SOPA/PIPA Update: 12/13/12
This week marks another big one in the fight against SOPA & PIPA — I wanted to do an update of what’s happening this week as well as what’s been happening so far this month.
Working chronologically in reverse, what’s happening soonest is that the House Judiciary Committee — which has jurisdiction over the bill, and the greatest power to stop or change it — has scheduled the legislation for what’s called “markup” this Thursday at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time. Markup provides the opportunity for legislators to make edits to the bill to make it less harmful to the internet we know and love, and to weaken support for it overall — after any edits are made, the committee will take a vote on whether or not to send it to the House floor.
While we expect it to pass, this is a big opportunity to alter its course — so we’ve asked those who’ve signed up to take part in the campaign to call their representatives and otherwise take part in the actions being promoted at AmericanCensorhip.org.
Additionally, last week Rep. Darrel Issa and Sen. Ron Wyden — two of our biggest allies on this — unveiled what they’re calling the “OPEN Act.” Today, Mozilla published a letter in support of the OPEN Act in some DC papers along with Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, eBay, AOL, Zynga, and Yahoo! — you can read the letter here.
Before these two developments, the last major push was that in the last week of November and early this month there was a lot of concern that the Senate would try to move the Protect IP Act for a vote before the end of the year. An outpouring of support from thousands of Mozillians and others from across the web (along with a protracted fight on the payroll tax extension and other items) helped ensure that didn’t happen. It could move again in January, though — PIPA is still very much alive.
For now, I’d encourage anyone who can — those who live in the US — to call their representative in the House about SOPA (you can use this easy tool), and for everyone, regardless of locale, to check out the censorship tool at http://AmericanCensorship.org/moz#censor and think about what you could censor to raise awareness about this.
And one awesome stat about this campaign so far? As of today, at least 181,200 individual Mozillians have completed an action against SOPA or PIPA on a Mozilla web site. Great stuff.
Here’s the letter that we published today on the OPEN Act:
Why are we accepting this “compromise” legislation? Because an arrow through the eye hurts less when not on fire? Could we say no to arrows through the eye entirely, please?
This legislation seems nearly as bad as SOPA/PIPA; it eliminates a few of the most egregious problems, but still leaves quite a few.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
You really should read the Open Act wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPEN_Act
The good parts:
The OPEN Act seeks to stop transfers of money to foreign websites whose primary purpose is piracy or counterfeiting, whereas SOPA and PIPA also seek to require Internet providers and search engines to redirect users away from viewing the sites.
OPEN places enforcement responsibility on the United States International Trade Commission (ITC), which currently adjudicates patent-related disputes, rather than the United States Justice Department.
OPEN Act
SOPA
PROTECT IP
Protects the Rights of Artists
Yes
Yes
Yes
Protects Against New Internet Police Powers
Yes
No
No
Secures Safe Harbors for Legitimate Internet Businesses
Yes
No
No
Protects Access to Social Media & Legitimate Websites
Yes
No
No
Ensures Intellectual Property (IP) Cases Resolved By IP Experts
Yes
No
No
Targets Actual Criminals: Foreign Rogue Websites
Yes
No
No
Applies Due Process – Not Banks – To Judge Infringement Claims
Yes
No
Yes
Supports Innovation & One of the Fastest Growing Industies in America
Yes
No
No
Consistent with American Calls for Open Internet in Closed Societies
Yes
No
No
I’ve read it, and my comment still stands. Also, your table seems to have gotten corrupted there.
The OPEN act does indeed fix some of the issues of SOPA and PIPA. If I had to pick between either OPEN or one of the two worse acts, then sure, I’d pick OPEN. However, I’d prefer to reject all three as awful legislation. And they’ll all result in the blocking or shutdown of sites that should remain open.
Looks like SOPA is a scam because the same companies who support it are the same ones who distributed the software enabling the download of their own material! No compromise! This video is made for the masses, but it has a lot of strong evidence… Watch it, share it, and send it to your political reprsentative http://youtu.be/WJIuYgIvKsc