By Anna Wilson, Digital Strategist at Juice Digital
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) are hot on the news agenda at the moment after a global strike took place.
The big sites in the digital/tech world went ‘dark’ for 24 hours to protest the so called ‘Internet Blacklist bill’…Google even blacked out its logo!
Why? It’s because Senator Ron Wyden plans to take these acts to Congress where they will vote on internet censorship on 25th Jan.
Since the mid-90s, the internet has had a huge effect on the world, opening up new channels for commerce, facilitating communication and leading to the birth of the world’s first (and only) truly free press!
If passed, this new bill will:
• Give the Attorney General of the US to take action against foreign sites infringing on copyright
• If the AG chooses to take action, then:
o Internet service providers will be required to block access to the site
o Search engines (eg Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.) will be forced to remove all references to the offending sites
o Ad providers (eg Google AdSense) will be required to stop providing ad service to the site
o Payment providers (eg PayPal, Visa, etc) will be required to terminate service to the site
Basically, this will give the Attorney General the power to censor sites that the US government does not have jurisdiction to take down directly. (Cough WiliLeaks!)
The real juicy stuff (pardon the pun) though is this:
“An ‘Internet site is dedicated to theft of U.S. property’ if [a portion of the site is US-directed] and is used by users within the United States and is primarily designed or operated for the purpose of offering services in a manner that enables or facilitates [copyright violation or circumvention of copyright protection measures]. “
Basically, this means that any site that allows users to post content is infringing copyright law– uh oh!
Sites like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Wikipedia, Gmail and millions of others would be technically in breach of copyright and subject to censorship by the US.
What’s more, the US sets a precedent for internet law around the globe which means that this could become the new GLOBAL standard.
Goodbye free-press and hello propaganda!
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1 comments:
What is wrong with the principal of protecting IP (Intellectual Property.)
Your summing up "Goodbye free-press and hello propaganda!" isn't entirely accurate. You can have a free press that doesn't infringe on IP. Facebook & Twitter are social network sites Wikipedia is a encyclopaedia that relies of free content to make money and Gmail is an email coms sytems NON of your list are news outlets ie the "free press"
I dont think the problem with the law is its intent of IP protection.From what I have read the problem is most likely that its a badly worded badly designed law that may not do the job its intended to do and MAY actually allow fancy expensive lawyers to over-extend the laws intent.
The internet sprang from US military experiments to find a communications system that would survive a Nuclear attack by re routing its self around any damaged bits. I don't think two US laws are going to Censor or Destroy the internet. The World Cant Stop Spam how's the US going to censor the web?
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