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Roundup: PIPA collapses, SOPA hearing to resume in February
The unprecedented blackout of websites yesterday in protest of the highly criticized Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) legislation saw Wikipedia’s English site shut down for 24 hours, as well as countless other websites displaying their disapproval of the bills. Even Google aired its disgrace by blacking out its Google logo on their homepage.
Twitter released data yesterday saying the popular micro blogging service had recorded over 3 million Tweets about PIPA and SOPA. Most were in support of the protest, but as the day wore on some took to Twitter to vent their frustration at being unable to use the websites that had shut down in protest.
Senate members rushed for the doors with 18 Senators announcing they opposed the new PIPA bill. Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) blamed the mass exodus on Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) for "pushing forward with a flawed bill that needs much work," according to reports by Ars Technica.
One of the chamber's longest-serving members, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) said PIPA was "simply not ready for the prime time." A view echoed by many of those withdrawing support.
Sen. Marco Rubio also withdrew his co-sponsorship of the bill, saying via Facebook that there was "legitimate concerns about the impact the bill could have on access to the Internet and about a potentially unreasonable expansion of the federal government's power to impact the Internet. Congress should listen and avoid rushing through a bill that could have many unintended consequences."
The Stop Online Piracy Act, which will resume in February, lost three co-sponsors yesterday as well. Republicans Lee Terry, Tim Holden and Benjamin Quayle withdrew their support for the proposed bill. Terry said the bill as it is "currently drafted isn’t the solution," when speaking to Omaha.
A spokesperson for Terry went on to say, "Terry has long been an advocate of an open Internet, something that opponents think was threatened by SOPA. The bill would give the U.S. attorney general authority to seek court orders against foreign Internet sites believed to be engaging in copyright infringement or online piracy. The bill also would grant the government broad power to go after websites hosting copyright content."
Microsoft also aired its concerns regarding SOPA yesterday, although it declined to take part in the blackouts. "We oppose the passage of the SOPA bill as currently drafted," a spokesperson for Microsoft said in a statement to ComputerWorld. "This is an important issue and we think the recent White House statement points in a constructive way to problems with the current legislation, the need to fix them, and the opportunity for people on all sides to talk together about a better path forward […] Hundreds of millions of customers rely on our services every day so we don't plan to shut those down to express our view."
Amazon also took part in the protests, opting against a complete blackout, instead choosing to feature a large advertisement on its website which read, "reasons to oppose or modify SOPA," that re-directed users to the netcoalition.net website when clicked.
Overall, yesterdays actions against these proposed bills successfully displayed a united front against legislation that will ultimately hurt freedom of speech, privacy and destroy the internet as we know it today. Those in support of them will be left with no doubt in their minds as to what the general public and many high profile companies feel about them in their current form.
User Comments: 36
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I understand why people are scared. The govt could shut down any site that has copyrighted material or links to it. That includes a TON of sites. But the govt can also pull you over for driving 2 MPH over the speed limit, and it never happens. Google and Wikipedia also had the very easy defense of 'our site is not supposed to be used for piracy, but we can't control what people search for etc.' Just like they don't outlaw steak knives because someone got killed with one once. They'd probably just have a disclaimer on their site.
I wish it had been voted on so we would have learned which politicians supported it. then we could vote em out. Now we don't know, and (as mentioned) it might be slipped in slowly in future bills.
It also really annoyed me how wikipedia shut down their site. Stick it to the poor kid who's got a project due at school?! Google is at least considerate and doesn't put their own business plan over the need of the public to use their site.
[link] , why does SOPA/PIPA need to happen if places can already be shut down?
Also, how is Megaupload any different from youtube as far as copyright violations go? Megaupload removed content at the request of copyright holders.
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If you are going to protest, do it now!! The Justice of US Department has already blocked Megavideo and there will be no hope if the Justice of US Department keeps going on like this until February. By the February is here, most websites will be block.
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RH00D said:
milwaukeemike said:SNGX1275 said:You're right, a group of websites just did something impressive. But do you think all 124 million people really understood that law?
I'm not really sure you completely understood SOPA/PIPA, I'm not sure how anyone in their right mind can support it. It isn't just about pirating movies/music or buying fake Coach purses, its much more than that.
What sucks is, like the one Guest said, the lobbyists will make sure this won't get public attention next time. It will be split up in segments and passed under some farm subsidy bill.
I understand why people are scared. The govt could shut down any site that has copyrighted material or links to it. That includes a TON of sites. But the govt can also pull you over for driving 2 MPH over the speed limit, and it never happens. Google and Wikipedia also had the very easy defense of 'our site is not supposed to be used for piracy, but we can't control what people search for etc.' Just like they don't outlaw steak knives because someone got killed with one once. They'd probably just have a disclaimer on their site.
I wish it had been voted on so we would have learned which politicians supported it. then we could vote em out. Now we don't know, and (as mentioned) it might be slipped in slowly in future bills.
It also really annoyed me how wikipedia shut down their site. Stick it to the poor kid who's got a project due at school?! Google is at least considerate and doesn't put their own business plan over the need of the public to use their site.
All you had to do was disable java script and you could use the site just fine. Or use Google cache, or use a different language version of Wikipedia. Not hard to do, in fact they even explained the workarounds if you bothered to click "Learn more" on the block page.
By the way, thanks for that video mattfrompa.
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I understand why people are scared. The govt could shut down any site that has copyrighted material or links to it. That includes a TON of sites. But the govt can also pull you over for driving 2 MPH over the speed limit, and it never happens. Google and Wikipedia also had the very easy defense of 'our site is not supposed to be used for piracy, but we can't control what people search for etc.' Just like they don't outlaw steak knives because someone got killed with one once. They'd probably just have a disclaimer on their site.
Issues with this argument:
1) Driving over the speed limit is the literal definition of breaking the law, if you go 2MPH over though it is very hard to tell. meanwhile, hosting a blog with a youtube video embedded, and there's a video on youtube which is violating copyright, could lead to your website being permanently removed from you within a week unless you can delete all the copyright videos on youtube. This is a retarded law, so shouldn't pass.
2) The law specifically makes the 'our site is not supposed to be used for piracy, but we can't control what people search for' defense invalid, it places the responsibility on the site owner not the user.
3) your argument can be summed up as "I trust the government to not use this to it's advantage" which is a rather silly idea based on past experience.
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Poor analogy. Passing a law is a 3 step process. Voting in the house was scheduled for Jan 24th. If it passed then, it would have meant voting in the Sentate. Not a law, or a burning house in your example. If the house (or senate) is controlled by the opposite party of the president they will sometimes pass bills just to make the president veto them for use in campaigns later.
You're right, a group of websites just did something impressive. But do you think all 124 million people really understood that law? How do you know your personal motives align with those websites? Laws are terribly complicated... look at the new healthcare bill. We have no idea how that will play out, and it's making companies all over the country hoard their cash while they wait and see. Now we have Occupy protests.
You're right again. It makes our country great.... but it also assumes we know what we want. This was an easy one. SOPA sucked. What about something tough, like education or healthcare? Do you want teachers to be paid more for performing well? Sounds obvious, right? That comes with a performance eval, which can lead to firing bad teachers. The unions will not stand for that, and they have deep pockets at campaign time.
Nothing is cut and dry.
<I>Au contraire.</I> Poor observation.
My analogy would have been erroneous if its intent was to demonstrate how the process of one is parallel to the other. But it wasn't.
The purpose of the analogy was to showcase how imminent danger to something has been (directly or indirectly) made known to someone, and to suggest that the matter is of great importance, and therefore action is something which must be taken with haste. Clearly, in my analogy, the "man" was not asking for votes to burn the house down.
We also don't know <i>why</i> the man wants to burn the house down, something that shows distinct disparity with the analogous reality--but still doesn't diminish its urgency--, as unlike the very reality, due to our political structure, we <i>do</i> know why this piece of legislation wants to be passed. Which leads me to the heart of the reason for the blackouts/protests:
We know what it entails for our future, as we've seen/read worse.
It's not that the Internet is suddenly up in arms just because... its because we know that the legislation could potentially blur the line between "law" and "corporate interest." You know, more than it already has. The legislation threatens the freedom of an open medium; it is clearly a (purposely written) broad legislation, one which its supposed reason of being is clear, but its applications and consequent effects are inconspicuous to say the very, very least.
We are not talking politics, or how the political framework works (or how much do regular joes know about it), but rather me challenging you, on why do you feel there's supposedly a "right" time to exercise democratic debate? Why should we wait until it reaches the president's desk? We shouldn't, because there's no "right" time to act when there's imminent danger. (In this context, of course.)
People have seen the MPAA and RIAA unjustly suing, and demanding ridiculous amount of money from whoever is in their way for years. From 12-year old girls, to families even without computers. SOPA/PIPA was simply a more "formal", broad way to do it. People didn't just react to it because it had a chance of passing, but because it all <i>had</i> to be stopped.
Alternatively, because the Internet was originally developed in the United States with federal money, the US government enjoys disproportionate influence over Internet governance. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is based in the United States, as are the majority of the DNS root servers and the registries for popular top-level domains like “.com” and “.org.” The US government passing such legislation could have greatly compromised the open medium that the Internet is, and all negative effects would have undoubtedly fell upon those countries that follow us. In other words, it would have spread like a virus.
If you look close, the conversation is not so much asking that SOPA/PIPA be vetoed, but more that nothing like it should ever come up again. And they are listening.
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milwaukeemike said:
SOPA = Biggest freak out over nothing in recent history. 'The fascist police state we now enjoy?!' Clearly today's generation has so much handed to them that the slightest threat of a decrease in privledges (not rights, mind you) warrants responses like this.
Its not called the privilege of free speech. It's the RIGHT to free speech. Having a government that could censor any website for any reason would no doubt lead to them abusing that and censoring anything that went against their ideals or conflicted with their agendas.
SOPA was NEVER EVEN VOTED ON, it wasn't even close to being a law. If it passed through the house and senate and Obama said he was in favor, then you can freak out.Following that logic, it would make more sense to wait until it was too late to do anything about it to take action against SOPA instead of taking the initiative and fighting back while we can?
What honestly scares me is how quick people jump on the bandwagon of 'the govt is evil, let's protest!' What we had was google, wikipedia and some others put a few obscure buzz-word filled phrases like 'Knowledge should be free' on their sites and everyone jumped on. It's not much different than the Bush adminitrations technique for invading Iraq. All about protecting you and your freedom with no real assessment of the threat. Heavy on rhetoric, light on details.The difference is that Bush's invasion of Iraq was not accepted by everyone as the right path to take and the initial effect on Americans was minimal. With SOPA, and how integrated that the internet has become, if the bill passed it would affect ALL Americans in a negative way.
SOPA didn't jibe with the big internet companies business model, and because they have the medium of a website with millions of vistitors they can get everyone on board with their agenda quite easily.Those big internet companies are the ones who are main resources on the internet. Its not a business move to protest SOPA, its a common sense move in a nation that is continuously losing more and more of the freedom that was promised and declared a right when America was founded. I would rather get behind "the big internet companies" who know what they are talking about since it is literally their business to understand the internet than the politicians who openly admitted that they don't even understand how the internet works.
But hey... we all got to feel like we were a part of something big and important for a day, didn't we.Yes, we were all part of something big and important. We were all part of fighting to retain our rights in a country that's moving farther from democracy and closer to a totalitarian state every day. If we let them take one right away, whats to stop them from taking the rest? That sounds pretty big and important to me.
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treetops said:
Im glad the peoples opinion beat the legal bribes (lobbyists), this rarely happens. Round 1 the people, round 2 entertainment industries bribes? Hope not!
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milwaukeemike said:
SOPA = Biggest freak out over nothing in recent history. 'The fascist police state we now enjoy?!' Clearly today's generation has so much handed to them that the slightest threat of a decrease in privledges (not rights, mind you) warrants responses like this.
SOPA was NEVER EVEN VOTED ON, it wasn't even close to being a law. If it passed through the house and senate and Obama said he was in favor, then you can freak out.
What honestly scares me is how quick people jump on the bandwagon of 'the govt is evil, let's protest!' What we had was google, wikipedia and some others put a few obscure buzz-word filled phrases like 'Knowledge should be free' on their sites and everyone jumped on. It's not much different than the Bush adminitrations technique for invading Iraq. All about protecting you and your freedom with no real assessment of the threat. Heavy on rhetoric, light on details.
SOPA didn't jibe with the big internet companies business model, and because they have the medium of a website with millions of vistitors they can get everyone on board with their agenda quite easily.
But hey... we all got to feel like we were a part of something big and important for a day, didn't we.
How and the Hell can you call yourself intelligent?! Yes, companies are protesting and people are hopping on the bandwagon, but not because they are just blindly following a big movement such as this. Yes, people are more keen to follow when it has to deal with corruption of the government. You act like this corruption thing just surfaced. When in fact, it has been boiling for years just waiting for the right time to pop. There has been many complaints across many websites these past few years about corruption of the government and organizations. However, nobody wanted to be the one to make a stand and now that there is ground to stand on, more people are joining the fight.
Many sites have already posted what SOPA and PIPA will do to the internet. Yes, everybody will not understand all the ramifications that these bills will enforce. However, most people will understand just enough of these bills to know that it is violating their freedom and that they need to protect their freedom. If the people had waited till it reached the president and in fact, he was in favor, it would have been too late. That's why bills go to him, so he can sign and pass them, or veto them, whatever the case may be. Opposing the bill while it's in congress is probably the smartest thing that was done. On another note, the internet does not belong to any one country. If you like the government so much, why don't you go work for them, and quit raining on everyone's parade.
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matrix86 said:
milwaukeemike said:IIt also really annoyed me how wikipedia shut down their site. Stick it to the poor kid who's got a project due at school?! Google is at least considerate and doesn't put their own business plan over the need of the public to use their site.
If that poor kid had a project due and he relied on wikipedia as his only source, then he deserves whatever he gets. There are these awesome places called "libraries." Great places to go and do research. Oh, and there is also this thing called the "internet." It has a LOT of information in MULTIPLE places on any given subject. If some kid was too stupid to not look elsewhere, that's his/her problem.
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milwaukeemike said:
"IIt also really annoyed me how wikipedia shut down their site. Stick it to the poor kid who's got a project due at school?! Google is at least considerate and doesn't put their own business plan over the need of the public to use their site."(sic)
Don't you read the donation thing on top of the Wikipedia page, they're running out of money, a day to shtdown their site means money saved.
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burty117 said:
Yesterday was one of the greatest days ever for me on the internet, it was the first time I logged into Facebook and instead of "just cooked dinner" "going out" or "I hate myself and everything" Everyone was discussing SOPA and proved that the Internet is a powerful tool for learning and passing on information. A lot of credit and respect to Wikipedia who affected the most people but was definitely for the better.
Wow, what a great evolution for humanity Facebook is! Great example! Is that what socializing is these days.. ? Bored people having nothing to discuss with each other most of the time and just posting what they just did, with no one asking them to? Someone must really be thankful for that wealth of information, even if to the posters it means nothing. And to the people posting it: you are becoming less human everyday, hooked to your fake lives even in the subway on your smartphone, with real people all around you. Carpe diem.
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