net\'s Intolerable Acts hould be very afraid of a pair of bills that protection
ID: 432747 • Letter: N
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net's Intolerable Acts hould be very afraid of a pair of bills that protection and enforcement of expression on ransforged in resistance to collective repri- exclusive trajectories for these two priorities. These America woenjshment of many for the acts of few. bills are driven by technologically naive thinking that al2 following the Boston Tea Party, the British it's possible to censor information without affecting Iternet freedom The United States of InternetPROTECT IP and SOPA create mutually You puni In 1774 of the port of Boston-meant to the key circumvention tools used by human right ssed a series of laws-including the freedom of speech. SOPA even goes so far as to make people of Massachusetts. These abuses labeled the Intolerable Acts," catalyzed Middle East illegal. While we're certain t advocates and democracy organizers throughout American Revolution by making plain the authors did not mean to craft a bill tailor-made to sup- that SOPA's enression of the British crown. es interconted nature of the Internet fostered that is precisely what they've done. port the future Qaddafis and Mubaraks of the world, growth Twitter, drum daily interactions and serve as a public h of online communities such as Tumblr and Facebook. These sites host our hum- Rather than blocking online copyright infringe- and Protect IP would c soap- instigate a data obfuscation arms race, making legiti- ment, legislation like SOPA hot for our political voice. Both the PROTECT IP mate law enforcement efforts all the more difficult. Act and SOPA would create a national firewall by If the United States decides that copyright infringe ensoring the domain names of websites accused of ment must be stopped at any cost, the required cen- bosting infringing copyrighted materials. This leg. sorship regime will depend on ever more invasive sdasion would enable law enforcement to take down practices, such as monitoring users' personal Web he entire tumblr.com domain due to something traffic. This counterproductive cat-and-mouse game posted on a single blog. Yes, an entire, largely inno-of censorship and circumvention would drive savvy cent online community could be punished for the scofflaws to darknets while increasing surveillance ations of a tiny minority of less technically proficient Internet users. SOPA would go even further, creating a system Given that the Intolerable Acts sparked a revolu- private regulation to shut down websites that are tion, it should be no surprise that this proposed leg xcased of not doing enough to prevent infringe- islation has generated a massive outcry in the United sent. Keep in mind that these shutdowns would States. However, this attempt to unilaterally censor appen before a site owner could defend himself the Internet has spurred worldwide opposition, with Ourt-SOPA could punish sites without even several dozen international organizations signing sablishing whether they are guilty of the charges letter stating that "Tthrough SOPA, the United States ght against them. is attempting to dominate a shared global resource ary 2010, Hillary Clinton launched the Last month, the European Parliament adopted a reso- Department's Internet Freedom initiative, lution underscoring "the need to protect the integrity iping for open access to information worldwide. of the global internet and freedom of communication Secreta inton has said that "there is no by refraining from unilateral measures to revoke IP ween intellectual property rights addresses or domain names Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 7:19 A.M. ETExplanation / Answer
The Internet's Intolerable Acts
1. No there is no conflict between intellectual property rights protection and free speech. Both the principles of IPR protection and free speech can coexist. There needs to be distinction between the commercial use and non commercial use in case of copyright infringement. The businesses with copyrights should make clear any actions as a consequence of copyright infringement so that prevention is taken to avoid conflict and awareness of IPR.
2.Websites enabling piracy should be afforded the time to mount a defense. Awareness is important and a responsible attitude is necessary for a long term approach. Giving them a chance for mounting defense will help in understanding from their perspective. Accordingly measures can be taken for stopping piracy in future.
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