Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA)
See the following -
A Reminder: Online Free Speech Is A Matter Of Human Rights
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 »
- Login to post comments
ACTA Update I
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.
- Login to post comments
ACTA's Back
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.
- Login to post comments
ACTA: “Would Usurp Congressional Authority”
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.
- Login to post comments
Beyond SOPA: Rep. Darrell Issa's Big Plans For Digitizing Democracy
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 »
- Login to post comments
Dear Congress, Guess What? We Already Have Copyright Laws
What you need to do, my dear politician friends, is to stop listening to the lobbyists and start listening to the innovators.
- Login to post comments
Education, Not SOPA, Best Weapon Against Web Piracy
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.
- Login to post comments
Finding the Balance Between Internet Freedom & Intellectual Property in the SOPA/PIPA Debate
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.
- Login to post comments
Groups Ask Congress to Postpone new Anti-Piracy Efforts
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.
- Login to post comments
House, Senate Postpone Piracy Bills Under Pressure
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 »
- Login to post comments
How PIPA and SOPA Violate White House Principles Supporting Free Speech and Innovation
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 »
- Login to post comments
If You thought SOPA Was Bad, Just Wait Until You Meet ACTA
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.
- Login to post comments
Issa Launches The Open Gov Foundation
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 »
- Login to post comments
Many of Largest U.S. Corporations Paid More for Lobbying Than for Federal Income Taxes
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.
- Login to post comments
Of Aaron Swartz, Open Access And #PDF Tributes
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.
- Login to post comments