Stunning Infographic: Hypocrisy in Hollywood by Paralegal.net

How Hollywood is Using Piracy Against Us

Whether the abbreviations SOPA, PIPA and ACTA are new or old to you, readers will benefit from this infographic created by Paralegal.net. Many of the statistics are spectacular, such as "Hollywood executives spent $123 million dollars on political donations and lobbying for anti-piracy bills such as SOPA, PIPA and ACTA -- That's the equivalent to 15.5 million movie tickets." Also, if you didn't know that independent filmmakers fled to Hollywood to get away from Edison's licensing and royalty fees in the first place, now you do. (See: How to embed graphic;  More infographics at Paralegal.net)


Created by: Paralegal.net

What is ACTA? The United States President Has Already Ratified ACTA on Behalf of the U.S.

Sign Petition: Please Submit ACTA to the Senate for Ratification as Required by the Constitution for Trade Agreements (Horrifically slow to reach late Friday night due to "maintenance issues")

Thought SOPA Was Bad? 10 Reasons to Oppose ACTA

So, we've shot down SOPA and PIPA. Congratulations Internets for a job well done. Mission accomplished, right? Not so much. While that's two bad pieces of legislation pushed back, there's much more where that came from. Leaving aside existing nastiness like the DMCA, we also have the even nastier Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) (PDF). How bad is it? Bad enough that the European Parliament's rapporteur for ACTA (Kader Arif) resigned over it today (January 27, 2012). Unfortunately for those of us in the United States, President Obama has already ratified ACTA on behalf of the United States.

See: Blog post in full



Informational Links on ACTA:
(EFF) Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement: What is ACTA?
(CNN Fortune) Meet SOPA's evil twin, ACTA
(Ars Technica) Secret US cables reveal: ACTA was far too secret
(Boing Boing) WikiLeaks ACTA cables confirm it was a screwjob for the global poor
(WikiLeaks) WikiLeaks.org Category: ACTA
(WikiPedia) Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement

Movement on the Righthaven.com Domain; Redacted Letter to Former Senator Dodd Posted

UPDATE: VEGAS INC reports that Boing Boing has identified the domain buyer as Stefan Thalberg of Zug, Switzerland. Thalberg has yet to issue a comment. The logo represents a "no jellyfish" symbol.

Blogger Bully Site Yanks MPAA's Chain in Poison-Pen Letter

The new owner of the domain name Righthaven.com, which until recently belonged to a notorious copyright troll, has used his purchase to openly mock the Motion Picture Ass. of America.
The website currently displays a heavily and ironically redacted open letter to MPAA chief Christopher Dodd, and lends support to yesterday's web-wide protest of the US Stop Online Piracy Act.
The SOPA blackout prompted sites including Wikipedia to go dark for a day.

See: The Register article in full

The letter has a logo as well (possibly "no parasites"). We've posted it below.

Darkness Covers the Internet Today, January 18, 2012, in Internet-Wide Protests

January 18: Internet-Wide Protests Against the Blacklist Legislation

Join EFF and websites across the world in protesting the dangerous censorship legislation currently pending in Congress.
On January 18th, EFF will join websites across the world in standing up against the proposed blacklist bills (SOPA in the House and the PROTECT IP Act in the Senate). EFF is calling on websites to be part of the protest by blacking out their logos, posting statements opposing the bills, and linking to our action center. Websites are also encouraged to follow the powerful examples of Reddit, Wikipedia and others by “blacking out” their entire site for a day. If you do choose to take down your website in protest, please be sure to post a message about why you oppose the blacklist bills and consider linking to the EFF action center so site visitors can take the next step and contact Congress.

See: Related EFF article in full

Related articles:
10/27/11: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) Emerges as New Threat in Wake of Protect IP Act
05/26/11: Anonymous Reacts to 'Protect IP Act,' Launches DDOS Attack on Big Business...
05/15/11: EFF Warns Against the 'Protect IP Act,' A Reincarnation of Last Year's COCIA

Feds Seize 100+ Domain Names in Advance of Cyber Monday Without 'SOPA' Legislation

Feds Seize 130+ Domain Names in Mass Crackdown

US authorities have initiated the largest round of domain name seizures yet as part of their continued crackdown on counterfeit and piracy-related websites. With just a few days to go until “Cyber Monday” more than 100 domain names have been taken over by the feds to protect the commercial interests of US companies. The seizures are disputable, as the SOPA bill which aims to specifically legitimize such actions is still pending in Congress ... The fact that the authorities have once again launched a large crackdown on “rogue” websites begs the question why this legislation is needed in the first place. Apparently, the current system already allows for the seizure of domain names, without due process and all the other constitutional issues.

See: Torrent Freak article in full

Recall last February, when the U.S. Government shut down 84,000 websites by mistake. They also shut down "potential" infringing sites prior to the Superbowl.

Today is Internet Censorship Day: Join the Urgent Fight Against SOPA Now!

Contact Congress: Quickly send a letter right now! | Sign the petition at Whitehouse.gov.

Hundreds of web sites are participating in American Censorship Day, taking place today, November 16, including the EFF, Boing Boing, Reddit, Creative Commons, Hype Machine and many more.

Righthaven Observer Offers Insights Into SOPA

Why I Oppose the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)/E-PARASITES Act

By Eric Goldman
The Stop Online Piracy Act, with its ridiculously named subpart the "E-PARASITE Act," doesn't expressly modify 17 USC 512. Nevertheless, it is a full-fledged assault on the safe harbor's scheme. It employs the same basic notice-and-takedown structure of 512, but it applies the cutoff obligations to payment processors and ad networks ... expands--for the first time--the takedown obligations to trademarks ... expands the takedown obligations to cover anti-circumvention in addition to the 17 USC 106 rights, expands the reasons why a rightsowner can complain, and does not give the governed intermediaries any business incentive to stand up for user content. On the latter point, because SOPA is designed to cut off the cash, each and every UGC item potentially jeopardizes its entire economic enterprise of a website hosting it. In other words, if the website goes offline because of cash flow problems caused by the cutoff attributable to a single UGC content item, all of the UGC on that website goes dark because of a single content item. Talk about collateral damage.

See: Eric Goldman's blog post in full

Technology Companies that Support SOPA

Business Software Alliance (BSA) is a trade group that supports SOPA. Some of its members are listed below and are complicit in supporting SOPA. See full list of BSA members.

Adobe
Apple
Dell
Intel
Intuit
McAfee
Microsoft
Quark
Rosetta Stone
Symantec

Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) Emerges as New Threat in Wake of Protect IP Act

Contact Congress Now: Click here to send a letter to help stop Protect IP / SOPA.

Don't Let Hollywood Break the Internet With the PROTECT IP Act!

The PROTECT IP Act would allow copyright owners – movie studios and other content providers – simply to accuse a website of infringement, which could lead to that site being shut down by court order and entire links to the site being wiped clean from the Internet. Any website with a hyperlink, such as Twitter, Facebook or a blog, would be subject to liability. More, non-infringing sites could be inadvertently shut down under the proposal. Indeed, the law is so far-reaching that it would force Internet providers like Comcast to block all access to the allegedly illegal site.

See: Forbes article in full
See: Related CNN article


PROTECT IP Act Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

Past blog posts:
05/26/11: Anonymous Reacts to 'Protect IP Act,' Launches DDOS Attack on Big Business...
05/15/11: EFF Warns Against the 'Protect IP Act,' A Reincarnation of Last Year's COCIA