This piece was reprinted by OpEd News with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.
On October 26, Rep. Lamar Smith (R. TX) introduced "HR 3261: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA): To promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation by combating the theft of US property, and for other purposes"
Referred to the House Judiciary Committee, no further action so far was taken.
In enacted, SOPA will "not only sabotage the domain name system but would also threaten to effectively eliminate DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) safe harbors" that spur economic growth and online creativity.Along with Leahy's PROTECT-IP Act, SOPA will force ISPs to "disappear certain websites, endangering Internet security."
On the pretext of IP enforcement, entire domains may be blacklisted. As a result, thousands will be jeopardized, even ones operating properly.
SOPA language claims no "restraint on free speech" when, in fact, it lawlessly abandons constitutional protections.
Worse still, "service providers (including hosting services)" would be pressured to "monitor and police their users' activities."Failure to comply "enough" could result in blacklisting, "even without any kind of court hearing....The bill also requires search engines, payment providers (including credit card companies and PayPal), and advertising services" participate in shutting web sites.
Instead of complying with constitutional law and DMCA rules, copyright owners could use this law to shut down sites by cutting off access to their domain names, their "search engine hits," their advertising, and their "other financing even if safe harbor" protections apply.
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
2
2
2
