Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA)

See the following -

A Reminder: Online Free Speech Is A Matter Of Human Rights

Jillian C. York | Electronic Frontier Foundation | December 10, 2012

If, just a few short decades ago, someone had proposed that the Internet would be instrumental in the promotion and maintenance of human rights around the world, their proposal would have been met with skepticism. And yet, examples of Internet users campaigning for human rights abound [...]. Read More »

ACTA Update I

Glyn Moody | ComputerworldUK | February 1, 2012

Anyone who follows me on Twitter or identi.ca, or on Google+ will have noticed something of a crescendo of posts about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) recently. There are two reasons for this.

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ACTA's Back

Simon Phipps | opensource.com | February 6, 2012

Now that the US bills SOPA and PIPA have been put on ice, attention has returned to their parent, an international treaty called ACTA. I've written extensively about ACTA before, but in summary it is an international treaty that has been secretly negotiated to ensure as little input as possible from the citizens of any country.

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ACTA: “Would Usurp Congressional Authority”

Washington's Blog | Washington's Blog | January 30, 2012

The much-criticized cloak of secrecy that has surrounded the Obama administration’s negotiation of the multilateral Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement was broken Wednesday. The leaked draft of ACTA belies the U.S. trade representative’s assertions that the agreement would not alter U.S. intellectual property law. And it raises the stakes on the constitutionally dubious method by which the administration proposes to make the agreement binding on the United States.

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Beyond SOPA: Rep. Darrell Issa's Big Plans For Digitizing Democracy

Gregory Ferenstein | Fast Company | December 19, 2012

Over the past six months, Issa's launched an interactive subcommittee livestream, produced a new form of online polling, and sponsored a bill to make government spending trackable. Read More »

Dear Congress, Guess What? We Already Have Copyright Laws

David Gewirtz | ZDNet | January 20, 2012

What you need to do, my dear politician friends, is to stop listening to the lobbyists and start listening to the innovators.

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Education, Not SOPA, Best Weapon Against Web Piracy

James Marshall Crotty | Forbes | January 31, 2012

One innocent bystander of proposed anti-piracy legislation might be libraries, students, and educators. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, many trailblazing open source education initiatives I’ve written about on Forbes might be silenced if the “broad” and “vague” enforcement provisions of the proposed SOPA (Stop Online Piracy act) and/or PIPA (Protect IP Act) were to become law.

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Finding the Balance Between Internet Freedom & Intellectual Property in the SOPA/PIPA Debate

Tim Yeaton | Open Source Delivers | January 20, 2012

Here at Black Duck, our business operates at this balance point, at least where free and open source software (FOSS) is concerned – and we think the FOSS community and ecosystem represent a compelling model for the US Congress to study regarding how to strike this balance.

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Groups Ask Congress to Postpone new Anti-Piracy Efforts

Josh Smith | Nextgov | February 6, 2012

Opponents of the House's Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act in the Senate want Congress to hit pause on efforts to forge new anti-piracy legislation. In a letter sent to Capitol Hill on Monday, about 70 advocacy groups, Internet companies, and venture capitalists urged Congress to stop pushing new legislation until all concerns have been addressed.

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House, Senate Postpone Piracy Bills Under Pressure

Josh Smith, Dan Friedman, and Juliana Gruenwald | Nextgov | January 20, 2012

Capping a dramatic week of protests and legislative maneuvering, leaders in the Senate and the House announced on Friday that they are backing off efforts to pass a pair of controversial bills to crack down on foreign websites that use pirated content. Read More »

How PIPA and SOPA Violate White House Principles Supporting Free Speech and Innovation

Trevor Timm | Electronic Frontier Foundation | January 16, 2012

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." Read More »

If You thought SOPA Was Bad, Just Wait Until You Meet ACTA

E.D. Kain | Forbes | January 23, 2012

Unfortunately for free-speech advocates, these pieces of legislation are not the only laws which threaten an open internet. Few people have heard of ACTA, or the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, but the provisions in the agreement appear quite similar to – and more expansive than – anything we saw in SOPA. Worse, the agreement spans virtually all of the countries in the developed world, including all of the EU, the United States, Switzerland and Japan.

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Issa Launches The Open Gov Foundation

Sarah Lai Stirland | TechPresident | June 11, 2012

California Congressman Darrell Issa, a prominent advocate for Internet users, open government, and transparency issues unveiled a new initiative Monday called the Open Gov Foundation. Read More »

Many of Largest U.S. Corporations Paid More for Lobbying Than for Federal Income Taxes

Noel Brinkerhoff | AllGov.com | January 27, 2012

The federal government is responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars being spent each year by the largest American corporations. But it’s not tax dollars they’re spending. Rather, this sum represents the amount big business is allocating on lobbying lawmakers and federal officials, in part so the companies wind up paying considerably less on income taxes than they do on influencing public policy.

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Of Aaron Swartz, Open Access And #PDF Tributes

Deepa Kurup | The Hindu | January 15, 2013

So in a fitting tribute on Monday, academics across the world paid tribute to this legendary hacker and advocate of a free and equal Internet by putting up PDFs of their copyrighted works online. On the micro-blogging site Twitter, the hashtag #PDFTribute trended all day, triggering a progressive and open debate on copyright, academic work and access.

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