The Khan Academy provides a pretty good explanation of the SOPA and PIPA legislation.
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On January 18th, TealScientific.com has joined websites across the world in standing up against the proposed blacklist bills (SOPA in the House and the PROTECT IP Act in the Senate). Currently before the U.S. Congress is H.R. 3699 (a.k.a. the Research Works Act or RWA). This bill states:
In other words, if a publicly funded research project is published by a private-sector company, said publisher gains “ownership” of the research work and can manage (read: limit) access to the work. And, no Federal agency may implement any policy whereby that publicly funded research must be made accessible to the public. This seems very much like a bill tailored to lock in an advantage for a specific business sector … at the expense of the public that funded the research. The American people should not be denied access to any research funded by their tax dollars. It may not be much of a stretch to say that this bill will have the effect of slowing or stiffling innovation, and innovation is something the United States of America could surely use. Giles Frydman’s 12 January 2012 article, “Open knowledge saves lives. Oppose H.R. 3699!,” provides an excellent overview of this issue.
Julian Sanchez has posted to the Cato Institute blog an insightful analysis of the copyright industry’s arguments for Internet censorship. Sanchez concludes: It is not, however, a good reason to spend $47 million in taxpayer dollars—plus untold millions more in ISP compliance costs—turning the Justice Department into a pro bono litigation service for Hollywood in . . . → Read More: How Copyright Industries Con Congress Prior to 1978, U.S. copyright law provided a maximum copyright term of 56 years (an initial 28 years, renewable for another 28 years). After the 1976 Copyright Act (which became effective in 1978), the copyright term was extended to 70 years after the author’s death (or 95 years for corporate works). The Center for the . . . → Read More: What Could Have Entered the Public Domain on 01 January 2012? As noted on Slashdot, the TSA got everything it wanted for Christmas. Both houses of Congress passed and President Obama signed an act giving the TSA a $7.85 billion budget increase. This increase funds additional VIPR teams and body scanners. Here’s a beautiful, time-lapse video by Stéphane Guisard and José Francisco Salgado of the skies over the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Cerro Paranal, Chile: . . . → Read More: Skies over the VLT Vanity Fair’s Charles C. Mann takes a walk through Reagan National Airport with cryptographer and security technologist, Bruce Scheier. They take to task the Transportation Security Administration and other security measures millions of travelers will endure this holiday season. As Scheier puts it, “We’re spending billions upon billions of dollars doing this—and it is almost . . . → Read More: Smoke Screening Take the FFRF quiz … What do you really know about the Bible?. From Cory Doctorow at boingboing … House Speaker John Boehner’s office ordered CSPAN to switch off its camers during a fellow Congressman’s scathing dressing-down over the Speaker’s refusal to entertain further debate on unemployment benefits. The Speaker asserts control over CSPAN’s cameras and has made it clear that Americans can only expect to see their . . . → Read More: House Speaker Boehner orders CSPAN’s cameras switched off |
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