DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan. 22 (UPI) -- The future of the Internet will be the focus of a major independent commission announced by officials Wednesday at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. The group will focus primarily on state censorship of the Internet and the issues of privacy and surveillance, the British newspaper the Guardian reported. The commission was formed in the wake of disclosures by former U.S. National Security Agency analyst Edward Snowden of massive spying efforts by the United States and Britain. Read More!
SOPA Opera: White House Shuts Down Online Anti-Piracy Bill
Rather than deliver an ultimatum to those on either side of the debate, the recent White House statement related to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP Act of 2011 (PIPA) encourages the entertainment and technology industries to work together to find a solution. This call for a back-to-the-drawing-board approach to clamping down on Internet intellectual-property piracy while preserving free speech has many wondering whether lawmakers will simply rework SOPA (pdf) and PIPA (pdf) using different language or if they will take anti-SOPA and anti-PIPA concerns to heart. The Obama administration is not backing down when it comes to shutting down foreign sites that distribute content illegally. Read More!
Copyright Expert Gretchen McCord Says Copyright Week a Success
Copyright Week, which ended Saturday, was a six-day campaign coordinated by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and timed to correspond with the two-year anniversary of the Internet black-out of January 2012. (Electronic Frontier Foundation, Jan. 13, 2014) That black-out was to protest the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP Act (PIPA). The bills were intended to provide copyright owners with greater ability to enforce their rights against online pirates. (Los Angeles Times, SOPA Blackout; Who is Joining the Protest, Jan. 18, 2012) However, a sizeable collection of entities – from Google to Wikipedia to the American Library Association – opposed the bills, believing they threatened the very existence of the Internet as we know it, by giving copyright owners the power to shut down websites they alleged infringed their copyrights. Read More!
February 11: “Day We Fight Back” global action vs. mass surveillance
On February 11, thousands of websites will host banners urging people online and offline to demand their representatives to oppose and end the mass surveillance of the National Security Agency (NSA). The activity called The Day We Fight Back is a global online event led by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a network advocating internet freedom. In 2006, EFF filed its first lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of NSA mass surveillance. On January 18, 2012, the global online community mounted the largest online protest in history to oppose and defeat U.S. Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a legislation that sought to censor the Internet in the name of copyright enforcement. In January of last year, digital rights advocate, Aaron Swartz who founded Digital Progress which launched the campaign against the Internet censorship bills (SOPA/PIPA), took his own life. The EFF and digital rights movement around the world vowed to defend the rights of Internet users everywhere in his memory. In its advisory, EFF said, the SOPA and PIPA protests were successful because we all took part, as a community. As Aaron put it, everybody “made themselves the hero of their own story.” “Today we face a different threat, one that undermines the Internet, and the notion that any of us live in a genuinely free society: mass surveillance.” The global internet action on February 11 targets the mass surveillance by the NSA. Read More!
Goodman column: The life we lost and a day to fight back
A year after Internet freedom activist Aaron Swartz’s suicide at the age of 26, a film about this remarkable young man has premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. The film, titled “The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz,” directed by Brian Knappenberger, follows the sadly short arc of Aaron’s life. He committed suicide while under the crushing weight of unbending, zealous federal prosecutors, who had Aaron snatched off the street near the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, accusing him of computer crimes. At the age of 14, Aaron helped develop RSS, “Really Simple Syndication,” which changed how people get online content. He co-founded one of the Internet’s most popular websites, Reddit. In the year before his death, he helped defeat a notorious bill before Congress, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which would have granted corporations sweeping powers of censorship over the Internet. Now, another fight for the freedom of the Internet has begun. This one will have to be waged without Aaron. Read More!
The Pirate Bay No Longer Blocked In The Netherlands Following Dutch Appeals Court Ruling
The Pirate Bay will no longer be banned in the Netherlands. According to the ruling by a Dutch appeals court, Internet Service Providers can't ban users from accessing the torrent site. The reason given by the Dutch court to allow access to the Pirate Bay was the inability to enforce the ban, the Associated Press reports. Following a Hague District Court ruling, Dutch ISPs Ziggo and XS4ALL blocked access to the Pirate Bay in 2011. The antipiracy organization BREIN brought the issue to court and the decision was considered to be a victory for antipiracy advocates and supporters of bills such as the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, which were being introduced during that time. Banning access to the Pirate Bay meant ISPs had to police traffic, which led to an “unnecessary burden on providers,” AP notes. Ziggo and XS4ALL filed the case against BREIN, and the court said the ban did little to prevent copyright infringement as users had access to other torrent sites or used proxy services to access the Pirate Bay. Read More!
Namecheap Supports Internet Freedom with Third Annual MoveYourDomain Day
Leading domain registrar and web hosting provider Namecheap announces the third annual MoveYourDomain Day, for February 5, 2014. In 2012, Namecheap launched the MoveYourDomain initiative to remind users about the dangers of a closed internet brought on by the possible passage of SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act. Though the threat of SOPA has passed, similar acts have been proposed that continue to threaten the liberties we have earned the right to enjoy. "We at Namecheap believe strongly in freedom of the internet, and we're dedicated to protecting our customers' privacy," said Namecheap CEO Richard Kirkendall. "That's why we're launching our third annual MoveYourDomain Day on February 5th of this year. With our past years' initiatives, we've donated over $108,000 total to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a key organization in the fight for online freedom and privacy. We encourage domain registrars, hosting companies and average web users alike to, in their own way, take a stand for freedom of expression and help keep the internet free and open for everyone." Read More!
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