U.S. Internet users set up a virtual protest to spread slogans against two bills. the issue is the ability of U.S. companies to protect their intellectual property.
Behind the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP is the interest of the Senate to give lawmakers a heavier treatment to prevent the continuation with the celebration of movies, music, software and similar content on the network indiscriminately, with entitled to millions of people connected in networks - you know what I'm talking about - sharing these bits of content.
First of all, let us understand what are the bills reason for such disagreement.
SOUP (emphasis original text by me in PDF) regarding the content mainly but not only. For information purposes this article, I will disregard all of the text that talks about physical pirated products (the same goes for the PROTECT IP). By law, the Attorney General of the United States is responsible for observing and processing sites that offer third-party content, especially movies, music, series, books and software to download. Or that facilitate access to this content.
If the RIAA feel uncomfortable with a link published in the American site, it could request that the entire site is taken down if the site owner does not agree to remove pirated content. The hosting provider, through a short letter from the government, would be forced to disable it without any right to claims. As a preliminary, that among Brazilian judiciary gave rise to the maxim: "Injunction is not discussed, is fulfilled" (or something like that, so remember the lessons of judicial practice).
In addition to the site becomes unavailable, the bill still allows multiple devices to economically affect the site owner. For example, transactions for services that facilitate this type of business, like PayPal, could be blocked on the orders of justice. Likewise, would be in charge of the U.S. judiciary to determine that an ad network (AdSense for purposes of illustration) stop all future payments to the owner of the site. Seekers would be required to remove links to sites judged according to what determines the bill. A comprehensive series of taxes and dangerous.
Among the opponents of SOUP there is a belief that there are legal means to prevent piracy continues to spread in the digital environment. Most prominent of them, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA, the "Act" means "law" when present in this type of name) gives tools for a company to send extra-judicial notification to a site or service provider for content publishing requesting that certain content out of the air. Showing clear evidence that this is copyright infringement, the company that hosts the content has to fulfill the request.
Here in Tecnoblog, for example, has fired some reports for WordPress.com asking them to remove the air full articles reproduced without permission. The WP.com has always fulfilled the requests.
For SOUP, download copyrighted content in an unauthorized manner becomes a crime, with a maximum penalty of ten years for the download of ten films or ten songs in six months.
Across the ring, the list of those against the law SOUP, include Google, Facebook, AOL, Yahoo, Grooveshark, Mozilla, Twitter, eBay, Microsoft, GoDaddy (domain registrar that has lost a few thousand customers before changing aside), OpenDNS, Wikimedia Foundation, Zynga, Bloomberg (financial news agency) and several others. The staff of the internet, making money with the virtual environment, is opposing the weight SOUP.
The bill PROTECT IP (PDF emphasis by me) is about protecting American intellectual property spread abroad. The target sites are hosted abroad which offer pirated content for download. Again under the supervision of the Attorney General would be the decision about which sites violate the copyright law and which do not. To this end, the first company with a copyright need to make formal complaint, then the notification sent to site owner by email or traditional letter, warning of the incident.
The tactic of the PROTECT IP is the technology to shut down the sites. Rather than ask the hosting company turn off the content - not least because the U.S. has no jurisdiction on servers in Europe, such as The Pirate Bay who have running - the PROTECT IP provides that the name by which the site is found on the net is blocked (the domain). U.S. Internet users would be prevented by the law, they get to the computers connected to the internet through the thepiratebay.org (just an example).
Opponents say the PROTECT IP that the user still free to enter the IP of the site in question and, therefore, access the computers on the network that generate the pages of the site.
(Vimeo Video)
Although the original text of the bill does not show this, consider that ICANN is responsible for domain names, is still an entity linked to the U.S. government - yes, even though such an important role in the global Internet, and even projects to bring democracy to the global organization - and you can imagine the implications of giving such power to U.S. courts to decide what to do with sites that infringe copyright.
Of course the RIAA, the dreaded combination of record U.S., has given full support to the soup, the law has caused more controversy in recent times. The same goes for NBC Universal, the communications giant, Comcast, who offer combos internet and pay TV a la NET, the Disney group, who needs no introduction, CBS, one of the largest broadcasters in the country, Nintendo, other than needs no introduction, and even Xerox.
In both cases - and PROTECT IP SOUP - companies that normally orbit a site, such as search engines, ad networks and domain registrars are more than invited to participate as proactive actions contained in two bills in order to are always in credit with the United States if it appears a heavier action requesting deactivation, for example, a search engine completely.
As I said earlier, there are a lot of controversy involved. The Internet companies say there is a terrible precedent for that in the near future, the United States may censor what now circulates freely in the network. SOUP also says that does not include the violation of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which deals with freedom of speech and press, but we can not know how true this is discussed.
For us non-Americans (I am using the concept widely known and disseminated in "American" here), is the certainty that the U.S. think they own the internet. Or at least you can send more in the large network through its laws. In part they are right, as the largest Internet companies operating under their jurisdiction. For those who are not located in U.S. territory whatever - would disable access to Internet done by Americans, which is what matters.
There are several initiatives to raise awareness on the network and try to block the adoption of two laws. Among the most numerous is the American Stop Censorship, which provides a means for Americans to contact their representatives in Congress to ask them to vote against the law. The American Stop Internet Censorship also encourages foreigners send messages to the State Department showing their displeasure with the bills. Something that own Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State, has already made public in The Hague.
The site keeps OpenCongress pages updated on the progress of SOUP and PROTECT IP.
In this PDF you read the letter signed by some of the largest Internet companies positioning themselves. This here is the article signed by over one hundred U.S. academics also going against the bills.
In the end, one should think that the Internet was conceived as a means to free flow of ideas. Something that American lawmakers attempt to restrict.
Behind the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP is the interest of the Senate to give lawmakers a heavier treatment to prevent the continuation with the celebration of movies, music, software and similar content on the network indiscriminately, with entitled to millions of people connected in networks - you know what I'm talking about - sharing these bits of content.
First of all, let us understand what are the bills reason for such disagreement.
SOUP (emphasis original text by me in PDF) regarding the content mainly but not only. For information purposes this article, I will disregard all of the text that talks about physical pirated products (the same goes for the PROTECT IP). By law, the Attorney General of the United States is responsible for observing and processing sites that offer third-party content, especially movies, music, series, books and software to download. Or that facilitate access to this content.
If the RIAA feel uncomfortable with a link published in the American site, it could request that the entire site is taken down if the site owner does not agree to remove pirated content. The hosting provider, through a short letter from the government, would be forced to disable it without any right to claims. As a preliminary, that among Brazilian judiciary gave rise to the maxim: "Injunction is not discussed, is fulfilled" (or something like that, so remember the lessons of judicial practice).
In addition to the site becomes unavailable, the bill still allows multiple devices to economically affect the site owner. For example, transactions for services that facilitate this type of business, like PayPal, could be blocked on the orders of justice. Likewise, would be in charge of the U.S. judiciary to determine that an ad network (AdSense for purposes of illustration) stop all future payments to the owner of the site. Seekers would be required to remove links to sites judged according to what determines the bill. A comprehensive series of taxes and dangerous.
Among the opponents of SOUP there is a belief that there are legal means to prevent piracy continues to spread in the digital environment. Most prominent of them, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA, the "Act" means "law" when present in this type of name) gives tools for a company to send extra-judicial notification to a site or service provider for content publishing requesting that certain content out of the air. Showing clear evidence that this is copyright infringement, the company that hosts the content has to fulfill the request.
Here in Tecnoblog, for example, has fired some reports for WordPress.com asking them to remove the air full articles reproduced without permission. The WP.com has always fulfilled the requests.
For SOUP, download copyrighted content in an unauthorized manner becomes a crime, with a maximum penalty of ten years for the download of ten films or ten songs in six months.
Across the ring, the list of those against the law SOUP, include Google, Facebook, AOL, Yahoo, Grooveshark, Mozilla, Twitter, eBay, Microsoft, GoDaddy (domain registrar that has lost a few thousand customers before changing aside), OpenDNS, Wikimedia Foundation, Zynga, Bloomberg (financial news agency) and several others. The staff of the internet, making money with the virtual environment, is opposing the weight SOUP.
The bill PROTECT IP (PDF emphasis by me) is about protecting American intellectual property spread abroad. The target sites are hosted abroad which offer pirated content for download. Again under the supervision of the Attorney General would be the decision about which sites violate the copyright law and which do not. To this end, the first company with a copyright need to make formal complaint, then the notification sent to site owner by email or traditional letter, warning of the incident.
The tactic of the PROTECT IP is the technology to shut down the sites. Rather than ask the hosting company turn off the content - not least because the U.S. has no jurisdiction on servers in Europe, such as The Pirate Bay who have running - the PROTECT IP provides that the name by which the site is found on the net is blocked (the domain). U.S. Internet users would be prevented by the law, they get to the computers connected to the internet through the thepiratebay.org (just an example).
Opponents say the PROTECT IP that the user still free to enter the IP of the site in question and, therefore, access the computers on the network that generate the pages of the site.
(Vimeo Video)
Although the original text of the bill does not show this, consider that ICANN is responsible for domain names, is still an entity linked to the U.S. government - yes, even though such an important role in the global Internet, and even projects to bring democracy to the global organization - and you can imagine the implications of giving such power to U.S. courts to decide what to do with sites that infringe copyright.
Of course the RIAA, the dreaded combination of record U.S., has given full support to the soup, the law has caused more controversy in recent times. The same goes for NBC Universal, the communications giant, Comcast, who offer combos internet and pay TV a la NET, the Disney group, who needs no introduction, CBS, one of the largest broadcasters in the country, Nintendo, other than needs no introduction, and even Xerox.
In both cases - and PROTECT IP SOUP - companies that normally orbit a site, such as search engines, ad networks and domain registrars are more than invited to participate as proactive actions contained in two bills in order to are always in credit with the United States if it appears a heavier action requesting deactivation, for example, a search engine completely.
As I said earlier, there are a lot of controversy involved. The Internet companies say there is a terrible precedent for that in the near future, the United States may censor what now circulates freely in the network. SOUP also says that does not include the violation of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which deals with freedom of speech and press, but we can not know how true this is discussed.
For us non-Americans (I am using the concept widely known and disseminated in "American" here), is the certainty that the U.S. think they own the internet. Or at least you can send more in the large network through its laws. In part they are right, as the largest Internet companies operating under their jurisdiction. For those who are not located in U.S. territory whatever - would disable access to Internet done by Americans, which is what matters.
There are several initiatives to raise awareness on the network and try to block the adoption of two laws. Among the most numerous is the American Stop Censorship, which provides a means for Americans to contact their representatives in Congress to ask them to vote against the law. The American Stop Internet Censorship also encourages foreigners send messages to the State Department showing their displeasure with the bills. Something that own Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State, has already made public in The Hague.
The site keeps OpenCongress pages updated on the progress of SOUP and PROTECT IP.
In this PDF you read the letter signed by some of the largest Internet companies positioning themselves. This here is the article signed by over one hundred U.S. academics also going against the bills.
In the end, one should think that the Internet was conceived as a means to free flow of ideas. Something that American lawmakers attempt to restrict.
