In response to your voices,
consideration of both PIPA and SOPA has been indefinitely postponed!
“This is altogether a new effect,” said former Senator Chris Dodd,
now head of MPAA and key PIPA/SOPA promoter, comparing the online
movement to the Arab Spring. He had not seen in his 40 years in politics
“an effort that was moving with this degree of support change this
dramatically.”
Ron Paul (R-TX), PIPA
applauded the Internet Blackout, saying "Sometimes you need a two-by-four to get them to listen." We're happy to report that
craigslist users logged over 30,000 two-by-fours phone calls to
Members of Congress Wednesday, and they did not go unnoticed. :-)
These bills WILL return, and both are so deeply flawed they must die entirely, so the fight is not over.
As of end of day Thursday, and before the postponement
announcements, 19 Senators had dropped their support for PIPA, at least 6
of whom had been co-sponsors of the bill (!) Check it out on
PIPA Roll Call.
Corporate supporters of Senate 968 (PIPA) and HR 3261 (SOPA)
demand the ability to take down any web site (including
craigslist, Wikipedia, or Google) that hurts their profits --
without prior judicial oversight or due process -- in the name of
combating "
online piracy."
PIPA and SOPA
authors and
supporters insist they'd only go after foreign piracy sites, but
Internet Engineers understand this is an attempt to impose "Big Brother" controls on our Internet, complete with
DNS hijacking and censoring search results. Incredibly,
many Congress Members favor this idea.
<RANT>Try to imagine jack-booted thugs throttling free speech,
poisoning the Internet (greatest of American inventions, the very pillar
of modern democracy), and devastating one of the our most successful
industries. Totalitarian, anti-American, massively-job-killing
nonsense.</RANT>
Tell Congress you OPPOSE Senate 968 "Protect IP Act" (PIPA) and H.R. 3261 "Stop Online Piracy Act" (SOPA):
Supporters of PIPA and SOPA: RIAA, MPAA,
News Corp,
TimeWarner, Walmart, Nike, Tiffany, Chanel, Rolex, Sony, Juicy Couture,
Ralph Lauren, VISA, Mastercard, Comcast, ABC, Dow Chemical, Monster
Cable, Teamsters,
Rupert Murdoch,
Lamar Smith (R-TX), John Conyers (D-MI)
Opponents of PIPA and SOPA: Google, Yahoo,
Wikipedia, craigslist, Facebook, Twitter,
LinkedIn,
eBay, AOL, Mozilla,
Reddit, Tumblr, Etsy, Zynga, EFF, ACLU, Human Rights Watch, Darrell Issa
(R-CA), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Ron Paul (R-TX)
Where does your Member of Congress stand on PIPA and SOPA? (Project SOPA Opera)
PIPA and SOPA Are Too Dangerous To Revise, They Must Be Killed Entirely
Congress needs to hear from you, or
these dangerous bills will pass - they have tremendous lobbying dollars behind them, from corporations experts say are attempting to
prop up outdated, anti-consumer business models
at the expense of the very fabric of the Internet -- recklessly
unleashing a tsunami of take-down notices and litigation, and a
Pandora's jar of "chilling effects" and other unintended (or perhaps
intended?) consequences.
For example, in a
post about Monster Cable lobbying for PIPA, Techdirt points out Monster
has blacklisted craigslist as a "rogue site" -- resale of stereo cables by CL users has apparently cut into
Monster's profits. (
reddit).
There is still time to be heard.
Congress is starting to backpedal on this job-killing, anti-American nonsense, and the
Obama administration has weighed in against these bills as drafted, but
SOPA/PIPA cannot be fixed or revised -- they must be killed altogether.
Sen Darrell Issa (R-CA) and
Rep Ron Wyden (D-OR) are
championing an alternative to SOPA/PIPA called
Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act (OPEN)
that addresses foreign sites dedicated to piracy, without disrupting
basic Internet protocols, or threatening mainstream US sites like
craigslist.
Tim O'Reilly, a publisher who is himself subject to piracy,
asks whether piracy is even a problem, and whether there is even a legitimate need for any of these bills.
Learn more about SOPA, Protect IP (PIPA), and Internet Blacklisting:
Still have questions? try our CraigsList
help desk discussion forum or
send us a note.
Image via WikipediaHeart-warming vampire films? Have you seen: "Let me In"? SHE (Chloe Moretz) is the cutest thing in cinema. And, somehow, the plot all makes sense. Based on the Swedish film "Let the Right One In" (which I watched first). I do like the American version better.
