Posts Tagged ‘SOPA’
Friday, April 13th, 2012
 Now that the U.S. Congress has shelved the much derided SOPA bill, it is now considering what some critics believe is even worse, the CISPA act.
Here’s an infographic from one critic, Lumin Interactive (www.Luminconsulting.com), which maintains that CISPA is a violation of our Fourth Amendment rights.
What do you think? Let us know.
 Infographic designed by Lumin Consulting
Tags: CISPA, companies supporting CISPA, fourth amendment violation, infographic, Lumin Consulting, LUMIN Interactive, SOPA
Posted in Government/Defense, infographic, Internet/New Media, IT, Legal | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 7th, 2012
 More than 70 Web firms urged the U.S. Congress to step back, take a breath and reassess its approach to crafting new intellectual property laws.
The firms, including Mozilla, WordPress, Reddit, Startup Weekend, Cheezburger Network, O’Reilly Media and Twitpic, say that, “ align ourselves with the more than 14 million Americans who joinedus in opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA).Together we participated in the largest online protest in American history (currently estimated atmore than 115,000 websites) because we believe these bills would have been harmful to freespeech, innovation, cyber security, and job creation.”
It adds, “Now is the time for Congress to take a breath, step back, and approach the issues from a freshperspective. ”
Perhaps the key point the firms make is that, “Finally, any future debates concerning intellectual property law in regards to the Internet must avoid taking a narrow, single-industry perspective.”
The SOPA and PITA laws came on the heels of powerful lobbying efforts by the movie and music industries as attempts to stop piracy. The bills were widely seen as over-reaching and full of potential for abuse that could comprise the Internet.
A massive online reaction by Web companies, the social media sphere and freedom of information advocates halted progress of the bills, at least temporarily.
Full letter.
Tags: Cheezburger Netwrok, intellectual property laws, IP laws, Mozilla, O'Reilly Media, PITA, Reddit, SOPA, Twitpic, U.S. Congress, Wordpress Foundation
Posted in Government/Defense, Internet/New Media, IT, Legal | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 31st, 2012
 The tech and Internet communities have mounted a campaign to prevent passage of the SOPA bill. On Wed., Jan. 18th the Internet stood up against two censorship bills pending in Congress. In the largest social declaration in history, millions of people and tens of thousands of websites boycotted or blacked out as a demonstration of U.S. gov’t sanctioned censorship. Today, both SOPA and PIPA are tabled.
Recounting the day in blackouts and tweets, Frugaldad’s new graphic, “The Day the Internet Stood Still” explains how this protest, the largest in history, signals social media as more than a forum to discuss Bieber’s new tattoo—it’s the last best place to mobilize media users.
Source: frugaldad.com
For their part, sites like Wikipedia and Tumblr enabled emails and calls by blacking out content pages and replacing them with links to contact representatives. No day in Congressional history saw such an onslaught of contact.
Wikipedia’s black banners were viewed 160 million times. Their protest brought three times more curious visitors than normal. With over 3 million emails sent on Wednesday alone, Congressional rep. contact links were down due to traffic. And with over 400,000 phone calls to Congress, each representative received an average of 919 calls.
If passed, SOPA and PIPA would place full copyright burden on websites. This means major content hosts–sites like Wikipedia, Facebook and Twitter–could face infringement charges and government shut down. Internet users owe the unpopularity and tabling of these censorship bills to the very social media platforms they endanger.
Tags: 2011, craigslist, ebay, Google, Internet censorship, Internet piracy, Jan. 18, PIPA, SOPA, Twitter response to SOPA, U.S. Congress, Wikipedia
Posted in Government/Defense, infographic, Internet/New Media, Legal | No Comments »
Friday, January 20th, 2012
 Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid Congress apparently pays some attention when Wikipedia goes dark and Internet powerhouses from Google to Boing Boing go dark to protest its ill-conceived attempt to control digital piracy with bills that widely overshot their mark and included vague language that could have disrupted the Web.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Friday morning that he was postponing a vote scheduled Tuesday on the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) and House Judiciary Committee Chair Lamar Smith said he would not seek a vote on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) until “there is wider agreement on a solution.”
Thousands of Web sites went dark this week to protest the proposed legislation. Many sponsors of the bills withdrew their support as the Internet rallied opposition.
The bills, as written, would give the government and corporations what many critics say are broad powers to shut down Web sites they say are involved in copyright infringement – without the need so much as a court hearing.
We earn a living via copyright, so we’re in favor of protecting intellectual property rights, but not with draconian measures such as these.
Actually, however, we may need to completely reconsider just how we do want to regulate intellectual property in the Internet age.
–Allan Maurer
Tags: opposition to Stop Online Piracy Act, PIPA, piracy bills on hold, Rep. Lamar Smith, Sen. Harry Reid, SOPA
Posted in Government/Defense, Internet/New Media, IT, Legal | No Comments »
Friday, January 13th, 2012
The tech and Internet communities have mounted a campaign to prevent passage of the SOPA bill. U.S. Representative Lamar Smith, (R-Texas) told Reuters Thursday that opposition to the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) has not deterred his determination to get the bill passed.
SOPA, widely opposed in the tech and Internet communities, faces a hearing in the House Jan. 18, when a group of security and tech experts will testify. Numerous large Internet sites and blogs plan a blackout the day of the hearings to increase awareness of the bill’s potential disruption of the Internet.
While intended to prevent rampant piracy and backed by the film and music industries, the bill is vaguely written. It is supposed to apply to foreign sites only, but its provisions, criticized by many, could allow copyright holders to have sites with alleged copyright violations blocked by ISPs, removed from search engines, or prevented from doing business via PayPal or other online payment services.
The bill has no protections against false accusations of copyright violation.
Boing Boing’s Cory Doctorow argues that the bill reflects ignorance on the part of lawmakers as to how the Internet actually works. — Allan Maurer
Business Insurance.org created this infographic on what the SOPA bill could do to business and innovation:
Tags: how SOPA could affect business & innovation, opposition to Stop Online Piracy Act, Rep. Lamar Smith, SOPA
Posted in Government/Defense, Internet/New Media, Legal, Tech Culture, TechLife, Washington, DC | No Comments »
Monday, November 21st, 2011
 Corporate and enterprises continue to be plagued by issues surrounding safety and security of content. Against this backdrop, the importance of Digital Rights Management (DRM) software has been brought to the fore, given its role in ensuring protection of data against piracy, within and beyond their corporate networks.
With organizations preferring to digitize their sensitive and high value content to enable easy access and storage, fears over possible data leakages, theft, piracy and unauthorized use of digital information remain imminent.
The problem has led to considerable controversy in the tech community regarding both DRM software and government intervention such as the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act, which seems to create more problems than it solves.
But piracy and data losses not only cause huge revenue losses for the company but also tarnish the image of the company for ever. So DRM software is going to be a booming business.
Software and corporate information and the media and entertainment industry require efficient DRM solutions to protect their media and movie files against illegal distribution and sharing over the Internet and other illegal supply channels. Given the increasing levels of caution among content developers over safety of their high value content, the future definitely holds good for DRM applications.
Despite the popular perception that the dynamic environment of risk that companies and media houses operate in, and the ever-present data security threats, which interestingly tend to escalate during periods of economic downturn, make data security technologies recession proof, the global Digital Rights Management (DRM) market ironically in the year 2009 depicted a marked weakening in the midst of a steady deterioration in business climate.
Shifting focus to survival
The length, breath and duration of the economic slowdown has been unprecedented and the contraction in business activity widespread across diverse industries. The economic storm, in other words, wiped out numerous companies in software and enterprise segment and even pushed many large media houses on the verge of bankruptcy during the period.
With enterprise focus shifting towards survival, demand for content protection solutions, during this period, stood significantly weakened. Numerous corporate failures in emerging application markets such as banking and financial services, BPOs, and TV Home Entertainment, therefore squeezed opportunities in the DRM market.
Despite the 15.9% erosion in growth witnessed during the period 2007-2009, the DRM market made a smart recovery in the year 2010. This is largely because the underlying economics of content protection goes beyond the temporary weakness in the market’s climate.
Companies, especially software firms and large media houses, cannot afford to cut corners on DRM for long, given the disproportionately higher costs associated with data losses, piracy and unauthorized circulation of original content. These costs tend to far outweigh any gains stemming from cutting DRM expenditures as a measure to save money.
Niche markets will drive future growth
Additionally, a large percentage of the DRM market is built upon legally binding requirements. Observing the rules and regulations of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), vertical sections of business like manufacturing, financial services, energy and health care are paying more attention to updating DRM technology.
Future growth in the market will be primarily driven by emerging opportunities from niche segments such as educational services, healthcare, e-Books and financial sector will also drive future gains in the market over the next few years. Application of DRM for Electronic Medical Records, in particular will generate tremendous prospects for the market in healthcare market.
As stated by the new market research report on Digital Rights Management (DRM), the United States continues to remain the largest regional market for DRM. Asia-Pacific represents the fastest growing regional market for DRM waxing at a CAGR of about 19% over the analysis period.
Growth in the Asia-Pacific DRM market will be especially driven by continued demand for payTV services, which continues to boost demand for conditional access and pay-TV DRM in the region, particularly in emerging markets of China and India.
Media & entertainment fastest growing
Media & Entertainment DRM is the fastest growing market segment by end-use type, with revenue from the segment growing at a CAGR of about 15.3% over the analysis period.
Major players in the marketplace include Adobe Systems Incorporated, Apple Inc., CoreMedia AG, Digimarc Corporation, EMC Corporation, International Business Machines Corporation, IPR Systems Pty Ltd., Check Point Software Technologies Ltd., LockLizard Limited, Rovi Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, Oracle Corporation, RealNetworks, Inc., AuthenTec, Teletrax, VeriSign Inc., YANGAROO Inc., among others.
The research report titled “Digital Rights Management (DRM): A Global Strategic Business Report” announced by Global Industry Analysts, Inc., provides a comprehensive review of trends, issues, strategic industry activities, and profiles of major companies worldwide.
The report provides market estimates and projections for market segments – Software DRM, Enterprise DRM, and Media & Entertainment DRM across geographic markets such as the US, Canada, Japan, Europe Asia Pacific, Middle East and Latin America.
For more details about this comprehensive market research report.
Tags: Apple Inc., AuthenTec, Check Point Software Technologies Ltd., CoreMedia AG, Digimarc Corporation, Digital Rights Management market, EMC Corporation, GIA, Inc., International Business Machines Corporation, IPR Systems Pty Ltd., LockLizard Limited, Microsoft Corporation, Oracle Corporation, RealNetworks, Rovi Corporation, SOPA, Stop Online Privacy Act, Teletrax, VeriSign Inc., YANGAROO Inc
Posted in Government/Defense, Internet/New Media, IT, Legal, Security | 1 Comment »
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