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

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