Pipa
When you look back at the origins of PIPA and SOPA, two bills before the US senate this year dealing with the Internet, you’ll see they more than likely started fermenting in the days of Napster and other free files sharing websites. The forces that be in the entertainment industry are railing against the copying on intellectual property online with these bills and there’s two sides here that seem to be gearing up for an epic battle that concerns us about the implications for Internet censorship.
You probably already heard about SOPA/PIPA and the whole debate around it, right? Last Wednesday it was a really interesting day on the Internet, probably representing the biggest online activism movement ever, with all major online companies and websites protesting against the bills. The movement was pretty successful, with many senators reversing their stance on the SOPA/PIPA bills, and making it much harder to get them approved now (i.e., the Internet folks won the first battle of the war). The day
Yesterday’s battle royale over the future of the Internet has been characterized in many ways - technology companies vs. media conglomerates, content vs. distribution, and perhaps most convincingly by the Harvard Business Review as the Young Startups vs. the Old Guard. And indeed, change was in the air (and over the servers) yesterday. In protest of a pair of laws now before Congress that address online piracy, some of the most highly-trafficked websites in the U.S. made their sites inactive, dark,
(image) Earlier this week I ventured down to the Silicon Valley from my lair on the side of Mt. Tamalpais in Marin. Those of you who have visited Marin might understand why for me, after more than 25 years of working across the bridge in San Francisco and on planes around the world, I find it rather pleasant to just stay in my office and Think Big Thoughts whenever possible. But duty called, Jonathan Zittrain (who I’ve interviewed here) had asked me to participate in a conference he was hosting
If you visit the English Wikipedia right now (or within some hours) you’ll probably see a lot of black. No need to panic though, it’s a schedule protest against the SOPA and PIPA bills that are being promoted in the US. Here’s the description from their announcement: Today, the Wikipedia community announced its decision to black out the English-language Wikipedia for 24 hours, worldwide, beginning at 05:00 UTC on Wednesday, January 18 (you can read the statement from the Wikimedia
