Thursday, January 19, 2012

Politic Against SOPA and PIPA

Written 19 January, 2012

Politic Against SOPA and PIPA

The Stop Online Piracy and Protect Intellectual Property Acts, now wending their ways through, respectively, the US House of Representatives and the US Senate, while designed to stop copyright theft from websites outside the Unites States, present grave threats to free expression and the Internet.

As you no doubt know, a number of high profile websites, including Wikipedia, shut down yesterday in protest. Others, like Google, changed their home pages for the day to register their concern.

In support, I temporarily placed a black box at the top of this blog.

To see Wikipedia's concerns, track the bills, or register your support with Congress, start here. Go here to see the Electronic Freedom Foundation's discussion of the dangers of the bills. To see how they could impact your second life, see Hamlet Au's post here. Then please go here to contact your Congressperson to register your concern.

While the bills have had a recent setback as legislators have changed sides to oppose the bills, they're both very much alive. Please act now.

1 comment:

Ener Hax said...

and SOPA and PIPA are still looming and still a threat

we have a bit of a reprieve but it will be coming back soon BUT i think we all have a good chance of shaping it to be more fair as long as we all speak up like we did last week (and like your post did!) =)