Think back 20 years ago. What were you doing? Whatever answer you came up with, it probably had nothing to do with the Internet, which was just coming of age. As James Carafano points out in his article in the Washington Examiner today, the discovery a valuable new world brings with it the need to protect that world. Nearly everything in our lives today is connected to the Internet. You possibly woke up to your iPhone buzzing from an e-mail from your boss and then turned on the lights that … More
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During a presidential debate on Thursday night, all four Republican candidates denounced pending legislation aimed at combating online piracy. Their responses came in the midst of mass congressional defections, especially among Republicans, as major websites protest the bills. The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its Senate companion, the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), would give the Justice Department expansive powers to shut down sites that host content infringing on American intellectual property laws. While most of the bills’ opponents acknowledge the need for IP enforcement, they argue that its powers … More
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As of midnight, Wikipedia is shut down for 24 hours, and hundreds of other popular websites have gone dark right along with it. They are standing together in protest of two controversial pieces of legislation that threaten Internet security and undermine the freedom of speech all in an effort to crack down on online “piracy” — the illegal distribution of copyrighted material. Hollywood, the music industry, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have gone to bat on behalf of the proposed laws on the grounds that they will help protect … More
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Is Congress about to limit freedom of speech on the Internet? Two bills wending their way through the Senate and the House may do just that. The proposals, known as the Protect IP Act (PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) are aimed at stopping foreign-based Web sites from distributing copyrighted material, such as Hollywood movies, in violation of U.S. law. Such online “piracy” is a real problem, and since many of the so-called pirate sites distributing content are based off-shore, they have been able to operate without interference. … More
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By Jim Harper
The Freakonomics blog has an excellent post on the bills in Congress popularly known as SOPA and PIPA. The “Stop Online Piracy Act” and the “Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act” aka the “PROTECT IP Act” would attempt to frustrate online copyright violations by tinkering with the inner [...]
A Dogged Insistence on Real Numbers is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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Six conservative U.S. senators voiced concerns Friday over the substance and procedural context of controversial legislation to block Internet piracy, noting potential economic damages and free speech restrictions the legislation might impose. Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), John Cornyn (R-TX), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Mike Lee (R-UT), and Tom Coburn (R-OK), sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) on Friday expressing their concerns. The letter, whose signatories include the ranking Republicans on the Budget, Finance, and Judiciary Committees, warns of “breaches in cybersecurity, damaging the integrity … More
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By Jim Harper
It’s a valuable public good, research is, isn’t it? Think of where we’d be without it! I mean, it was government research that came up with the Internet, for heaven sake. That’s a response to the argument I made last week against government funding of scientific research. Moving away from public funding of scientific research [...]
But Don’t We Really Need Government Research? is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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Sometimes my friends and colleagues wonder why I fixate on cybersecurity and the Internet. I tell them all the time that it is the single most important and misunderstood problem in the world today, but often I don’t think they understand the scale of the problem. So it was fascinating to see this end-of-year summary of the incredible things that happen on the Internet every minute. It isn’t often that we get a good understanding of just how BIG the Internet really is. So, consider: Today there are more than … More
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Would you be outraged if the Department of Justice shut down The Foundry without any warning and blocked access for more than a year? That’s exactly what happened to a hip-hop blog called Dajaz1.com, which was falsely accused of criminal copyright infringement. The blog posted music from artists promoting their work. But federal authorities viewed it differently. They seized the domain name, then shared virtually no information with its owner for more than year. Only recently did they quietly drop the case. The government’s handling of this hip-hop blog is … More
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By Julian Sanchez
On Thursday, the House Judiciary Committee is slated to take up the misleadingly named Stop Online Piracy Act, an Internet censorship bill that will do little to actually stop piracy. In response to an outpouring of opposition from cybersecurity professionals, First Amendment scholars, technology entrepreneurs, and ordinary Internet users, the bill’s sponsors have cooked up [...]
The New SOPA: Now With Slightly Less Awfulness! is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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