Many in Washington and around the country are celebrating a key battle in the war against Internet freedom today – the one year anniversary of the defeat of the Stop Online Piracy Act or SOPA. The Computer & Communications Industry Association had been an early opponent of the bill and its two previous incarnations. We…
Certain industries who prioritize controlling their content expend considerable amounts of time and money on lobbying for legislation, such as SOPA and PIPA. However, the RIAA, one of the most vocal supporters, allegedly conceded in a recently leaked report that the SOPA/PIPA “legislation [was] not likely to have been effective tool for music.” So not only is there uncertainty as…
[Author’s Note: This post was adapted from the author’s post on the DisCo (Disruptive Competition) blog — If you haven’t checked out http://project-disco.org, please do!] The PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) was introduced in the Senate on May 12, 2011. It is remarkable that that was now more than a year ago, and to think about how…
CCIA applauds the recent agreement we have helped broker between leading content creators, RIAA and MPAA and leading companies in the Internet, technology, and communications sectors in an effort to rewrite copyright law so as to avoid the type of future confrontations we all experienced in the recent battles over PIPA & SOPA. We especially…
In the wake of successful, widespread Internet activism against SOPA and PIPA, some momentum has been driven to ACTA, which may be a new four-letter acronym to many people, but has been around for years. ACTA negotiations began in 2006, with the U.S. as one of the first involved nations. ACTA stands for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade…
Some citizens, Congress members, and organizations have been fully aware of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) and the threats they pose for months now. After all, PIPA was introduced on May 12, 2011, and SOPA was introduced on October 26, 2011. While there were 1000 companies, organizations, and individuals who…
The House and Senate have both announced plans today to put off consideration of the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). The announcement follows record numbers of phone calls to Capitol Hill and millions of signatures on online petitions by Internet users after more than 7,000 websites went dark for…
The Computer & Communications Industry Association blacked out its website Wednesday, along with a countdown clock to the Senate’s planned vote on its flawed legislation January 24. More than 6200 websites participated in the blackout with news coverage focusing on the impact of sites like Wikipedia and Craigslist going dark for a day and asking…
Here’s an excerpt from CCIA President & CEO Ed Black’s CNN interview — see above or the text of the story below: (CNN) — “Imagine a world without free knowledge”. Those are the words on the home page of Wikipedia, which has taken down its website as part of a coordinated political protest supported by…
