SOPA is a big deal and US will be worse off for it beacuse US based companies will be put at a disadvantage ab-inito.
However, I think the people campaigning for opposition have failed to use 'normal' words to explain how it will affect the masses. For us here that have startups and are interested in these things, words like 'infringe copyright', 'safe-habour' etc make sense.
All 90% of the masses need to know is this: If you paste that funny clip you saw on MTV on your Facebook, MTV can shut down Facebook or sue you.
If you put that image you Googled on your blog, ALL your adsense money can be seized. If you Tweet it, you Twitter account can be closed.
When 'the masses' hear this, it would make no sense cos it doesn't. We should "dumb down" the message to get it accross to the 'mainstream' populace
I just wonder why the US legislature would want to deliberately cripple US's strength on the web.
This is not just a risk to the U.S. Europe, Australia and especially the U.K. look to the U.S. for precedent. If this passes it is likely that they would use it as a basis to extend this nonsense to their respective jurisdictions while justifying it as necessary for protective or economic reasons.
Then these countries will have less of a leg to stand on when criticizing less open countries; who will be able to say: actually you are no different to us, the only difference is that we are more honest about the fact that we prioritize other things above freedom and cultural advancement.
I used this service to speak to my Congresswoman for the first time in my life. Kudos to the Tumblr team for enabling a lot of generally-not-political people like me who to make our voices heard when needed.
This comment made me very, very happy. Hopefully you and many other first time callers will continue to make your voices heard in the political process. Despite what the cynics may say, calling your legislators really does make a difference.
While it's clear SOPA isn't going anywhere, my concern is that the "next" SOPA won't be so extreme and hence, the outrage will be muted. All they need is a foothold to build off of. Luckily they were dumb this time and tried to go big.
What you said here, this is exactly what I thought. I've watched how gas prices rise. They go REALLY high, everyone has an outrage, they lower it and we all calm down. Then they rise slowly, and they get to that same price everyone was outraged about but now it's happened slowly, like the boiling frog. Plus, we outraged once, now we're just tired. It's going to happen the same way with this.
But now a lot of people are aware of what they are trying to do with bills like this one, so there might be a lot of people speaking out against the next one, too.
I once read a comment regarding the content industry's push for more draconian laws regarding piracy, and that guy said, they will keep doing this until the camel's back breaks, and then all their chances to pull this off will be completely eliminated, and they might even be worse off in the end (banning of online copyright, etc).
Thank you for writing to me regarding S. 968, the PROTECT IP Act of 2011. I understand your concerns.
I am a cosponsor of this legislation because I believe that we must protect American intellectual property against foreign websites that infringe upon our rights. By empowering the Attorney General of the United States to go after foreign infringing websites, this legislation becomes a necessary tool to ensure that U.S. companies remain competitive in the world marketplace. I recognize that there are technical concerns with the enforcement of this bill that need to be addressed. I am committed to working with my colleagues in the United States Senate to ensure that this legislation protects the Constitutional rights of Americans and does not stifle lawful free speech or innovation on the internet.
Thank you again for writing to express your concerns, and I hope that you keep in touch with my office regarding future legislation. For more information on this and other important issues, please visit my website at http://gillibrand.senate.gov and sign up for my e-newsletter.
Tumblr created a page which allowed anyone to be instantly connected to their House Representative, here's the landing page they used to take request for calls http://www.tumblr.com/protect-the-net
It is great to see that tumblr is actually doing something! Putting up some ad in the NYT/WSJ is not enough.
Google could have done something similar, e.g. blacking out every first search result or something like that. In this ongoing attack on freedom and the internet in its current form it is time to flex some muscles.
On a side note, the graphs / charts on this page are really quite visually appealing. Does anyone know if these were automatically generated charts, and if so what tool is used? If not, probably just some data extraction and photoshop, but still, nice looking data.
They say they connected with Mobile Commons to build the app, so my immediate guess was Mobile Commons provided them with the API and statistics, and tumblr just designed around those stats for the visual styling.
Does this SOPA law include shutting down .org .com .net etc domains worldwide, based on accusations of breaking the US software patents?
I understand it is intended to achieve the worldwide shutdowns for copyright issues, using the fact that these domains are administered by US companies.
The big companies would censor the data stream between my motor cortex and muscles if they could. But that is ridiculous, so they will settle for censoring the streams between all computers. Remember, in 50 years we will all have onboard computers integrated with our thoughts. we must program freedom right into the fabric of the net. As free as the signals between my liver and brain.
I use tumblr and while I understand and empathize with what they are trying to do, I found their approach to be a little heavy handed. All the content on your dashboard was blacked out, and for the entire day, when you went to edit your content you got directed to the "call your congressman" page. I found it very very off putting ... just my 2c.
Given the way people use Tumblr, SOPA could force them to shut down the entire site, or change it so drastically that it's no longer recognizable. A threat of that nature makes it worth stepping on a few toes.
[+] [-] OoTheNigerian|14 years ago|reply
However, I think the people campaigning for opposition have failed to use 'normal' words to explain how it will affect the masses. For us here that have startups and are interested in these things, words like 'infringe copyright', 'safe-habour' etc make sense.
All 90% of the masses need to know is this: If you paste that funny clip you saw on MTV on your Facebook, MTV can shut down Facebook or sue you.
If you put that image you Googled on your blog, ALL your adsense money can be seized. If you Tweet it, you Twitter account can be closed.
When 'the masses' hear this, it would make no sense cos it doesn't. We should "dumb down" the message to get it accross to the 'mainstream' populace
I just wonder why the US legislature would want to deliberately cripple US's strength on the web.
[+] [-] larrik|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Dn_Ab|14 years ago|reply
Then these countries will have less of a leg to stand on when criticizing less open countries; who will be able to say: actually you are no different to us, the only difference is that we are more honest about the fact that we prioritize other things above freedom and cultural advancement.
[+] [-] UrLicht|14 years ago|reply
I dunno, my guess is there must be a lot of money involved.
[+] [-] wmf|14 years ago|reply
Video is an interesting case since much of it is explicitly embeddable; you can't encourage embedding and then call it copyright infringement.
[+] [-] lachyg|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Aaronontheweb|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] benstein|14 years ago|reply
Benjamin Stein Co-founder & CTO, Mobile Commons
[+] [-] jcc80|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shawnc|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nextparadigms|14 years ago|reply
I once read a comment regarding the content industry's push for more draconian laws regarding piracy, and that guy said, they will keep doing this until the camel's back breaks, and then all their chances to pull this off will be completely eliminated, and they might even be worse off in the end (banning of online copyright, etc).
[+] [-] jtchang|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] datums|14 years ago|reply
Reply from Senator Gillibrand
Thank you for writing to me regarding S. 968, the PROTECT IP Act of 2011. I understand your concerns.
I am a cosponsor of this legislation because I believe that we must protect American intellectual property against foreign websites that infringe upon our rights. By empowering the Attorney General of the United States to go after foreign infringing websites, this legislation becomes a necessary tool to ensure that U.S. companies remain competitive in the world marketplace. I recognize that there are technical concerns with the enforcement of this bill that need to be addressed. I am committed to working with my colleagues in the United States Senate to ensure that this legislation protects the Constitutional rights of Americans and does not stifle lawful free speech or innovation on the internet.
Thank you again for writing to express your concerns, and I hope that you keep in touch with my office regarding future legislation. For more information on this and other important issues, please visit my website at http://gillibrand.senate.gov and sign up for my e-newsletter.
[+] [-] ricardobeat|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CWIZO|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tombot|14 years ago|reply
They also censored content on users dashboard e.g http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/sopatumb...
[+] [-] Deadsunrise|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 5l|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] antr|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stfu|14 years ago|reply
Google could have done something similar, e.g. blacking out every first search result or something like that. In this ongoing attack on freedom and the internet in its current form it is time to flex some muscles.
[+] [-] rexreed|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iamdave|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SagelyGuru|14 years ago|reply
I understand it is intended to achieve the worldwide shutdowns for copyright issues, using the fact that these domains are administered by US companies.
[+] [-] ricardobeat|14 years ago|reply
As it's always been, media companies have a lot of power in their hands - maybe even more so on the internet.
[+] [-] maeon3|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rorrr|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trustfundbaby|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wanorris|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cwilson|14 years ago|reply