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HELP STOP
SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act
and
PIPA, the Protect IP Act


“The Internet is probably the most important technological advancement of my lifetime. Its strength lies in its open architecture and its ability to allow a framework where all voices can be heard. Like the printing press before it (which states also tried to regulate, for centuries), it democratizes information, and thus it democratizes power. If we allow Congress to pass these draconian laws, we'll be joining nations like China and Iran in filtering what we allow people to see, do, and say on the Web.”

Adam Savage: SOPA Could Destroy the Internet as We Know It
Popular Mechanics, 20 December 2011

“Don't forget: CBS/Viacom is the number one supporter of SOPA, and the number one distributor of piracy software, and the number one promoter of it to use it for copyright infringing purposes. How is that not just totally screwed up?”

Mike Mozart: The Companies Pushing SOPA Are The Same People
Who Distributed The Piracy Software
JeepersMedia on YouTube, 24 December 2011

Congress will vote on SOPA (in the House) and PIPA (in the Senate) when when it reconvenes in January.

TAKE   ACTION
READ   ALL   ABOUT   IT


Take Action - Make your voice heard
Choose one of the following:

Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Stop the Internet Blacklist Legislation
TAKE ACTION - send e-mail to your congress people
The Internet Blacklist Legislation - known as PROTECT IP Act in the Senate and Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House - is a threatening sequel to last year's COICA Internet censorship bill. Like its predecessor, this legislation invites Internet security risks, threatens online speech, and hampers Internet innovation. Urge your members of Congress to reject this Internet blacklist campaign in both its forms!

Engine Advocacy:
Add Your Voice and Protect Internet Innovation:
Urge Congress to vote NO on SOPA. Tell your Representative and Senators to protect the internet and the millions of jobs that innovation-driven businesses create each year. Engine Advocacy directly connects you to your representative's Washington Office via phone or e-mail contact.

Stop American Censorship:
Congress is about to pass internet censorship, even though the vast majority of Americans are opposed. We need to kill the bill to protect our rights to free speech, privacy, and prosperity.
The Senate is scheduled to vote on the internet censorship bill on Tuesday, January 24th, and unless we can find 41 senators to block the vote, it is going to pass. Will you meet with your senators during the January recess and ask them to vote it down?



Read All About It

  • MythBuster Adam Savage:
    SOPA Could Destroy the Internet as We Know It
    Popular Mechanics
    December 20, 2011
    http://www.popularmechanics.com/print-this/mythbuster-adam-savage-sopa-could-destroy-the-internet-as-we-know-it-6620300?page=all
    Right now Congress is considering two bills – the Protect IP Act, and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) – that would be laughable if they weren't in fact real. . . .

    Make no mistake: These bills aren't simply unconstitutional, they are anticonstitutional. They would allow for the wholesale elimination of entire websites, domain names, and chunks of the DNS (the underlying structure of the whole Internet), based on nothing more than the "good faith" assertion by a single party that the website is infringing on a copyright of the complainant. The accused doesn't even have to be aware that the complaint has been made. . . .

    The Internet is probably the most important technological advancement of my lifetime. Its strength lies in its open architecture and its ability to allow a framework where all voices can be heard. Like the printing press before it (which states also tried to regulate, for centuries), it democratizes information, and thus it democratizes power. If we allow Congress to pass these draconian laws, we'll be joining nations like China and Iran in filtering what we allow people to see, do, and say on the Web.


  • SOPA and everyday Americans
    By Cory Doctorow
    Boing Boing
    Dec 17, 2011
    http://boingboing.net/2011/12/17/sopa-and-everyday-americans.html


  • The Companies Pushing SOPA
    Are The Same People Who Distributed The Piracy Software
    Mike Mozart
    Dec 24, 2011
    JeepersMedia on YouTube
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHL912jlyE0&feature=player_embedded
    “Don't forget: CBS/Viacom is the number one supporter of SOPA, and the number one distributor of piracy software, and the number one promoter of it to use it for copyright infringing purposes. How is that not just totally screwed up?”

    The greatest (~95%) distributor of peer-to-peer file sharing software (LimeWire, BitTorrent...) is Cnet, via their site download.net. The internet radio show Cnet To The Rescue encouraged people - mostly minors - to use programs which bypass anti-piracy measures (DRM removal) on digital media (CD, DVD, Blue-Ray) with copyrighted content. By far the greatest use of file-sharing is piracy. Cnet is a subsidiary of CBS-Viacomm, and also has business deals with movie and software companies (Disney, Microsoft and more). CBS-Viacom and their business partners are making a profit from piracy through web advertising on the sites distributing file sharing software.

    On top of that, CBS-Viacom have issued an enormous number of warnings and lawsuits against media web sites like YouTube. CBS-Viacom has strong ties with RIAA, which is pushing for laws like SOPA and PIPA. These laws would "prevent piracy" by blocking media web sites like YouTube, not by addressing the abuse of peer-to-peer applications which they distributed, encouraged and profited from.

    For more information:
    http://www.cbsyousuck.com/
    http://onecandleinthedark.blogspot.com/


  • Another Open Letter Concerning SOPA Disapproval
    That's a whole lot of SOPA disagreement
    by Chris Richardson
    Web Pro News
    December 15, 2011
    http://www.webpronews.com/another-open-letter-concerning-sopa-disapproval-2011-12
    Thanks to a post from the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) [An Open Letter From Internet Engineers to the U.S. Congress, Dec 15, 2011], we find the support Google, et al, is receiving comes from “83 prominent Internet inventors and engineers” who also penned their own open letter, this one aimed at the United States Congress:
    . . .
    If enacted, either of these bills will create an environment of tremendous fear and uncertainty for technological innovation, and seriously harm the credibility of the United States in its role as a steward of key Internet infrastructure. Regardless of recent amendments to SOPA, both bills will risk fragmenting the Internet’s global domain name system (DNS) and have other capricious technical consequences. In exchange for this, such legislation would engender censorship that will simultaneously be circumvented by deliberate infringers while hampering innocent parties’ right and ability to communicate and express themselves online.
    . . .
    The US government has regularly claimed that it supports a free and open Internet, both domestically and abroad. We cannot have a free and open Internet unless its naming and routing systems sit above the political concerns and objectives of any one government or industry. To date, the leading role the US has played in this infrastructure has been fairly uncontroversial because America is seen as a trustworthy arbiter and a neutral bastion of free expression. If the US begins to use its central position in the network for censorship that advances its political and economic agenda, the consequences will be far-reaching and destructive.

  • Internet Engineers, EFF Warn Against PIPA and SOPA
    by Francis Rey
    Social Barrel
    December 15, 2011
    http://socialbarrel.com/internet-engineers-eff-warn-against-pipa-and-sopa/29110/
    Notable Internet engineers have submitted a letter to the US Congress on their contentions against the passage of the Protect-IP Act (PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

    The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) passed a missive that received approvals and signatures from Internet pioneers Vinton Cerf, recognized as one of the fathers of the Internet; Paul Vixie, Internet protocol designer and author of BIND; and Jim Gettys, editor of the HTTP/1.1 specification in the Internet Engineering Task Force.

    The geniuses are three of over fifty Internet pillars that now join the fight against SOPA.

    The engineers’ written statement said, “We, the undersigned, have played various parts in building a network called the Internet. We wrote and debugged the software; we defined the standards and protocols that talk over that network. Many of us invented parts of it. We’re just a little proud of the social and economic benefits that our project, the Internet, has brought with it.

    Last year, the EFF sent a proposal regarding censorship and COICA copyright legislations to the US Congress.

    Now the organization is reiterating their worries in a follow-up letter re PIPA and SOPA, suggesting that these bills are more alarming than last year’s legislations.

    According to the Internet innovators, if the bills will pass legislation, it will implement an envelope of dread over the Internet and impair the roots of its technological innovation, which will severely hurt the credibility of the US in its primary purpose as keeper of critical Internet infrastructure.

    The letter continues that PIPA and SOPA will likely break the Domain Name System and trigger several off-the-wall “technical consequences” with an unwanted two-tiered Internet.



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