PROTECT IP (S. 968)/SOPA (HR. 3261)

http://boingboing.net/2011/11/11/s [...] ernet.html

What is everyones thoughts on this bill they are trying to pass? Seems pretty scary to me.

With globalization being kicked into high gear, this is not really surprising.

Agreed. It's the influence of Big Media (Hollywood) & Big Content (Verizon, Comcast, ATT) that is fueling this Bill. I can only wonder how sore Chris Dodd's knees are for trying to please all those democrats for votes.

Oops, my mistake, you are right about Verizon and I was well aware Google was against it. Here is some coverage from today, and it's not looking pretty.

All articles from Ars Technica:

Republicans, Democrats, Google, and Church of Sweden unite to halt Hollywood

Register of Copyrights: without SOPA, copyright "will ultimately fail"

At Web censorship hearing, Congress guns for "pro-pirate" Google

I see two shining examples through all of this too:
1.) Again, businesses toxic influence over political decision makers that negatively affects the rights and freedoms of individuals.
2.) What happens when you let lawyers make decisions on industries they know nothing about and further damage technological infrastructure to protect Big Content from artificial problems.

I don't even understand how something like this could even be considered. Every forum on the internet will be at risk of being shut down along with every search engine... Imagine Google being permanently shut down.. There is just so much extreme nonsense about it that I just can't even grasp the possibility of it passing.

The entire internet will become so censored because of fear of being permanently shut down/sued... It would probably get to the point to where people don't even go to forums anymore, or to places like facebook because they won't even be able to have casual conversation.

Even gaming would be at risk, games such as Starcraft where you can make your own maps and put in music would probably get Blizzard sued for however much they could get out of them.

Dear friend,

I just emailed Congress to urge them to oppose the Internet Blacklist Legislation, known as the PROTECT-IP Act in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House. This legislation seeks to give the executive branch power to conduct slash-and-burn campaigns against websites that allegedly host – or even link to – content that infringes on intellectual property rights. That would “disappear” whole domain names, fundamentally undermining Internet security, and/or choke off their financial support. The Internet Blacklist Legislation puts more sites than ever at risk, effectively upending the DMCA safe harbors that have been crucial to the growth of Internet innovation and creativity.

Sadly, these short-sighted and dangerous bills won’t do much to stop online infringement – but they will jeopardize our ability to speak and read online with the kind of freedom we cherish in the offline world. Deep-pocketed Hollywood lobbyists are aggressively pushing to control and censor the open Internet, willing to sacrifice free speech and our Internet culture in hopes of controlling how people view their movies and products.

We need to stop this bill before it goes any further. Will you contact your representatives in Congress and urge them to oppose the Internet Blacklist Legislation? Visit: https://eff.org/r.C8A


We need to contact the Senators and Congressman

When they know that their votes are at stake for re-election
then they will made to care