Internet architects oppose US online piracy bills

[Will E Worm]

Internet architects oppose US online piracy bills

A group of prominent architects of the Internet added their voices Thursday to those opposing legislation in the US Congress intended to crack down on online piracy.
In an open letter to Congress, more than 80 engineers, inventors and software developers expressed concerns about the bills introduced in the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Their letter came a day after the founders of Google, Twitter, Yahoo! and other Internet giants voiced opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act being considered in the House and the Senate version known as the Protect IP Act.

The legislation has received the backing of Hollywood, the music industry, the Business Software Alliance, the National Association of Manufacturers, the US Chamber of Commerce and other groups.

But it has come under fire from digital rights and free speech organizations for allegedly paving the way for US authorities to shut down websites accused of online piracy, including foreign sites, without due process.

"If enacted, either of these bills will create an environment of tremendous fear and uncertainty for technological innovation, and seriously harm the credibility of the United States in its role as a steward of key Internet infrastructure," the Internet architects said in their letter.

"Both bills will risk fragmenting the Internet's global domain name system and have other capricious technical consequences," they said, such as promoting censorship.

"All censorship schemes impact speech beyond the category they were intended to restrict, but these bills are particularly egregious in that regard because they cause entire domains to vanish from the Web, not just infringing pages or files," they said.

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Good :clap:

 

[Mayhem]

Everyone is against it....except for the dickheads in office.

 

[sid-sexy]

Those fools. Censorship is a huge waste of money. The Protect IP Act is oppression at it's worst.

 

[TheOrangeCat]

Well, we knew it wouldn't take long for 'The Boys in The Backrooms' to start trying to legislate the only truly global, borderless democracy - The Internet. Hell, if the ability to share freely and connect with others seamlessly isn't a threat to the status quo, I don't know what is .... God forbid people actually get to exercise their choices in the freedom of cyberspace ... next thing, we'll be questioning whether politicians and bank CEOs really do know best ... madness, madness.

 

[Deepcover]

I am strongly against that pos bill. Are these people fucking crazy?

 

[pete rose]

I think someone should write up a "circle jerk on the declaration of independence" bill.

 

[Legzman]

No by thwarting piracy online they are opening the floodgates to censorship? Fuck that! It's already hard enough to find uncensored *** porn!

 

[Rattrap]

One has to admit, some points to the Obama Administration:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012...ds-we-people-petitions-sopa-and-online-piracy

 

[Master Roshi]

 

[Mayhem]

My beloved wikipedia is going dark for 24 hours, in protest of this nonsense. I support them doing it, but I'm already twitching. It will be a long day.