Selected items of interest to the media community
• Stop Online Piracy Act Protests Black Out Websites
January 19, 2012
The Washington Post covered the "black-out" several websites held to protest two bills pending before Congress, Stop On-Line Piracy in the House and Protect Intellectual Property Act in the Senate.
This fight is over two similar bills: the House’s Stop Online Piracy Act and the Senate’s Protect IP (intellectual property) Act. Both are meant to attack the problem of foreign Web sites that sell pirated or counterfeit goods. They would impose restrictions forcing U.S. companies to stop selling online ads to suspected pirates, processing payments for illegal online sales and refusing to list Web sites suspected of piracy in search-engine results.
The idea is to cut off the channels that deliver American customers, and their money, to potential pirates. But tech companies see the laws as a dangerous overreach, objecting because, they say, the laws would add burdensome costs and new rules that would destroy the freewheeling soul of the Internet.
The TED foundation has an interesting counter argument to the proposed legislation by Clay Shirky. See the video here.