Urgent call to action: Stop Online Piracy Act

Beeblebrox

Beeblebrox

I forget the number of times these sick "special interest groups" or telecoms or some national defense issue has tried this, but these SOB's are at it again. US House is now considering a bill with very serious consequences for the future of the internet. Some links to read are below.

This means a lot of serious legal issues for hosting companies, but it would also mean goodbye to free-speech on the internet as we have it now. Don't let a few greedy scumbags hijack something that belongs to everyone.

What is it? wikipedia and a forbes article. The latest news

Sign the petition here (same link as in forbes article)

Please spread the word.
 
SOPA is something you really don't want to have.

But since I'm not American I'm more worried about ACTA and the new Patriot Act.
Especially the Patriot Act as that would give the USA access to European data stored in the cloud.
 
SirDice said:
GoDaddy openly supports SOPA.
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GoDaddy also supports spammers (not openly, but definitely in practice). Just avoid this company altogether, there are plenty of other ways to register a domain.

Fonz
 
A friend of mine forwarded this link on the weekend. It explains who these lobbyists are and the connection between those corporations and the software to download torrents. A little long and a bit repetitive, but good information nevertheless. It's so encouraging (!) to see single mothers and children being sued by such corporations for ridiculous amounts of money.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJIuYgIvKsc

@ SirDice + Fonz: Did not know that about GD. Moving immediately. I liked the prices and how DNS changes were pushed so quickly through. I found namecheap and enom as hosts. Anyone have experience with them or please feel free to suggest your favorite.
 
*kick*

More SOPA related news: starting today at 5:00 UTC (which is not entirely coincidentally midnight on the east coast of the U.S.A.), Wikipedia will be blacked out for a period of 24 hours in protest of SOPA and PIPA.

Visitors to Wikipedia are presented with a dark page with a short statement. It's still possible to read Wikipedia by turning off JavaScript, but non-essential editing has been disabled, even for registered Wikipedians.

Several differently-languaged sister Wikipedias display a banner on every page, the Italian Wikipedia even has a splash page. The French and Norwegian Wikipedias are among the most notable to apparently not give a rat's patootie.

Fonz
 
Hmm, at least freshports has done it correctly. Wikipedia just has some stupid javascript onLoad showing a hidden div. (disabling javascript gets round it)

I wish people would please stop using javascript for this kinda thing! lol
 
The real issue is copyright infringement. I've been reading so many blatantly false statements today that I'm wondering if I should support SOPA just to shut some of them up. While I think the bill has its heart in the right place, introducing copyright infringement protection on the internet, what they have needs more thought and needs input and crafting from technology experts who know better how this stuff works.

I DO know there are a lot of HIGHLY pissed off Wikipedia users today on Twitter.
 
kpedersen said:
Wikipedia just has some stupid javascript onLoad showing a hidden div. (disabling javascript gets round it)
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Not the most elegant solution indeed, but I seem to remember there were reasons for Wikipedia to do it that way. It's probably explained/debated on a community page somewhere.

Fonz
 
drhowarddrfine said:
what they have needs more thought and needs input and crafting from technology experts who know better how this stuff works.
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In my opinion, the inherent problem with politics is that politicians rarely have significant knowledge of the things they get to decide about. They need to rely on real experts to tell them what to think, but such advice isn't always unbiased and they don't always ask for it either. The result is politicians shooting their mouths off over things they don't understand, upsetting those who actually do know what's what.
<end of rant>

Fonz
 
fonz said:
Not the most elegant solution indeed, but I seem to remember there were reasons for Wikipedia to do it that way. It's probably explained/debated on a community page somewhere.

Fonz
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I knew there was a reason why I did not notice the Wikipedia blackout :D
The reason to do it that way may IIRC be that they allow for their content to be used by other sites (f.e. spiegel) and would disable them too. And in case there is money involved it would not be a good idea.
 
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