Forum Post: PROTECT IP Act hurts OWS's freedom of speech - costs tax payers 47 Million
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 21, 2011, 3:12 p.m. EST by hivemind
(131)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Please watch this: http://vimeo.com/31100268 , it explains a bill that will allow the government to basically block sites that may contain intellectual property. Meaning sites like youtube, twitter, blog sites, etc. will be blocked due to posts that contain "intellectual property". Essentially it will probably be the death of this movement and movements like this. It'll also be the death of the internet.
A more in-depth explanation from Fight For the Future:
"Tell Congress not to censor the internet NOW! - fightforthefuture.org/pipa
PROTECT-IP is a bill that has been introduced in the Senate and the House and is moving quickly through Congress. It gives the government and corporations the ability to censor the net, in the name of protecting "creativity". The law would let the government or corporations censor entire sites-- they just have to convince a judge that the site is "dedicated to copyright infringement."
The government has already wrongly shut down sites without any recourse to the site owner. Under this bill, sharing a video with anything copyrighted in it, or what sites like Youtube and Twitter do, would be considered illegal behavior according to this bill.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, this bill would cost us $47 million tax dollars a year — that's for a fix that won't work, disrupts the internet, stifles innovation, shuts out diverse voices, and censors the internet. This bill is bad for creativity and does not protect your rights."
I posted a similar post yesterday. But I can't stress how important it is to focus on both the Protect IP Act and Stop Internet Piracy Acts. In fact I would like to see OSW schedule a march informing the public about these two important legislations.
I'm really glad other people know about this. I just found out about it the other day and I was just shocked at how far it's gone and how little I've heard about it. It's really dangerous. I guess all we can do is just raise as much awareness as we can. A march would be amazing, the people that don't really support OWS might change their tunes when they hear that the government that they are supporting is trying to snuff our voices out.
Some one else has a thread up on this as well.
This is very alarming. This is what Communist and Fascist regimes do to keep people uninformed and to silence their voices (and the truth getting out there). This is very unconstitutional. Thank you for posting this.
Everyone lets be very vigilant here and make sure that this bill never gets passed in the first place. If it does--there goes our freedom.*
You are right, this is very important. I have tried raising awareness about this on other sites I use, too, people don't realize how bad this is, they'll wake up after it becomes law. That's sad.
I'm sincerely hoping that it doesn't pass. I've talked with a few people and they say that it would be too hot and unconstitutional to pass. But it seems that the government is growing fond of doing things that are morally wrong these days.
This is really sad, the video is only 4 minutes... Maybe if I said the OWS'ers were a bunch of dirty hippies maybe THEN I would get a few looks. There are a LOT of lobbyists backing this act, Nintendo, Philip Morris, Ford, Rite Aid (for some reason), Revlon, Pfizer, Disney, Sony, EA, CVS, CBS, Walmart, the list goes on! Here is their proposal letter https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.theglobalipcenter.com/sites/default/files/pressreleases/letter-359.pdf Please don't be stupid and just pretend this isn't happening.
... :( It's going through congress...
I don't want this to fly under the radar.
Tor network FTW!
Tor? The old republic? Lol what is Tor?