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About Ads Hide These Ads. Widget for your website Get a bill status widget ». Ransom Disclosure Act would require companies disclose ransom payments to Department of Homeland…. Save Note. About the bill Source: Wikipedia. Continue reading ». Lamar Smith Sponsor. SOPA tackles that by moving up the chain. If you can't force overseas sites to take down copyrighted work, you can at least stop U. You can also make it harder for U. Internet users to find and access the sites.
The proposed bill's text says that a site could be deemed a SOPA scofflaw if it "facilitates" copyright infringement. Sites like YouTube, which publishes millions of user-uploaded videos each week, are worried that they would be forced to more closely police that content to avoid running afoul of the new rules. The bill requires every payment or advertising network operator to set up a process through which outside parties can notify the company that one of its customers is an "Internet site is dedicated to theft of U.
Filing false notifications is a crime, but the process would put the burden of proof -- and the legal cost of fighting a false allegation -- on the accused. As the anti-SOPA trade group NetCoalition put it in their analysis of the bill: "The legislation systematically favors a copyright owner's intellectual property rights and strips the owners of accused websites of their rights. Who supports SOPA, and who's against it? In general, media companies have united in favor of them, while tech's big names are throwing their might into opposing them.
The bill's supporters dismiss accusations of censorship, saying that the legislation is meant to revamp a broken system that doesn't adequately prevent criminal behavior. But SOPA's critics say the bill's backers don't understand the Internet's architecture, and therefore don't appreciate the implications of the legislation they're considering.
In November, tech behemoths including Google GOOG , Fortune and Facebook lodged a formal complaint letter to lawmakers, saying: "We support the bills' stated goals.
Unfortunately, the bills as drafted would expose law-abiding U. Internet and technology companies to new uncertain liabilities [and] mandates that would require monitoring of web sites. Where does the bill stand now? SOPA was once expected to sail quickly through committee approval in the House. But tech companies, who largely oppose the bills, mobilized their users to speak out.
Google GOOG , Fortune drew more than 7 million signatures for a petition that it linked on its highly trafficked homepage. The bills lost some of their Congressional backers as a result of the backlash. The bills are designed to tackle so-called rogue websites that are devoted to infringing US IP rights.
These include sites that illegally stream movies, TV shows, music and sport as well as those that sell counterfeit goods such as pharmaceuticals that are targeted at US consumers. Over the past two years US Immigration and Customs Enforcement ICE — another acronym has led a high-profile campaign called Operation In Our Sites to close down and seize domains that host or offer for sale infringing content. While the operation has had some success, many operators simply start new sites every time an old one is closed down.
Moreover, many of the most egregious sites are hosted outside of the United States, so the operators are out of the reach of US courts and cannot be fined or imprisoned. The bills aim to tackle that. Crucially, the bills seek to block access to pirate sites by allowing courts to make orders against intermediaries such as ISPs, search engines, credit card companies and advertising sites.
The DMCA was passed before the growth of social media and online video and the increase in broadband speeds. Today, for example, it is estimated that 48 hours of video are uploaded on to YouTube every minute. Opponents of the bills include free speech and open source campaigners, as well as operators of websites who fear they will be caught by the legislation despite not being involved in piracy.
Google has been the most high-profile company to challenge the bills. Opponents argue that the proposals amount to censorship, will disrupt the internet, punish innocent parties and impose unreasonable burdens on intermediary websites. In the light of a recent decision to extradite a UK man accused of copyright piracy, there are also worries that they would extend the jurisdiction of US courts to other countries. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has summarised its specific concerns.
Second, it says the Act would encourage overblocking by service providers who wish to receive immunity Section a. Third, it objects to copyright owners having the right to seek court orders against foreign websites, saying that similar rights under the DMCA are being abused. Section of SOPA sets out a two-step process for rights holders to take action.
Fourth, it still has concerns about the ability of the Attorney General to block domain services, even though these have been scaled back. This issue is covered in Section of the Act. Up to 7, websites shut down in whole or part yesterday, and many bloggers and tweeters went silent, as a protest against SOPA.
The most notable site to act was Wikipedia, which blacked out its English-language version as a protest following discussion among nearly 2, users other versions, including the simple-English one, were running as normal.
The bills do not appear to target sites such as Wikipedia, but users appeared to want to use its profile to raise their concerns. You said no. You melted their servers.
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