Overseas websites, they argue, are a safe haven for Internet pirates profiting off their content. Chamber of Commerce, intellectual property-intensive sectors employ more than 19 million people in the U. Foreign website operators currently outside the bounds of U. In a statement , former Sen. Internet companies and their investors would readily say that they're holding the "blackout" to protect their corporate interests -- and the entire burgeoning Internet-based economy.
Under the rules SOPA or PIPA would impose, Ohanian and others argue, start ups wouldn't be able to handle the costs that come with defending their sites against possible violations. Such sites would not be able to pay the large teams of lawyers that established sites like Google or Facebook can afford.
The legislation in question targets foreign companies whose primary purpose is to sell stolen or counterfeit goods -- but opponents say domestic companies could still be held liable for linking to their content. While sites like Reddit wouldn't have a legal duty to monitor their sites all the time, "you might have your pants sued off of you" if you don't, said Jayme White, staff director for the Senate Finance Subcommittee on international trade.
It used to be the case that for this to happen, the mainstream media had to be involved in calling attention to the travesty. Those days are disappearing, and this is generally a good thing. By lowering the barriers to entry, the Internet has the potential to make political activism more democratic than ever before, and the SOPA turnaround is proof that it can work politically to engage a broad crowd in short order.
Can this new model for policy accountability extend to issues that are less of an existential threat to the Internet content providers, or does it depend on the coordinated leadership of the providers? Can other causes replicate the success? And if the Googles, Facebooks, Twitters, and Wikipedias are becoming new guardians of political accountability, how accountable are they?
It is tempting to be euphoric and say that the day Wikipedia went dark in protest marks a new turning point in the dynamics of power in Washington. But as is often the case, the reality is both less dramatic and more complicated. This site is maintained as a static archive only. But two major open questions remain: Can this new model for policy accountability extend to issues that are less of an existential threat to the Internet content providers, or does it depend on the coordinated leadership of the providers?
For more information on the categories of personal information we collect and the purposes we use them for, please view our Notice at Collection. Become a Member Sign In. General Newsletters Got a news tip? Free: Join the VentureBeat Community for access to 3 premium posts and unlimited videos per month.
Learn More. Sign up with your business e-mail to continue with ticket purchase. VentureBeat VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative technology and transact. Our site delivers essential information on data technologies and strategies to guide you as you lead your organizations.
We invite you to become a member of our community, to access: up-to-date information on the subjects of interest to you our newsletters gated thought-leader content and discounted access to our prized events, such as Transform : Learn More networking features, and more Become a member.
But Pipa is not dead, merely sleeping. Sopa arrived in the House in late October and despite noisy opposition from a broad coalition of engineers, entrepreneurs, internet users, developers, student groups, legal scholars and libertarian groups, the House judiciary committee scheduled only a single, heavily biased, hearing on it.
What's wrong with Sopa? Well, for starters it probably violates the US constitution and would certainly curtail free speech, threaten whistleblowers and undermine human rights. If implemented, it could put the US government on the same side of the line as China, Burma, Iran, Saudi Arabia and other authoritarian regimes which seek to control and censor the internet. But the most worrying aspect of these bills is that they would distort the architecture of the internet in ways that would cripple its capacity for enabling innovation — something that has been eloquently pointed out to senators and congressmen by many of the network's original architects.
The reason for their concern is that the proposed legislation would tamper with the Domain Name System DNS which is one of the core components of the net. This is the system which translates domain names such as www. Sopa and Pipa would give US authorities the power to block sites accused of copyright infringement at the domain level — in other words to make them disappear from the internet by rendering them unfindable. This is what happened briefly to WikiLeaks in the furore following Cablegate, and it's exactly what authoritarian regimes everywhere would like to do to sites that go on about democracy, human rights and other annoyances.
0コメント