Saturday, January 21, 2012

Taking Over the Internet, Pt. 2: Megaupload, SOPA, and copyright

So much for the best laid plans of mice and men: Two days after telling the Wall Street Journal that he didn't plan on backing down on SOPA, Lamar Smith (chief sponsor of SOPA) said he was pulling the bill for the time being.

Yesterday I wrote a few words about this bill and some of the related news. Today I'm expanding on that a bit, particularly on the parts about Megaupload, using the following Associated Press article from Time as a frame for my thoughts. (The quoted paragraphs will be in italics.)

Friday, January 20, 2012

Taking Over the Internet, Pt. 1: Megaupload and SOPA

This has the potential to be a rambling post or two, so please bear with me.

There is a lot of chatter these days concerning two proposed (but now shelved or delayed) Acts dealing with US copyright laws. They are SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act). On Wednesday, Wikipedia and Reddit protested the proposed Acts by having an information blackout for the day. On Thursday, the content-sharing site Megaupload.com was shut down. It was a massive site, allegedly the 13th largest on the Internet at one point. Some people are wondering how the US government could wield such power, or if they are trying to take over the internet, or if this is the beginning of the war of the internet.

This is what I think.
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