking to move them as well just to make sure I don't fall victim for whenever I do accidentally post towards copyrighted content.

[CasinoMack]

Godaddy dropped support for SOPA. Not breaking news, just adding it to the thread.