Hollywood’s most powerful executives and Silicon Valley’s billionaires have been glued to the goings-on in a frills-free Washington committee room.At the cost of thousands of dollars an hour, their army of lobbyists and lawyers spent much of Thursday watching a young woman reading – as fast as she could – a bill that has set the old and new media at each others’ throats in a battle both sides claim is a fight to the death.
www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/dec/15/sopa-bill-congress-online-piracySOPA bill markup exposes congressional divide
The gaping divide separating House Judiciary Committee members on the Stop Online Piracy Act was abundantly clear as a marathon markup of the measure got under way Thursday.The dissension didn’t break down by party. Reps. Darrell Issa of California and Jim Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin were among the Republican committee members who criticized the anti-piracy bill championed by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas).
www.politico.com/news/stories/1211/70522.htmlLines Drawn on Antipiracy Bills
Type “download movies for free” into Google, and up pops links to sites like the Pirate Bay, directing users to free copies of just about any entertainment — the latest “Twilight” installment, this week’s episode of “Whitney,” the complete recordings of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.For years, pirated movies, television shows and music have been on the Internet. And for just as long, Hollywood and the entertainment business have been trying and failing to stop it.
www.nytimes.com/2011/12/15/technology/lines-are-drawn-on-legislation-against-internet-piracy.htmlStopping SOPA’s Anti-Circumvention by Wendy Seltzer
The House’s Stop Online Piracy Act is in Judiciary Committee Markup today. As numerous protests, open letters, and advocacy campaigns across the Web, this is a seriously flawed bill. Sen. Ron Wyden and Rep. Darrell Issa’s proposed OPEN Act points out, by contrast, some of the procedural problems. Here, I analyze just one of the problematic provisions of SOPA: a new”anticircumvention” provision
www.circleid.com/posts/20111215_stopping_sopas_anti_circumvention/Representatives decry rush to judgement on SOPA
As the House Judiciary Committee met to consider changes to the Stop Online Piracy Act, several members of the committee warned that rushing the bill through the legislative process would lead to costly mistakes.
arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/12/representatives-decry-rush-to-judgement-on-sopa.arsTech entrepreneurs attack SOPA on the eve of markup
The cofounders of some of the Internet’s most successful startups have put out a letter condemning the Stop Online Piracy Act. It warns that SOPA will undermine online security, burden future web startups, and “censor the web using techniques similar to those used by China, Malaysia and Iran.”
arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/12/technology-entrepreneurs-attack-sopa-on-eve-of-hearings.arsNet founders fight piracy law with ‘censorship’ claim
The founders of Google, Twitter and eBay have signed a strongly worded letter criticising controversial US legislation ahead of a debate in Congress. The Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa) aims to slash the amount of pirated content on the internet.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16195344
