I can't really explain well about this new bill since I don't understand it fully yet, but here are some articles about SOPA:

http://gizmodo.com/5877000/what-is-sopa
http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/17/technology/sopa_explained/index.htm
http://mashable.com/2012/01/17/sopa-dangerous-opinion/
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57329001-281/how-sopa-would-affect-you-faq/

All I can say is that it's causing quite a racket and I personally am not happy about this. Post your opinions about this new bill, if you like the idea or not.

The SOPA/PIPA bills are now as good as dead; the Internet did it's job yesterday amid all the blackouts. I had a banner at the top of every ichigos.com page as well to inform visitors. SOPA was pretty much dead, and now, over 18 key senators have dropped support of PIPA. Woot!

The problem is not going to go away, and copyright holders have every right to protect their intellectual property, but the censorship approach to SOPA/PIPA is not the way to do it.

^Aye, the internet did a great job yesterday. I wrote my senators/congressman, because Wikipedia made it so easy for me. I'm sure a lot of other people did, too. The internet as a whole did a great job of fighting back and raising awareness about those bills, instead of just taking them lying down. I doubt they'll even come close to getting passed, as long as things keep going the way they are now.

I feel bad for not writing the people in office quite yet... however I did help spread the word for quite a few hours on Facebook, and talking to people here and there. A couple of them actually took the initiative to write our seat holders. :)

Megaupload got screwed!

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/01/19/feds-shut-down-file-sharing-website/

Noooooooooo Megaupload :(

Honestly, Megaupload isn't even that negligent about removing copyright claimed materials. I shudder to think what this means for other websites.


Edit: So does this mean it's a done deal? Or is Megaupload going to get a trial like Pirate Bay?

Now there seem to be attacks?


After a Department of Justice-executed raid today on the file sharing site Megaupload, hackers aligned with the online collective Anonymous have shut down the websites for both the DoJ and Universal Music Group, the largest record company in America.

Both universalmusic.com and justice.gov went down on Thursday afternoon, less than hours after it was revealed that Megaupload had been brought down by federal authorities and four people linked to the site, all outside of America, were arrested and charged with a conspiracy related to copyright infringement.

“It was in retaliation for Megaupload, as was the concurrent attack on Justice.gov,” Anonymous operative Barret Brown tells RT on Thursday afternoon.

Brown adds that “more is coming” and Anonymous-aligned hacktivists are pursuing a joint effort with others to “ damage campaign raising abilities of remaining Democrats who support SOPA.”

http://rt.com/usa/news/anonymous-doj-universal-sopa-235/

^
Son of a....

The gesture that Anonymous is making is admirable, however, it's far from being anything substantial. They're not taking down the FBI, or the Department of Justice; they're taking down their websites. Megaupload is an online entity. You take down their website and their entire company/organization is shut down. Shutting down the FBI's webpage is just giving their webmasters a headache. The FBI isn't hurt, the Department of Justice isn't hurt.

In my opinion, the only thing Anonymous did was confirm that they're abuncha angry nerds throwing a temper-tantrum. Attacking websites isn't going to help their cause.

Edit: So does this mean it's a done deal? Or is Megaupload going to get a trial like Pirate Bay?

It's dead. The FBI has a large information pool regarding the "Mega Conspiracy" group (it just sound so fake to say that) with Money Laundering, Racketeering, and Several multibillion copyright infringement claims.


Also, taking down the DoJ outward facing website does nothing. They have their own internal networks that allows them to continue to operate even with the worst DDoS attacks. Now universal music is a different story...

Seeing how Anonymous is attacking like that might as well just be like what Whiplash said. And seeing how they're taking down sites that might possibly be "pirating" (like MegaUpload) without SOPA/PIPA, I don't see the reason why we must have that kind of bill be created in the first place. :/

But Anonymous is also supposedly taking money from some people, and donating it. They donated a $1 million on Christmas. (So I heard).

They're also putting information like peoples phone numbers on Twitter.

MegaUpload was taken down due to conspiracy, not because they hosted copyrighted materials. All I have to say is, they were asking for it. RapidShare, MediaFire, DropBox, etc. do have copyrighted materials hosted on their servers, but the difference is they are not conspiring to make money or benefit from piracy. They were indicted because they were doing business in the U.S. and one of its members in the conspiracy ring was located in the U.S. as well as having servers in the U.S.


Seeing how Anonymous is attacking like that might as well just be like what Whiplash said. And seeing how they're taking down sites that might possibly be "pirating" (like MegaUpload) without SOPA/PIPA, I don't see the reason why we must have that kind of bill be created in the first place. :/
SOPA/PIPA enables the government to censor foreign websites that are accused of copyright infringement by big corporations even if the said website does not operate in the U.S. directly; worse, there is no due process. For example, RapidShare (located in Switzerland) will not be censored simply because they have copyright infringement on their servers, but if the Bill passes, then RapidShare will be targeted and censored in the U.S. conspiracy or not. RapidShare is an honest legitimate business and by punishing them like this is foul play. That is why the tech industry is up in arms over this fact.

A lot of people might have noticed already, but following Megaupload's raid, a significant number of prominent filesharing/hosting sites have voluntarily 'shut down'. This is bad news for some anime fans. :(

MegaUpload was taken down due to conspiracy, not because they hosted copyrighted materials. All I have to say is, they were asking for it. RapidShare, MediaFire, DropBox, etc. do have copyrighted materials hosted on their servers, but the difference is they are not conspiring to make money or benefit from piracy. They were indicted because they were doing business in the U.S. and one of its members in the conspiracy ring was located in the U.S. as well as having servers in the U.S.

SOPA/PIPA enables the government to censor foreign websites that are accused of copyright infringement by big corporations even if the said website does not operate in the U.S. directly; worse, there is no due process. For example, RapidShare (located in Switzerland) will not be censored simply because they have copyright infringement on their servers, but if the Bill passes, then RapidShare will be targeted and censored in the U.S. conspiracy or not. RapidShare is an honest legitimate business and by punishing them like this is foul play. That is why the tech industry is up in arms over this fact.

Ah, no wonder why they're so into this... And let's not forget ACTA. ._.