SOPA "explained" by The Guardian
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is a law (bill) of the United States proposed in 2011 to fight online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit goods. Proposals include barring advertising networks and payment facilities from conducting business with allegedly infringing websites, barring search engines from linking to the sites, and requiring Internet service providers (ISP) to block access to the sites. The bill would criminalize the streaming of such content, with a maximum penalty of five years in prison.
User-content websites such as YouTube would be greatly affected, and concern has been expressed that they may be shut down if the bill becomes law. Opponents state the legislation would enable law enforcement to remove an entire internet domain due to something posted on a single blog, arguing that an entire online community could be punished for the actions of a tiny minority. In a 1998 law, copyright owners are required to request the site to remove the infringing material within a certain amount of time. SOPA would bypass this "safe harbor" provision by placing the responsibility for detecting and policing infringement onto the site itself.
Lobbyists for companies that rely heavily on revenue from intellectual property copyright state it protects the market and corresponding industry, jobs, and revenue. The US president and legislators suggest it may kill innovation. Representatives of the American Library Association state the changes could encourage criminal prosecution of libraries. Other opponents state that requiring search engines to delete a domain name begins a worldwide arms race of unprecedented censorship of the Web and violates the First Amendment.
On January 18, English Wikipedia, Reddit, and several other internet companies coordinated a service blackout to protest SOPA and its sister bill, the Protect IP Act, an estimated 7,000 smaller websites either joined in or posted some kind of protest. Companies, including Google, posted links and images in an effort to raise awareness. A number of other protest actions were organized, including petition drives and boycotts of companies that support the legislation.
As most people knew already, today was the SOPA strike and several anime bloggers like myself have joined in by either blacking out their site or spreading awareness by writing a post about it. If you haven’t known already by now, SOPA and PIPA are two extremely dangerous pieces of legislation that will severely harm freedom of speech, innovation, security and the openness of the Internet. Not only that, it will have profound effects on the Anime Blogosphere as we rely heavily on derivative works to share our thoughts about Anime, which protected under fair use.
Most bloggers who didn’t participate and Anime Fans have to realize that this law will not affect everyone in the United States, but everyone if they were to get passed. Therefore, I have been proactively reminding others to keep a close eye on this and take action, even if you are in a different country.
Most bloggers who didn’t participate and Anime Fans have to realize that this law will not affect everyone in the United States, but everyone if they were to get passed. Therefore, I have been proactively reminding others to keep a close eye on this and take action, even if you are in a different country.
Aside from that, I want to share an exhaustive list that participated or mentioned the bill’s existence (perhaps as an excuse to get out of a post):
- Anidorama (This Anime blog)
- Anime Yume
- Baka Laureate
- Beta-Waffle
- Chikorita157’s Anime Blog
- Desu ex Machina
- Ephemeral Dreams
- Ganbatte
- G-Empire
- Just as planned
- Kimaguresan’s road to nowhere
- My Sword is Unbelievably Dull
- Organization Anti-Social Geniuses
- METANORN
- NewAnimeThursday
- Shinde Iie Anime Blog
- Subdued Fangirling
- Moesubs
- Kazesubs
- and others I probably have forgotten…
Still, the fight isn’t over yet, so we still need to keep the pressure on Congress and supporters for both bills. Continue to spread the word to everyone in the fandom, not just the blogosphere and contact congress! We need to effectively kill both bills so we can keep continuing what we enjoy most, blogging about Anime , Dorama , Manga , & Vocaloid.
Other internet companies coordinated a service blackout to protest SOPA
Late comment is very, very late. But I was poking around trying to find Project Diva PC stuff and was happily shocked to find my old SOPA protest pic edit from dA. Figma Miku says she's happy she could help. Rest in pieces SOPA, and may we live to see the day that copyright is reformed and information is free. Thanks!
BalasHapus