The Congress is contemplating two proposed bills called the "Stop Online Piracy Act" (SOFA) and the "Protect IP Act" (PIPA). They are naked attempts by the government and the media industry to impose strict controls over what we can see and hear online.

Basically, the bills being contemplated by the House and Senate would expand the ability of the government and private groups, like the MPA and RIAA to block, ban and sue websites for copyright infringement.

But not just the sites that actually publish the content. These bills would also allow the government and private companies to go after search engines, ISPs, social networking sites and even private websites like Phins.com for allowing access to the "bad" sites.

Here are just two of the more heinous provisions of these bills:

1. Online service providers, like ISPs, search engines, ad networks, and payment providers, are required to withhold services to websites that are deemed by a court to be infringing copyrights held by U.S. content producers. Further, ISPs must block U.S. Web users' access to such sites.

2. The bill grants civil claims immunity to Web services providers for any actions they take in order to comply with the terms of the act. In other words, a website that's been blocked by an ISP after being found to be infringing can't turn around and sue the ISP for denial of service or breach of contract.

Never heard of these bills? That's because the supporters of these bills have been trying to sneak them through without much media attention.

To take action against these bills, please, please, PLEASE contact your US Representative and Senators and tell them we don't need more Internet Censorship!

Here are a couple of websites that you can go to to learn more about these bills and how to fight them:

* SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) lawmaker opposition grows as debate heats up
* Mozilla Fights for the Internet's Future
* American Censorship Day
* Take Action! | Electronic Frontier Foundation
* Public Knowledge

Or, you can just Google "SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act)" or "PIPA (Protect IP Act)" to find out more about this legislation.

This is not about encouraging copyright theft - it's about preventing the government from getting ever more involved in controlling what we can see and hear.

Curt "DOLFAN in New England" Fennell
Director, Phins.com



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/20/2011 11:30AM by curt.