SOPA – Ciaran Laval

The fallout from the postponed SOPA legislation has at times got ugly, at times is has shown the bad and there has been a very little bit of good. There are also other external factors that show current legislation has teeth, uncomfortable teeth I should add. Yahoo News Reporting that Megaupload has been shutdown is a little disturbing, although really it’s for the courts to decide exactly what they’re guilty of, a Dutch citizen being arrested in New Zealand and a Hong Kong based website being shutdown suggest there’s not much need for SOPA. Those who had legitimate content on Megaupload are out of luck too, which is one of the problems when actions like these occur.

Then there’s the very disturbing case of British student Richard O’Dwyer as reported by The Daily Mail , who is fighting extradition to the USA to face charges related to running a website that posted links to downloads of copyrighted content. The website was allegedly managed from the UK and hosted in The Netherlands, so quite why he’s fighting extradition to the USA is baffling, if his activities are illegal or a case for the courts, any trial should be happening in the UK.

These issues are happening now, without the need for SOPA or PIPA. Yet Hollywood wants more, the MPAA Twitter account links to articles supporting their stance on SOPA, do they support the extradition of Richard O’Dwyer?

Continue reading “SOPA Fallout – The Good, The Bad And The Ugly”

The Guardian informs us that SOPA is to be shelved. However, we don’t all live happily ever after here, I’m sure that just when we feel it’s safe to go back into the water we’ll see SOPA 2 – The Return Of The Bad Bill. There’s still the little matter of the e-parasite act.

SOPA falls squarely into the be careful what you wish for category. On the face of it a bill that aims to stop online piracy should be one that business and people get behind. When I go to YouTube to listen to music or find a track I want to embed into a blog post, I’d rather it was one that ticks the right boxes, being on YouTube is no guarantee that it does of course, plenty of uploads get taken down or silenced.

However SOPA simply goes too far, which is why there was widespread criticism of it. The bizarre exchange between Rupert Murdoch and Google shows how polarised opinions can get on the issue, but Google rebuff Rupert Murdoch’s claims in an article on CNET. In that article Google point out that they removed five million infringing websites from their search results last year alone, it’s not in Google’s interests to be associated with pirated content.

Continue reading “SOPA Is Dead! Long Live SOPA!”