HolyCoast: The Internet's Big Guns May Coordinate a Black-Out to Protest SOPA
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Friday, December 30, 2011

The Internet's Big Guns May Coordinate a Black-Out to Protest SOPA

SOPA is the legislation going through Congress that could radically reshape the internet and shut-down a lot of sites with very little cause.  For instance, if I link to an item at another blog and that blog used that item without permission, not only could the that other site be shut down by this legislation, so could mine even if I didn't use any pirated info.  The legislation is incredibly overreaching and many fear will be used by large companies to shut down their potential rivals.

Here's what some of the largest players on the internet may decide to do:
In the growing battle for the future of the Web, some of the biggest sites online -- Google, Facebook, and other tech stalwarts -- are considering a coordinated blackout of their sites, some of the web’s most popular destinations.

No Google searches. No Facebook updates. No Tweets. No Amazon.com shopping. Nothing.

The action would be a dramatic response to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a bill backed by the motion picture and recording industries that is intended to eliminate theft online once and for all. The creators of some of the web's biggest sites argue it could instead dramatically restrict law-abiding U.S. companies -- and reshape the web as we know it.
 
Such a move is drastic. And though the details of exactly how it would work are unclear, it's already under consideration, according to Markham Erickson, the executive director of NetCoalition, a trade association that includes the likes of Google, PayPal, Yahoo, and Twitter.

“Mozilla had a blackout day and Wikipedia has talked about something similar,” Erickson told FoxNews.com, calling this kind of operation unprecedented.

"A number of companies have had discussions about that," he said.

With the Senate debating the SOPA legislation at the end of January, it looks as if the tech industry’s top dogs are finally adding bite to their bark, something CNET called "the nuclear option."

"When the home pages of Google.com, Amazon.com, Facebook.com, and their Internet allies simultaneously turn black with anti-censorship warnings that ask users to contact politicians about a vote in the U.S. Congress the next day on SOPA,” Declan McCullagh wrote, “you’ll know they’re finally serious.”
This legislation needs to be stopped. We don't need to allow large companies to censor content and squash their competition without any due process.

5 comments:

Larry said...

“If I link to an item at another blog and that blog used that item without permission, not only could the that other site be shut down by this legislation, so could mine even if I didn't use any pirated info.”

Your also trusting that any website you link to doesn't change it's content a few minutes later. This is like applying the Lacy Act to the internet.

Nightingale said...

The whining liberals are always warning to beware the vast right-winged conspiracy of taking away our rights, but it's the liberals we need to watch.

Larry said...

There may be a higher correlation between support for SOPA and campaign donations from the recording and motion picture industries than support for SOPA and party affiliation.

Nightingale said...

And to whom do most of the recording and motion picture people donate?

Larry said...

Doing a quick google search turned up a site that listed 50 representatives and senators who received donations from RIAA in 2007 (I think their list only had 49 though). 21 were Democrat, 28 were Republican. $67,465 total to Republicans and $54,000 given to Democrats.

Senators Obama and Clinton, allegedly, received $2,000 each.