Sites join US anti-piracy protest. Murdoch attack rebuffed by Google. Spain adopts tough new piracy law. The US laws are designed to block pirate sites, but critics say it will also impact the wider net. ISP immunity. Published 18 January SOPA would also allow rightsholders to force payment processors to cut off payments and advertising networks to cut ties with a site simply by sending a notice.
These bills are targeted at "rogue" websites that allow indiscriminate piracy, but use vague definitions that could include hosting websites such as Dropbox, MediaFire, and Rapidshare; sites that discuss piracy such as pirate-party. Had these bills been passed five or ten years ago, even YouTube might not exist today — in other words, the collateral damage from this legislation would be enormous.
There are already laws and procedures in place for taking down sites that violate the law. These acts would allow the Attorney General, and even individuals, to create a blacklist to censor sites when no court has found that they have infringed copyright or any other law.
It's been three years since Australia adopted a national copyright blocking system , despite widespread public outcry over the abusive, far-reaching potential of the system, and the warnings that it would not achieve its stated goal of preventing copyright infringement. These acts, while perhaps well-intentioned, are not well-written and could cause serious damage to the free flow of information on the Internet.
Not so: They have merely been delayed. VentureBeat has had much internal discussion about the proposed anti-piracy legislation. Understandably, it can get confusing. VentureBeat firmly opposes both bills because they have the potential to harm the tech industry and hinder the pace of innovation.
As the bills are currently written, they gives both the U. If either bill becomes law, it could drastically change the way the Internet operates. The answer is both — meaning both Republicans and Democrats are showing overwhelming support for these proposed pieces of legislation. Patrick Leahy D — Vt. The companies said the bills could require your Internet provider to block websites that are involved in digital file sharing. And search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing could be stopped from linking to them - antithetical, they argue, to the ideal of an open Internet.
The White House weighed in on Jan. In a post on the White House website , the U. Chief Technology Officer and two colleagues wrote, "While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.
Several major websites, including Wikipedia, Reddit and TwitPic, said they would " go dark " on Wednesday to show their opposition to the two bills in Congress.
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