On January 24th the US Senate will be voting on two pieces of legislation known as SOPA and PIPA. The Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act are both designed to benefit copyright holders that lobby for their interests to be supported by the US government and have no benefit for the citizens of this country. Each of these acts gives the Department of Justice and copyright holders the ability to file court orders against any site that they wish to accuse of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement. If either of these passes the internet will be changed forever as First Amendment rights are trampled by censorship in the interests of corporations. Numerous online companies, such as Wikipedia, Wired, Amazon, and Google are actively advising people to fight this legislation. Google is even sponsoring a petition which is available at: https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/ You can also contact your representatives by looking them up using this page: https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml
For a basic summary of what these bills will do, visit the EFF’s summary site:
For more thorough information regarding SOPA, click the link below:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act
For more thorough information regarding PIPA, click the link below:
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