PIPA – Steven Savage

SOPA, PIPA, Megaupload, and Other Things That Sound Like Band Names.

January 20, 2012 by Steven Savage

OK, let's see where we are in the whirlwind area of internet rights, laws, actions, and more.

PIPA and SOPA are shelved – for now. There's a push for the OPEN Act which has some intriguing ideas on dealing with IP (go read). Do not expect this to go away.

If you've been living under a large chunk of solid rocklike material, you may have missed the shutdown of Megaupload and the retaliation by Anonymous. The entire Megaupload story is one I think we don't know all of, and the timing is odd (since all it does is make people more anti-SOPA), and I'm not sure about the filings.

And, seriously, I've already seen people blaming the Megaupload shutdown on SOPA, so if this was some "pro-SOPA" stunt (which I doubt), it's a massive backfire. Also, this may be Anonymous' largest attack yet.

– Steven Savage

PIPA isn’t doing that well either

January 18, 2012 by Steven Savage

13 Senators opposed to PIPA. Also note the blame is starting to fly as people cover their backsides.

That's something I didn't think of. I expect SOPA and PIPA to die off, to return later in several dumb bills. But what of the blame for the failure? What's that going to do to politicians and lobbyists?

– Steven Savage

SOPA Update

January 18, 2012 by Steven Savage

The blackout is well under way, and it is already kind of creepy (I never realized how much I use Wikipedia). Also there's more analysis out there. So a quick roundup you may like:

The brilliant author of XKCD has a simple way to show SOPA awareness and blackout.

MUST READ: A film editor looks at how insanely terrible SOPA and PIPA are. Some great stuff, clear analysis, and historical context – especially on how existing laws are abused already.

You called your congresspersons? If you live in non-US Country are you bugging your US friends? Signed petitions?

It goes without saying that SOPA/PIPA could be the end of a lot of geek/fan culture as we know it. If you think these bills won't be abused by people seeking to maximize profits and quash competition and political rivals, then you probably figure banks would never turn home loans into investments and crash the world economy.

But I know you're smarter than that.

– Steven Savage