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Obama: Protect The ‘Fundamental Integrity’ of the Internet
President Barack Obama called for the protection of intellectual property rights in a Google+ hangout Monday evening, but said such protection must be done “in a way that’s consistent with Internet freedom.” Obama was replying to a question submitted over YouTube about his stance on the Stop Online Piracy Act ( SOPA ), which currently lies dormant in the House of Representatives. SOPA (and its sister bill in the Senate, PROTECT IP Act, or PIPA ) was the target of a coordinated Internet blackout protest in mid-January Read more »
SOPA and Hollywood: Standing in the Way of Technological Innovation [INFOGRAPHIC]
In case you’re still unclear about the U.S. Congress’s hapless SOPA legislation that went down in flames earlier this month, the Matador Network sums it up neatly with this angry infographic. Once you’ve read this infographic about SOPA , you might become angry, too. Read more »
What is ACTA? Why Should You Care?
The technology community came out in force against SOPA ( Stop Online Piracy Act ) and PIPA ( Protect IP Act ) before those two bills were shelved last week. With them gone, we can expect tech experts and Internet users to step away from politics. The battle has been won, right Read more »
Google and Bing Searches Help Us Pirate Music?
Of course the public is going to pirate music when 80% of our search results for music direct us to illegal sites. That’s the claim made by a coalition of entertainment industry groups in a private document sent to the U.K. government Read more »
ACTA ‘Is More Dangerous Than SOPA’
SOPA and PIPA are stalled (or dead) in the halls of the U.S. Congress. Yet, there may be a bigger, perhaps more dangerous threat to Internet freedoms on the way, called the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA. Read more »
What Would You Ask Jimmy Wales About SOPA?
Today at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Mashable ’s Pete Cashmore will moderate a panel with leaders who have taken an active role in the debate on the now stalled Stop Online Piracy Act . He will talk with: Congressman Darrell Issa, U.S. Representative for California’s 49th Congressional District Jimmy Wales, Founder and Trustee, Wikimedia Foundation David Drummond, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer, Google Trip Adler, Cofounder and CEO, Scribd What Would You Ask Read more »
Could SOPA Be Coming to Canada?
After widespread online protests that saw several sites including Wikipedia go dark, the U.S. House of Representatives effectively killed the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) last week. But the spirit of SOPA lives on in a bill before the Canadian Parliament, according to at least one law professor Read more »
Who Did the Most to Bury SOPA? [POLL]
Ding, dong, the bill is dead — or at the very least buried, even if it may well rise again in another form in a year or so. Regardless, the withdrawal of the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act and the tabling of PIPA (its equivalent in the Senate) Friday marks a stunning victory for Internet activists over Hollywood lobbyists. Last week, the bills seemed certain to pass Read more »
What Megaupload Teaches Us About the Cloud, SOPA and Backups
The raid and subsequent shutdown of file-sharing service Megaupload not only hacked off members of Anonymous, it also underscores one of the inherent vulnerabilities in storing data in the cloud. Beyond just providing easy TV access to college students without cable, Megaupload and the other sites in its network helped encompass the largest digital locker service in the world. Read more »