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Showing posts with label SOPA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SOPA. Show all posts

14 March 2014

The Obama administration wants a former SOPA lobbyist to negotiate the TPP. We can't let that happen. & WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW WILL HURT YOU & Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) - IP Chapter 14MAR14&13NOV13

PRES Obama's tpp treaty is another example of third way democrats kow-towing to their wealthy patrons and the corporate interest who control them through campaign contributions and guarantees of executive board positions in the corporations and bank-financial cabal and wall street companies who benefited from their terms in office. We would see this as typical corruption if it occurred in a Third World country, but research in the details of the tpp  show the treaty will only accelerate our descent to Third World status. Consider Obama's nominee to lead the American tpp negotiating team, the former sopa lobbyist robert holleyman. The 99% have lost enough economically from nafta, we can not let it happen again with tpp. Click the link to sign the petition to the senate opposing robert holleyman having any role in the tpp negotiations and see more in this post about the threat tpp poses to the American economy and civil liberties. Just a brief outline of the info you will find below:
Have you heard? The TPP is a massive, controversial “free trade” agreement currently being pushed by big corporations and negotiated behind closed doors by officials from the United States and 11 other countries – Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam. In one fell swoop, this secretive deal could:
Although it is called a “free trade” agreement, the TPP is not mainly about trade. Of TPP’s 29 draft chapters, only five deal with traditional trade issues. One chapter would provide incentives to offshore jobs to low-wage countries. Many would impose limits on government policies that we rely on in our daily lives for safe food, a clean environment, and more. Our domestic federal, state and local policies would be required to comply with TPP rules.

FROM Demand Progress:
The Obama administration wants a former SOPA lobbyist to negotiate the TPP. We can't let that happen.The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a secretive international treaty that lets the world's most powerful corporations make a power grab for our resources at the cost of our civil liberties. And now President Obama has nominated Robert Holleyman, a former lobbyist for the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), to help lead the TPP negotiations for the U.S.

Help us tell the US Senate not to let the salesman for an awful bill become the architect of a monstrous treaty.

The TPP will have ruinous consequences for free speech on the Internet by expanding already ridiculous copyright protections and laying the groundwork for internet censorship. If confirmed by the Senate, Holleyman would be working to ensure that these anti-free speech provisions are enshrined in the TPP for good.

Click here and urge the Senate to block this disastrous nomination.

We've done a good job slowing down the progress of the TPP, but we can't let up. By blocking Holleyman, we'll not only keep this dangerous lobbyist away from this trade agreement, we'll also send a message to the architects of the TPP that they are in for a fight.

Let's send that message and continue that fight.

Sign on and tell your Senator: No to Holleyman.

Thank you.

- Demand Progress
Paid for by Demand Progress (DemandProgress.org) and not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. Contributions are not deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes.

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FROM Public Citizen:
FROM Wikileaks:
 Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) - IP Chapter
English | Spanish

Today, 13 November 2013, WikiLeaks released the secret negotiated draft text for the entire TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) Intellectual Property Rights Chapter. The TPP is the largest-ever economic treaty, encompassing nations representing more than 40 per cent of the world’s GDP. The WikiLeaks release of the text comes ahead of the decisive TPP Chief Negotiators summit in Salt Lake City, Utah, on 19-24 November 2013. The chapter published by WikiLeaks is perhaps the most controversial chapter of the TPP due to its wide-ranging effects on medicines, publishers, internet services, civil liberties and biological patents. Significantly, the released text includes the negotiation positions and disagreements between all 12 prospective member states.
The TPP is the forerunner to the equally secret US-EU pact TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership), for which President Obama initiated US-EU negotiations in January 2013. Together, the TPP and TTIP will cover more than 60 per cent of global GDP. Read full press release here


Download the full secret TPP treaty IP chapter as a PDF here

WikiLeaks Release of Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP)

Advanced Intellectual Property Chapter for All 12 Nations with Negotiating Positions (August 30 2013 consolidated bracketed negotiating text)

Go to start of document

Show table of contents

Partners

 http://wikileaks.org/tpp/
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12 July 2012

Join Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales: Protect Internet Freedom And Seek Justice for Richard O'Dwyer 12JUL12

The American government is way off base with this one. If Richard O'Dwyer has committed a crime in another country then let the the movie and TV industries go to court there. The problem is he hasn't committed any crime, so the courts in the U.K. will not prosecute. Enter the greed of the American entertainment industry and their need for another example of "online piracy" for their campaign to get Congress to pass SOPA and PIPA or similar regulations eliminating a free and open internet. Please join this campaign from Demand Progress telling the British government not to extradite Richard O'Dwyer to the U.S. and telling the U.S. to drop their persecution of Richard O'Dwyer. 

Hi, I am Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, and if you care about justice and the future of the Internet freedom, Demand Progress and I need your help. 

This will only take a few seconds, but you can really help us change things for the better.
Richard O'Dwyer is a 24 year old British student at Sheffield Hallam University in the UK. He is facing extradition to the USA and up to ten years in prison, for creating a website – TVShack.net – which linked (similarly to a search-engine) to places to watch TV and movies online.
O'Dwyer is not a US citizen, he's lived in the UK all his life, his site was not hosted there, and most of his users were not from the US. America is trying to prosecute a UK citizen for an alleged crime which took place on UK soil.
The Internet as a whole must not tolerate censorship in response to mere allegations of copyright infringement. As citizens we must stand up for our rights online.
When operating his site, Richard O'Dwyer always did his best to play by the rules: on the few occasions he received requests to remove content from copyright holders, he complied. His site hosted links, not copyrighted content, and these were submitted by users.
Copyright is an important institution, serving a beneficial moral and economic purpose. But that does not mean that copyright can or should be unlimited.
It does not mean that we should abandon time-honored moral and legal principles to allow endless encroachments on our civil liberties in the interests of the moguls of Hollywood.
This is but one of several recent attempts by the US government and Hollywood to expand the definition of copyright infringement to include those who simply link to other sites that are accused of housing infringing content.  
Those who are being prosecuted face huge fines, and multiple years in prison.  These actions represent an unacceptable attack on Internet freedom -- and one of questionable legality.
Congress should act to reign in US prosecutors and protect Internet freedom -- and the UK should refuse to extradite O'Dwyer.
Richard O'Dwyer is the human face of the battle between the content industry and the interests of the general public.
Earlier this year, in the fight against SOPA and PIPA, the public won its first big victory. This could be our second.
This is why I am petitioning the UK's Home Secretary Theresa May to stop the extradition of Richard O'Dwyer, and asking the United States to end his prosecution. 
Thanks.
- Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder
PS- We'll only win if we get as many people as possible to pressure the authorities.  Please forward this email or use these links to get your friends involved:
[fb] If you're already on Facebook, click here to share with your friends.
[fb] If you're already on Twitter, click here to tweet about the campaign: Tweet
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28 June 2012

SOPA AND PIPA ARE STILL A THREAT, THANKS TO THE MOTION PICTURE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA 28JUN12

THE battle for a free and open internet continues and there are groups waging the fight in the courts. This from Demand Progress, click the link to support them tomorrow even if you have added your name to other petitions or calls to action. We need to keep up the pressure to protect all our rights!

It's us versus THEM again.  
Hollywood attorneys are trying to use the courts to circumvent Congress and implement a backdoor SOPA/PIPA scheme.
Fight Back: YOUR FILES ON Google, Dropbox, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, YouTube, Flickr, etc. and even your emails are in jeopardy.
We need to make sure the judge understands that his decision will affect millions of people.
Demand Progress is fighting back in the courts and standing up for Internet users. We are taking on the United States and the MPAA. Please click here to support our legal brief -- the court will be hearing the case TOMORROW.
BACKGROUND: One day after the Internet staged a massive blackout to protest Congress's Internet censorship legislation (SOPA/PIPA), the United States responded by seizing millions of ordinary user files hosted on the popular website Megaupload.com.
With an aim of shutting down Megaupload and other Cloud-based hosting services (like Dropbox, YouTube or even your email provider), the government is trying to claim website operators should face decades in prison for the misdeeds of some of their users.
But while they pursue trumped up criminal charges against the companies' founders, they are shutting down dozens of websites, and leaving ordinary Internet users without any way of retrieving their files.
Please click here to sign on as a supporter of our legal brief: The judge will be hearing the case TOMORROW, and we need to make sure he understands that his ruling affects millions of us.
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak called the case against Megaupload a "threat to innovation". Wozniak likened the Megaupload site to a highway and those who shared pirated movies and songs to speeding motorists.
"You don't just shut down the whole street because somebody is speeding," he said.
Numerous laws on the books already give copyright holders plenty of avenues to stop actual infringement, but that's not enough to satisfy Hollywood's lawyers and lobbyists.
And get this:  The prosecutor in the case, Neil MacBride, previously served as the Anti-Piracy Vice President of the Business Software Alliance, where he represented the intellectual property interests of countless multinational corporations.
Now Hollywood's lobbyists, represented by the Motion Picture Association of America, want him to make it nearly impossible for ordinary Internet users to get their property back.
Please click here to sign on to our legal brief, and make sure the courts understand that millions of Internet users will be impacted by the judge's decision.
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19 January 2012

THE STRUGGLE AGAINST SOPA AND PIPA CONTINUES from the PCCC 19JAN12

THE internet blackout protesting SOPA and PIPA was Wed 18JAN12 but the battle against these bills is ongoing. Click the link to go to the PCCC campaign against this legislation and make your calls to your Representative and Senators (I did and found out Rep Frank Wolf R VA and Sen Mark Warner D VA are against these bills, Sen Jim Webb D VA hasn't made up his mind).


Progressive Change Campaign Committee

BIG NEWS: 18 senators just announced their opposition to the bill that would censor the Internet and stifle online innovation -- in response to yesterday's huge public pressure.
MSNBC's Rachel Maddow featured the success of the petition you signed (along with our partners at Craigslist) on last night's show.
Click here to watch the Maddow clip -- and then call your members of Congress and tell them you oppose this bill! (Even if you've called before, call again. We'll give you the number and an updated script.)

(Then, click here share the video on Facebook to show people that grassroots activism makes a difference.)
Our fight isn't over yet. The Senate still may vote on this bill as early as next week, and supporters in the House are threatening to move forward as well.
The momentum's on our side, but calls are still important. We need to get others in Congress off the fence, bolster those on our side, and push supporters of this bad bill to change their minds. Your members of Congress, Representative Frank Wolf and Senators Jim Webb and Mark Warner, need to hear from you.
We delivered over 100,000 petition signatures to Congress last week -- and presented them to over 200 congressional staffers who attended a briefing we held on this issue. Now that our petition has grown to over 200,000, we're planning another round of deliveries.
Can you call your members of Congress today and keep up the pressure? Click here for the number and a script -- and then send this email to others.
Together, we can save the Internet.
-- Jason Rosenbaum, Stephanie Taylor, Adam Green, and the PCCC team
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10 December 2011

Time to Occupy the Internet Before It's Too Late 9DEZ11

A timely warning from Bob Cesca on HuffPost of the threat to internet freedom in the U.S. from verizon, comcast and at&t. The threat neutrality is real, and if these corporations win in congress EVERYONE will not only pay more for internet access our choices on what we can access will be determined by the internet providers. E mail your Senators here http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm  and your representative here https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml 
and tell them to vote against The Protect IP ACT and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and to protect net neutrality and to keep the net free and open.
There's a bizarre irony in the fact that we're so absorbed and immersed in an online universe, we're not really paying attention to the slow but steady corporate takeover of the very thing that's the center of our nearly constant attention. There's a cold war of attrition being fought for the right to own the Internet, its content and its technology, and you're losing.
For more than a decade, corporations and special interests like the telecom, recording and film industries have been systematically making it impossible to carry on with free speech in the only venue left for us to exercise that right.
This war is so intense and so complicated, there aren't any clear "sides" in Washington. Both the Democrats and the Republicans (frankly, it's mostly Republicans) appear to be joining forces against the rest of us -- whether we're writing about important issues of the day or producing mash-up videos involving talking cats, anime sex and grape stomping, we're all in this together. And if the wrong laws are passed, we could very well lose, and losing would irreparably roll back our last ability to freely express our ideas to large audiences without genuflecting to corporations.
In every session of Congress, net neutrality comes this close to being irrevocably destroyed, allowing Big Telecom to take over and determine which blogs, websites and streaming content will make it to an audience and which sites get killed. In other words, if net neutrality is revoked, Comcast, AT&T and Verizon will get to decide how much bandwidth you will be able to access for your site. That means an almost entirely democratized digital universe will cease to exist -- replaced by a corporatocracy.
The outfits that are prepared to pay for fat tubes through which to pump their corporate crap will win the day and you, specifically, will get whatever is left over, dooming your voice and, in many cases, your livelihood to strangulation and death. In other words, while the Internet was the great equalizer, allowing any content of merit to succeed, corporations are using massive financial and political resources to transform all of this into a television/film model in which a chosen few decide what content makes it to the masses.
Meanwhile, America's access to broadband is embarrassingly awful. We're 15th among other nations in broadband reach, and, unforgiveably, 26th in terms of speed. If you want killer download speeds, you'd might be better off in South Korea or Romania. Put another way, the Republican presidential candidates are releasing YouTube videos in which they hoot and fist pump about American Exceptionalism... at download speeds slower than Greenland (No. 19) and Lithuania (No. 1).
It's no wonder. Advocacy groups like Wireless for America are attempting to ameliorate our pathetic ranking by pushing for a widened broadband spectrum, but they've been thwarted at every turn by special interests and, naturally, puppeteered Republican members of Congress. For example, a company that calls itself LightSquared is attempting to start up a new wireless network, but Big Telecom -- or Big GPS in this instance -- has decided that there's no room for more wireless competition so they're using Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Tom Petri (R-WI) to block the startup. You know, because Republicans are all about competition in a free market, right?
It probably won't shock you to learn that Trimble and John Deere, the "Big" in Big GPS, are huge contributors to both Grassley and Petri. To paraphrase an infamous Grassley line, the senators are sucking from GPS teat. Trimble and Deere insist that LightSquared's network will interfere with their GPS signals even though the FCC has entirely debunked the complaint. Additionally, LightSquared executives think that negative press about its operations have been planted by the GPS industry.
Once again, not unlike the story of the Tucker car, the process of innovation is thwarted by government intervention from politicians who raise money by talking about how government should get out of the way. Strange how that works.
But possibly the biggest threats to free speech in our lifetime are worming their way through both chambers of Congress almost undetected.
The Protect IP Act is being fast-tracked through the Senate, and its counterpart, the Stop Online Piracy Act or SOPA, is gaining momentum in the House. Each law will allow the corporate media to literally shut down your domain name if it determines that you're illegally exploiting intellectual property (IP). In technical terms, it will give corporations the power to control the Internet's Domain Name System (DNS). Under the celophane-thin cover of attempting to smoke out content pirates and 12 year-olds who share Justin Bieber songs, massive media conglomerates will be able to -- in yet another way -- silence free speech. Anyone who is believed to be a competitor in the game of delivering content to an audience could be targeted and destroyed without ever having a shot at competing in the actual online marketplace. The Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America haven't blinked when it comes to prosecuting kids for illegal downloads, and they surely won't blink about doing the same to a blogger who embeds a video clip or spy photo of a movie on their site.
If you're targeted as a threat to corporate media's market segment, you can and will be destroyed.
Oh, and it's worth mentioning that the roster of co-sponsors of the Protect IP Act is confounding. The bill is sponsored by liberal Democrat Pat Leahy, and the co-sponsors include some extraordinarily strange bedfellows. Sherrod Brown and Chuck Schumer are standing alongside tea party Republicans like Marco Rubio. Saxby Chambliss and David Vitter are right there with Al Franken. Thank goodness Ron Wyden is trying to block the bill from coming to a vote -- a vote, by the way, that would pass.
I've been working in online media since the middle 1990s, and this is easily the most dangerous turn of events so far.
The only way the Internet will remain truly democratic and the only way this informational democracy will prosper is if we're as diligent about protecting it as we are about contributing to it. How do we achieve this? Perhaps the time is right to Occupy the Internet.
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01 December 2011

STOP THE INTERNET CENSORSHIP ACT! 1DEZ11 & Five things to know about SOPA 16NOV11

THE gop and tea-baggers continue their assault on the internet, this time with legislation known as SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act). Following the commands of the powerful corporations that control them through their campaign contributions and lead by the right wing fanatic Rep lamar smith r TX, these advocates of less intrusive government are pushing for more government control because their corporate masters are demanding it. Online piracy is a problem that needs to be addressed, but this legislation is excessive and is actually more about control of the internet than online piracy. Join the campaign to stop it by calling or e mailing your Senators (e mail information here http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm ), and read the article explaining SOPA from the Washington Post.....


Take action!
Click here for a sample script and the number to call:
The only way we can stop this outright attack on the free Internet is to have more senators commit to vote against the legislation.

Take action now!
CREDO Action | more than a network, a movement.
By the end of this week, the Senate may vote on a bill that would end the Internet as we know it.
If it passes, the "Protect IP Act" would give corporate copyright holders the authority to demand that the government shut down any website without a court order. All they would need is to allege that the website contains copyrighted material.
This bill has been rushed through Congress because big corporate interests like Comcast, Pfizer, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have spent millions of dollars lobbying for this censoring legislation.1
This bill is an outright attack on our free Internet. If it passes, the government could shut down a website like YouTube if a member does something like post a video of themselves singing a copyrighted song.
This gives corporations and the government the ability to determine what information you can consume on the Internet — a dangerous practice which, when committed by the Chinese and Iranian governments, is denounced by the American people and almost all of our elected representatives.
Internet companies including Google, Mozilla, Facebook, and Twitter, say that "the bills as drafted would expose law-abiding U.S. Internet and technology companies to new uncertain liabilities, private rights of action, and technology mandates that would require monitoring of web sites."2
Right now, only a small number of Democratic senators are standing up to corporate interests and voicing opposition to the bill. And the only way we can stop this outright attack on the free Internet is to have more senators commit to vote against the legislation. No matter whether your senators are Republicans or Democrats, it is important that you urge them to take a stand for Internet freedom.
We need our Senators to come out in opposition to this bill and vote against Internet censorship.
Thank you for speaking out to protect our free and open internet.
Ali Rozell, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working Assets
1."Five things to know about SOPA," The Washington Post, 11-16-2011.
2. "Mozilla Fights for the Internet's Future," Mozilla Blog, 11-15-2011.

Five things to know about SOPA

By
The Web is buzzing Wednesday about the Stop Online Piracy Act, the bill that was debated in a morning House Judiciary hearing. Here’s a quick cheat sheet on the issues around the bill.
What is SOPA?: The Stop Online Piracy Act, introduced last month by House Judiciary committee chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) is a bill aimed at — surprise, surprise — stopping online piracy. In part a companion bill to the Senate’s “Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act,” (Protect IP), the bill could punish Web companies that host unauthorized copyrighted content such as movies, songs or software.
Critics of the legislation say that it could increase lawsuits against Web companies or give the government too much power to shut down sites for hosting the content.
Who is for/against it?: You may be surprised at who’s teaming up on either side of this debate. The Motion Picture Association of America is, unsurprisingly, one of the lead voices supporting the bill, but it is joined by allies from the pharmaceutical industry, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and, yes, even the International Association of Firefighters, who say that piracy saps the tax dollars that support emergency services.
The list of opponents is even more varied, from Web firms such as Google (which has made a huge push against the bill) to progressive rights groups who say the bill could stifle free expression online to tea party activists who say that the measure gives far too much business-strangling power to the government.
Why all the buzz?: The bill is buzzy not only because it has the potential to affect a wide range of industries, but also because it’s got a lot of momentum behind it. Smith has said that he intends to markup the bill by the end of the year.
Despite the controversy, the bill has a great deal of bipartisan support, with 21 members joining Smith in co-sponsoring the legislation.
How does it compare to the Senate’s bill?: The Protect IP Act passed the Senate earlier this year. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) placed a hold on the bill, citing concerns about its potential to “muzzle speech and stifle innovation and economic growth.”
SOPA, critics say, goes even further than the Protect IP Act, because it grants the government even broader powers to go after Web sites hosting copyrighted content. Internet openness group Public Knowledge said that “SOPA is significantly worse than its Senate cousin” because it lowers the barriers to who can be considered liable for IP theft, saying that sites that don’t do enough to prevent piracy — such as search engines — can also be held liable for infringement.
How big of a problem is piracy?: Setting aside the debate of how it should be legislated, there’s evidence that online piracy is a serious financial problem for the country. The Chamber of Commerce estimates that U.S. companies lose $135 billion a year to counterfeiting and piracy.
Related stories:
Battle over Stop Online Piracy Act reaches fever pitch
Internet pioneers protest Senate anti-piracy bill
Web giants at odds with Chamber of Commerce over piracy bill
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