Tag: PROTECT IP ACT

This is one of the few times that you will hear me advocate for the death penalty but we need to kill SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act). Our friend Gaius Publius at AMERICAblog has a list of companies, organization and wayward Democrats who have supported these Internet killing bills. There is still time for us to get the message to them that we are not pleased and what happened to Go-Daddy can happen to them.

I have already communicated to Sen Gillibrand that so long as she supports either bill, she would not be getting any contributions from me or my family members.

Here is GP’s list of companies:

   Estée Lauder Companies: (212) 572-4200

   Fraternal Order of Police (FOP)

   Go Daddy: (480) 505-8800

   International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW): (202) 833-7000

   International Brotherhood of Teamsters

   International Union of Police Associations

   L’Oreal: (212) 818-1500

   Major League Baseball

   Marvel Entertainment: (212) 576-4000

   MasterCard Worldwide: (800) 622-7747

   Minor League Baseball (MiLB)

   National Center for Victims of Crime

   National Crime Justice Association

   National District Attorneys Association: (703) 549-9222

   National Domestic Preparedness Coalition

   National Football League

   National Governors Association, Economic Development and Commerce Committee

   National League of Cities

   National Narcotics Offers’ Associations’ Coalition

   National Sheriffs’ Association (NSA)

   Revlon

   The United States Conference of Mayors: [email protected]

   Tiffany & Co.

   A lot of these folks have IP “content” – the NFL, for example – but also fan vulnerability.

   And what about the unions (IBEW, Fraternal Order of Police)? Also, why do organizations like the Sheriff’s Association care about IP law? A little something extra in the retirement-fund Christmas basket? Or maybe groups like these just haven’t heard from the rest of us.

   Given who’s on this list, I’m kind of waiting for the Catholic Bishops to weigh in.

Also these are the so called “progressive” Democratic Senators who have a foolishly co-sponsored the bills:

   Sherrod Brown [OH] – (202) 224-2315

   Al Franken [D-MN] – (202) 224-5641

   Kirsten Gillibrand [D-NY] – (202) 224-4451

   Amy Klobuchar [D-MN] – (202) 224-3244

   Sheldon Whitehouse [D-RI] – (202) 224-2921

Pick a few of your favorites and send them a message. Be polite. 😉

What you need to know about the dangers of passing these bills and how it will destroy the Internet.

The video above discusses the Senate version of the PROTECT IP Act, but the House bill that was introduced TODAY is much much worse.

It’ll give the government new powers to block Americans’ access websites that corporations don’t like. The bill would criminalize posting all sorts of standard web content — music playing in the background of videos, footage of people dancing, kids playing video games, and posting video of people playing cover songs.

This legislation will stifle free speech and innovation, and even threaten popular web services like Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook.

America Censorship has a great infographic on how SOPA will block you from the Internet.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), who is leading the charge to stop the passage of these bills appeared on Countdown with Keith Olbermann to explain how catastrophic to Internet and your rights that these bill are.

Along with Sen. Wyden, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) (go figure) and Rep. Nancy Pelosi strongly oppose passage. Sen. Wyden has started a petition and will read the names on the Senate floor should these bills come to the floor for a vote (I have signed). We at The Stars Hollow Gazette and Docudharma urged you to sign Sen. Wyden’s petition (sign petition) and contact your Senators and House Representative telling them to vote against these bill. You can do that here

Congress needs to hear from you, or this bill passes

Cross-posted to CandyBullets, MyLeftWing, firefly-dreaming and Docudharma

If you follow my website (CandyBullets) you’re probably well aware of the threat posed by the “IP PROTECT ACT” known more commonly as the Internet Blacklist bill. You’re may also be aware that this bill was recently halted in the Senate by the true Democrat Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) who prevented the bill from coming up for a vote in the Senate (where it would doubtless pass) however a House version will be introduced this week with help of Representative Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) — probably tomorrow. If you’re not familiar with this bill then I suggest you become acquainted (the full text of the bill may be found here.)

It was once said about the much over analyzed movie Last Tango In Paris that it was a simple movie at heart: a movie about real estate, two people who want an apartment and will do anything to get it. In a similar vane Protect IP is also simple: it is merely the latest in a long line of slovenly hand-outs to corporations at the expense of your civil rights; it would give the Government broad, censorious new powers to shut down any site merely accused of Copyright Infringement and fuck the concept of innocent until proven guilty, yes, the PROTECT IP ACT authorizes an alleged “rights holder” who decides to claim to be the victim of the “infringement” to bring an action against the owner, registrant, or Internet site “dedicated to infringement”, whether domestic or foreign, and seek a court order against the domain name registrant, owner, or the domain name. The DOJ version however can apply against ISPs, search engines, ad providers and payment processors.

Of course corporate America, what were the founding fathers thinking? Of course you must be given permission to shut down YouTube and Facebook so that no one can potentially infringe upon your Copyrights. I recall Franklin making a remark about trading liberty for safety. This bill would criminalize YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Google+, Reddit, Digg, not least this site you’re reading this at. Any other site that uses user generated content. But you know, I’m glad to know that when conservative Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and nominal liberal Patrick Leahy’s (D-VT) delightfully bipartisan fascism was first shot down when they coauthored COICA (The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act) these two adorable little corporate shills decided to take our criticisms into account. This time they remembered to ban criticism. Their new “PROTECT IP ACT” retains the blacklist of websites our “Democratic” Govenrment doesn’t wanting us looking at but ads a new one that we’ll just have to take a moment to marvel at: It bans people from even being able to discuss blacklisted sites. Under the new bill, anyone “referring or linking” to a blacklisted site will be Blacklisted themselves.

Yes this “bunker-buster bluster bomb” (h/t Ron Wyden) far past simply requiring these other service providers from blocking service, this new law will require search engines to censor sites out of their index. Now please understand, “infringing websites” is in no way defined in a reasonable way — the bill is not being specific about what constitutes an infringing web sites. For example if WikiLeaks or any similar organization were merely accused of distributing copyrighted content, U.S. search engines could be served a court order to BLOCK search results pointing to Wikileaks. Requiring search engines to remove links to an entire website altogether due to an infringing page raises alarming free speech concerns regarding lawful content hosted elsewhere on the site. The fact that an injunction can be issued without notifying the allegedly, supposedly infringing website essentially destroys the entire legal “presumption of innocence”, there is no innocent until proven guilty with this bill.