Online piracy has become a serious reality for the entertainment industry as peer-to-peer technology has grown. Regardless of where you stand, the war is one that continues to escalate for all. Check out the battlefield that is online piracy in this infographic.
While we wait for the Senate to return from recess, let's take a look at a few key facts about CISPA that everyone should know as the debate moves forward.
Now that the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) has passed the House of Representatives, it will soon head to the Senate. For better or worse, its debut on the Senate floor is, however, still weeks away. So, while we have a moment of legislative down time, let’s take a quick look at some basic facts about CISPA to help make sure the conversation surrounding the bill stays in the realm of reality as it moves into its next phase.
Media piracy is a current global issue faced by both consumers and industry groups. High prices for media goods, low incomes, and cheap digital technologies are the main reasons for the rise of media piracy.
The Pirate Bay claims they're about to be shut down again. Sources within government have reportedly told leaders at the file-sharing portal that the Swedish authorities are planning to raid them.
The Pirate Bay recently removed all of the torrent links from its website after a series of court judgements against the controversial organization. But a blog post this morning claims the conspiracy against it sn't satisfied.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) are considering a lawsuit against Google for providing links to file-sharing sites in its search results, according to a leaked internal IFPI document.
I have a confession to make: Over the past two years, I’ve been watching HBO content without paying for it. I’m not actually pirating it. Instead, I have benevolent family members who subscribe to the channel and have gifted me with a password that they get from their local cable provider.
After the Internet bandied up together and killed SOPA, you'd think the government would be a little weary of introducing SOPA-like bills less the Internet start a revolution and start calling out dumb politicians. Guess not though because it looks like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid still wants to censor the internet with a new bill hidden under the mask of cybesecurity. SOPA in sheep's clothing.
Before a few dense senators threatened to start shutting down websites without any semblance of due process, there was another SOPA: the Scottish Organic Producers Association. And unfortunately, this small band of farmers undeservingly found themselves on the receiving end of last week's public fury.
Two days ago a massive operation took down MegaUpload, one of the world’s leading file-storage services.
Eight people we charged with criminal copyright infringement charges, and all files hosted on the site were pulled offline.
What follows now is an unprecedented court battle, one that could possibly change the future for many file-hosting sites and cloud hosting services.
When Google speaks, the world listens.
And today, when Google asked its users to sign a petition protesting two anti-piracy laws circulating in Congress, millions responded.
A spokeswoman for Google confirmed that 4.5 million people added their names to the company's anti-SOPA petition today.
Not too shabby.
The petition, which was available via a link from Google's homepage, states that although fighting online piracy is important, the plan of attack described in the SOPA and PIPA bills would be ineffective.
Did you try to look something up on Wikipedia only to see a black screen? You can thank SOPA for both of those blackouts.
SOPA, which stands for Stop Online Piracy Act, is an anti-piracy bill that is working its way through congress. It was introduced into the House of Representatives on October 26, 2011, and, if made into a law, would allow U.S. law enforcement, as well as intellectual property holders, to sue foreign websites accused of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement. Think about how the Chinese government can order blocks on websites…that could be the right of the U.S. government if SOPA passes.
The World Wide Web is going to feel a lot less wide on Wednesday. For a span of 12 hours, some of the Internet’s most popular sites – including Wikipedia, Reddit and the Internet Archive – will go dark, inaccessible to the tens of millions of users who visit every day.
Tech companies are getting ready to black out on Jan. 18 to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its sibling the Protect IP Act (PIPA).
Much has been made of Wikipedia’s promise to “go dark,” or shut down the site, for the day as a way of warning what might happen if SOPA became law. The tech protesters say that SOPA would render any site that included links, even if they were user-submitted, practically unoperable and liable to government take-down. Going dark is a dramatic but not entirely unrealistic warning of what the Internet could look like in a SOPA world.
If you hadn't heard of SOPA before, you probably have by now: Some of the internet's most influential sites—Reddit and Wikipedia among them—are going dark to protest the much-maligned anti-piracy bill. But other than being a very bad thing, what is SOPA? And what will it mean for you if it passes?
The House Judiciary Committee debated the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act for hours Thursday — and about five hours into the 11-hour hearing voted 22-12 to reject an amendment that would do away with its most controversial provision that would force changes to core internet infrastructure in order to stop copyright infringement.
