EMAIL SIGN UP!
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
'People' of the Internet Unite to Fight SOPA/PIPA Legislation
Opponents of online antipiracy bills making their way through the US House and Senate are garnering more victories than defeats recently as the battle for the 'soul of the internet' heats up. On the heals of an announcement from the White House over the weekend urging caution against the bills, and in anticipation for an online day of action - January 18th - open internet advocates are hoping they can squash the legislation that has pitted traditional media corporations and conglomerates against a younger wave of internet innovators, entrepeneurs, and concerned citizens.
"Looks like the Internet is winning a battle against some really bad potential law," Craig Newmark of Craigslist said. (Hyungwon Kang/Reuters) From the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Deep Links Blog:
Over the weekend, the Obama administration issued a potentially game-changing statement on the blacklist bills, saying it would oppose PIPA and SOPA as written, and drew an important line in the sand by emphasizing that it “will not support” any bill “that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet."
And CNET explains:
SOPA and PIPA are backed by a wide range of copyright owners, including the six Hollywood film studios and the four major record companies. The bills would hand the U.S. Justice Department the ability to cut off access in the United States to Web sites based overseas accused of trading in pirated or counterfeit materials. It would also give the government the power to force credit card companies, online advertisers, and Internet service providers to cut off ties with accused pirates.
Opponents, which include a wide number of technology companies as well as free-speech advocates, say SOPA and PIPA would threaten free speech and stifle innovation.
The latest developments signal a shift in momentum. Last year, copyright owners could boast strong bipartisan support in both houses of Congress and a powerful friend in the White House. Now, after SOPA and PIPA opponents mounted a vigorous campaign against the bills, they have seen lawmakers give up on the Domain Name System (DNS) provisions in both pieces of legislation--the provisions that would have given the government the aforementioned power to force ISPs to block access to alleged overseas pirate sites.
The New York Times reports some of the responses the White House statement received:
It’s not a battle between Hollywood and tech, its people who get the Internet and those who don’t.
Markham C. Erickson, executive director of NetCoalition, whose members include Google and Yahoo, said Sunday that it was too soon to dismiss entirely the House or Senate versions of the antipiracy bills. “I think the White House statement is very strong and it helps, but, no, I don’t think it’s dead,” Mr. Erickson said by telephone from Washington. “We will continue to have to educate as many members as possible.” [...]
“It’s encouraging that we got this far against the odds, but it’s far from over,” said Erik Martin, the general manager of Reddit.com, a social news site that has generated some of the loudest criticism of the bills. “We’re all still pretty scared that this might pass in one form or another. It’s not a battle between Hollywood and tech, its people who get the Internet and those who don’t.”
Mr. Marin said that Reddit is planning a sitewide blackout on Wednesday to protest the bills — an effort joined by a number of other sites, including MoveOn, BoingBoing, a popular technology and culture blog, and the Cheezburger Network, a collection of several dozen Internet humor sites, including I Can Haz Cheezburger? and FailBlog.
Craig Newmark, founder of craigslist.org, took to his blog on Sunday to make his case against the legislation:
Looks like the Internet is winning a battle against some really bad potential law.
To me, "the Internet" means the people who use it; the systems, not so important.
The bad law: SOPA and PROTECT-IP, which supposedly address real needs, but in practice, are means by which bad actors (with lots of money and lawyers) can take sites down. They talk about oversight to prevent abuse, but … I've been in customer service for around seventeen years, and there are always loopholes which enable abuse.
For what you can do:
… and please think about how you, as part of the Internet, can contribute to the common good, and think about how that can become part of what you do every day. Thanks!
Craigslist, like other sites, has posted information on its homepage to educate and activate its users about SOPA and PIPA.
###
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
20 Comments so far
Show AllThis could be a most (if not 'the most') important issue that affects the 99% today. The implications are mind-boggling. People should do all that they can to stop such legislation and similar ones elsewhere in other countries.
People, your greed for free music is killing the golden goose!
I rewrote their stock letter and sent it to my congressfolk from the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Just click on the link in the article. You'll feel better when you do.
The petition from the White House website was impossible for me to use to sign on to. I don't know where to even sign. The confounded thing kept populating the list of signers but I could never click anywhere on the page to actually sign it.
At first I thought they had posted a petition or were referencing someone else's petition but then I realized the White House had an area on its site to create petitions which could be signed by anyone. I like that. In this case the White House added its own note to the SOPA and the PIPA petitions.
The PIPA creator is Ryan B, Manitowoc, WI, October 31, 2011 and the SOPA creator is Ji S, December 18 2011.
I am guessing they closed this particular petition from signing because I couldn't find a place to sign. To check I went to another petition on the system which was open and displayed a Sign In / create account button set with "A whitehouse.gov account is required to sign Petitions." and "Note: When you sign this petition, your first name, last initial and city and state will be publicly displayed on the petition page. Once you sign a petition, your signature cannot be removed." I don't mind the public display (this is a petition, not a voting booth) but I don't care for the account to sign business. If they are concerned with multiple signings (packing) there are simple enough means to handle that duplication.
I went back to the SOPA and PIPA petitions thinking maybe I had missed the sign-in area on the page but there was nothing. SOPA had 51,689 and PIPA had 52,096 (labeled "Stop the E-PARASITE Act" - the title suprised me until I realized this was not a WH-created petition). There doesn't appear to be a specific stop point for the number of petition signatures. Maybe a date? But if there was a cutoff it was not mentioned.
So that makes me think this petition section of the White House site is more window dressing than pay attention.
BTW - Could we petition the tech officers on this site to un-fancy the code underneath so that this is very simple HTML. no BS-techie show off crap? Unless, of course, the site is totally bogus and this is some sort of sop to make us all saps by thinking that the White House is actually providing a people's platform of some kind and that they pay attention. With a never-ending over-sized inch-at-a-time signer list and never a place to sign the thing acts more like a link farm or a p-o-r-n page. Cripes!
The display tech is way page heavy and overloaded. And for god's sake get rid of the divs with styles/classes to position the little grey-background text boxes and just give us a simple list of signers. Maybe paragraphs of so many lines at a time with line break tags, even tables though that is kind of heavy for really long lists. Smaller, simpler, is almost always much better. Right now the source code is mostly high-priest over-techie crap. I've been programming since 1966 and see too much unneeded and overblown code in way too many things, especially the supposed people's World Wide Web. Keep it within reach of "the people," that's what made it expand so fast from its inception.
the Obama administration said:
...it “will not support” any bill “that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet."
----------------------
Weasel words: "increases cybersecurity risk"
Another Obama triangulated sell out is imminent.
Cygnus-X1-isaHole,
Maybe you can tell us why Obama would sign this bill.
I know you are going to insert a list of sellouts but why would he sign it, even if it was included in a bill to keep the government running he could sign with a statement that he will not enforce it but the next president can.
The administration has consistently and aggressively done the bidding of the multinational corporations.
What evidence can you provide that this time it would be different?
For one, Because there are many multinational corporations and many are opposed to this bill and Obama wants to get reelected and the internet is very strong.
This is mainly a battle being waged by Hollywood moguls who rip off artists.
I have no evidence of Obama’s thinking but what he declared and so My question to you is the same... What is in it for Obama to sign this bill?
What is your evidence of his interest?
Depends upon which corporations have given money to which politicians, I guess. Beyond that, the politicians are interested in surveillance and suppression of dissent, and Obama's track there is abysmal.
You can “guess” all you want but the evidence of his track on getting elected is not abysmal because He is not stupid.
So without sounding stupid, What is in it for Obama?
C'mon Jim! You know the Common Dreams rules by now. No matter what Obama does (or doesn't do), he must be criticized! Many of the folks on this site are as predictable as those at redstate.com, their supposed ideological opposites.
Strange how the Obama apologists will call critics an irrelevant fringe, and say that most people support Obama and the Democrats. and then switch their attacks 180 degrees and say we are just following the "crowd."
So, are the critics of the administration just going along with the crowd, or are they swimming against the current? You can't have it both ways.
Your "Can’t have it both ways" is an example of tired words in how you write. When I find the crowd here attacking Obama for everything he says it is stupid.
I am one of the few here who gets tired of the stupid “Everything Obama does is a lie!" mind process and it makes your arguments weak and the fact that you are unaware of it is a sign you should think about that.
Show a little respect for logic and some balance as Common Dreams is read all over the world so I try to use logic when I see it happen, and I will continue because LOGIC AND TRUTH trumps stupid hate.
I am also an Obama Critic so you could at least open your mind a bit about what good it does to jump on everything he says. The posting Crowd here is not the "Democratic Party" and you know it and all this “Obamabot" talk about the crowd here is just delusional.
Wake Up!
CD tolerates critics of the Democrats more so than other places. That is why there are an unusual number of critics here. If you don't like that, there are many, many places on the Internet you can go where criticism of the Democrats is not tolerated.
The rest of your post is nonsense. You are wrong about me, and you are wrong about 90% of the critics here.
You say you are interested in logic and truth. Talking about the imagined motives of other posters, rather than responding to the things they actually say, contradicts your claims about being interested in logic and truth.
Address the message rather than attacking the messenger if you are really interested in truth and logic. This statement - "the stupid 'Everything Obama does is a lie!' mind process and it makes your arguments weak and the fact that you are unaware of it is a sign you should think about that" - is an attempt to make unfounded insinuations about the messenger and avoid addressing the message. That is dishonest and illogical.
Hillbilly Report Will Be Going Dark January 18, 2012 To Protest SOPA S.968 And H.R.3261.
The politicians, Democrats and Republicans, in Washington, DC are working feverishly to change the internet as we know it and it is in that sprit Hillbilly Report along with many other sites, will be going dark, January 18th from 8am–8pm EST, to protest the S.968 - PROTECT IP Act of 2011. H.R.3261 Stop Online Piracy Act.
http://www.hillbillyreport.org/diary/3630/hillbilly-report-will-be-going-dark-january-18-2012-to-protest-sopa-s968-and-hr3261