NotesFirefox today reminds me of Firefox when I first discovered it. Mozilla has once again delivered a technically superior product while completely respecting my rights as a user. Firefox is freedom.Unfurl
NotesWhat we value the most is freedom: freedom of speech, freedom of access to information and to culture. We feel that it is thanks to freedom that the Web is what it is, and that it is our duty to protect that freedom. We owe that to next generations, just as much as we owe to protect the environment.Unfurl
NotesTake the truck, the boat, the helicopter, that we've sent you. Don't wait for the time machine, because we're never going to invent something that returns you to 1965 when copying was hard and you could treat the customer's convenience with contempt. FeedUnfurl
NotesA List Apart strongly opposes United States H.R.3261 AKA the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), an ill-conceived lobbyist-driven piece of legislation that is technically impossible to enforce, cripplingly burdensome to support, and would, without hyperbole, destroy the internet as we know it.FeedEmbedUnfurl
NotesAfter a series of one-sided hearings, luxury goods maker Chanel has won recent court orders against hundreds of websites trafficking in counterfeit luxury goods. A federal judge in Nevada has agreed that Chanel can seize the domain names in question and transfer them all to US-based registrar GoDaddy. The judge also ordered "all Internet search engines" and "all social media websites"—explicitly naming Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Bing, Yahoo, and Google—to "de-index" the domain names and to remove them from any search results.Unfurl
Notes But, even more to the point, it's getting ridiculous how many people defending SOPA/PIPA are doing so using this logic. They brush off all of the specific concerns, the highlights of problematic language, and they conclude "why are you justifying theft?" Of course, that's ridiculous. Beyond the fact that "theft" and "infringement" are very different (don't get me started), nothing in anyone's complaints about SOPA or PIPA have anything to do with "justifying" infringement. In fact, in the post that was being discussed, we clearly noted that infringement is a problem. We just disagree that PIPA and SOPA are reasonably, or even effective, solutions. FeedEmbedUnfurl
NotesIt is far past due that the copyright industry is stripped of its nobility benefits, every part of its governmental weekly allowance, and gets kicked out of its comfy chair to get a damn job and learn to compete on a free and honest market.Unfurl
Notes To some, pepper spray is a mild, temporary irritant and its use has been justified as cities and universities have sought to regain control of their streets, parks and campuses. After the video at Davis went viral, Megyn Kelly on Fox News dismissed pepper spray as “a food product, essentially.”
To the American Civil Liberties Union, its use as a crowd-control device, particularly when those crowds are nonthreatening, is an excessive and unconstitutional use of force and violates the right to peaceably assemble. Unfurl
NotesThe genius of this approach is how insidious its effects are: because the rights continue to be offered on paper, the citizenry continues to believe it is free. They believe that they are free to do everything they choose to do, because they have been “persuaded” — through fear and intimidation — to passively accept the status quo. As Rosa Luxemburg so perfectly put it: “Those who do not move, do not notice their chains.” Someone who sits at home and never protests or effectively challenges power factions will not realize that their rights of speech and assembly have been effectively eroded because they never seek to exercise those rights; it’s only when we see steadfast, courageous resistance from the likes of these UC-Davis students is this erosion of rights manifest.Unfurl
Notes Among the publishers include giants like Electronic Arts, Capcom USA, Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony, Sega, THQ, Square Enix, Take Two, and Ubisoft. Major developing studios have also declared where they stand with the proposed law that enables the government to blacklist websites and stifle freedom of speech. These studios include 38 Studios, Nival, and Gears of War developer Epic Games. A full list of ESA members can be found at the organization's website here.FeedEmbedUnfurl
NotesSan Francisco, California: The US State Department is once again undermining its own Internet Freedom Initiative - this time by giving the green light to a copyright bill that will adversely affect online free speech around the world.FeedUnfurl
NotesPhone books list all sorts of businesses, a small percentage of which engage in illegal activity. Yet I could never call Pac Bell and demand, "Hey, my house got robbed a few weeks back, and when I went into this pawn shop, they had my television set. Remove them or you're liable!"FeedUnfurl
NotesBut a major online backlash has evolved, with everyone from lawmakers to Web-freedom advocates to some of technology's biggest players calling it a greedy and dangerous overreach that could have a chilling effect on free speech and innovation.Unfurl
Notes Responding to an intervention by EDRi (video, speech (PDF) at a hearing recently on attacks against computer systems, the European Parliament today adopted, by a large majority, a resolution on the upcoming EU/US summit stressing “the need to protect the integrity of the global internet and freedom of communication by refraining from unilateral measures to revoke IP addresses or domain names.” Unfurl
NotesAt a dinner earlier this week, Joi Ito, the head of the Media Lab at MIT described the Internet as a “belief system” and I suddenly understood. The Internet is not just a series of pipes. It’s core architecture embeds an assumption about human nature. The Internet is designed to empower individuals not control them. It assumes that the if individuals are empowered, they will do the right thing the vast majority of the time. Services like eBay, Craigslist, Etsy and AirBnB are built on the assumption that most people are honest. Other services like Tumblr, Twitter, YouTube, Wordpress, and Soundcloud assume people will be generous with their ideas, insights and creations. Wikipedia has proven that people will share their knowledge. Companies like Kickstarter show that people will even be generous with their money. This does not mean that there are not bad people out there. All of these companies spend a lot of time and money to battle spam and fraud. The companies are simply betting that there are many more good people than bad. The architecture of the Internet shares this assumption. It could have been designed to prevent bad behavior. Instead its design empowers good behavior. FeedEmbedUnfurl
NotesThe House Judiciary Committee today held an important hearing on the Stop Online Piracy Act with a hugely stacked deck of witnesses—Google's lawyer was the only one of the six to object to the bill in a meaningful way. And it wasn't hard to see why. This wasn't a hearing designed to elicit complex thoughts about complex issues of free speech, censorship, and online piracy; despite the objections of the ACLU, dozens of foreign civil rights groups, tech giants like Google and eBay, the Consumer Electronics Association, China scholar Rebecca MacKinnon, hundreds of law professors and lawyers, the hearing was designed to shove the legislation forward and to brand companies who object as siding with "the pirates."Unfurl
NotesWe already know that today's SOPA hearings for the House Judiciary Committee are totally stacked in favor of the bill. But with the hearings getting underway, we wanted to dive in and look at what's about to be said. Most of the testimony leaked out yesterday, allowing us to spend some time going through it -- it's all embedded below. However, here's a taste of what's going to be said... with some additional commentary (of course). FeedEmbedUnfurl
Notes“Something funny happened on my way to a transportation meeting in Northgate. As I got off the bus at 3rd and Pine I heard helicopters above. Knowing that the problems of New York would certainly precipitate action by Occupy Seattle, I thought I better check it out. Especially since only yesterday the City Government made a grandiose gesture to protect free speech. Well free speech does have its limits as I found out as the cops shoved their bicycles into the crowd and simultaneously pepper sprayed the so captured protesters. If it had not been for my Hero (Iraq Vet Caleb) I would have been down on the ground and trampled. This is what democracy looks like. It certainly left an impression on the people who rode the No. 1 bus home with me. In the women’s movement there were signs which said: “Screw us and we multiply.’”Unfurl
Notes In reality though, most of the large tech companies that exist today were once very small and very fragile. If SOPA was in place, those companies would have never grown up, since the two guys in a garage would have required four lawyers to survive. Dropbox is a perfect example. Created by some college students, the company provides shared online storage space for a fee. Under SOPA, the company would have been cut off from its revenues as soon as a single accusation was made that it was hosting copyrighted material. As a small company this could have been crippling. Today though, I know that Dropbox is one of the most popular tools in the movie industry, since it allows easy sharing of new daily shots, music cues, draft movie posters and more. The innovative tech companies of the future will be extinguished before they have a chance to even get out the door. FeedEmbedUnfurl
NotesWhy have we all been sitting idly while the movie and music lobbyists have been systematically advancing legislation that strips freedoms, blocks innovation, and exclusively advances Hollywood's financial agenda?FeedUnfurl
Notes These bills represent a major blow to openness and freedom on the Internet, free speech rights, and the fabric of the Internet itself. If SOPA is allowed to pass, the Internet and free speech will never be the same again. FeedUnfurl
Notes"It’s unclear whether SOPA’s authors intended it to cover these websites that are vital to whistleblowing and human rights. If they didn’t, they need to press re-set; and next time, consult with the numerous Internet communities the bill could affect, rather than exclusively Hollywood lobbyists. But the immediate need is clear: the bill must be killed. If you care about free speech and a free Internet, act now!"Unfurl
Notes"I buy books. A lot of them, and I like to own the books I purchase. By that statement I mean that I want to be able to read the book on whatever device I want. To be able to do that I have to remove the DRM from the books I buy.<br />
<br />
I NEVER distribute the books I buy, and neither should you."Unfurl
Notes"The final freedom, one that was probably inherent in what both President and Mrs. Roosevelt thought about and wrote about all those years ago, is one that flows from the four I’ve already mentioned: the freedom to connect – the idea that governments should not prevent people from connecting to the internet, to websites, or to each other. The freedom to connect is like the freedom of assembly, only in cyberspace. It allows individuals to get online, come together, and hopefully cooperate. Once you’re on the internet, you don’t need to be a tycoon or a rock star to have a huge impact on society."Unfurl
Notes"A week and a half ago, Sony Pictures CEO Michael Lynton made some news for saying that nothing good had come from the internet, period. Plenty of online sites (including ours) took him to task for that, wondering how one gets to be the CEO of a major content company without understanding the internet. Today, Lynton hit back at critics -- not by saying he was quoted out of context or misunderstood, but by standing behind the statement and adding some gems to it as well. Let's take a look..."Unfurl
Notes"In one of RIAA’s high profile cases the Free Software Foundation backed defendant Joel Tenenbaum, much to the dislike of the music industry lobby. John Sullivan, Operations Manager at the FSF explains in a guest post why they think these cases impact not just music, but also free software and its technology."Unfurl
Notes"Stallman's dismissal of cloud computing and call for the categorical rejection of web services is puzzling in light of the potential opportunities created by web technologies and the innovative work that is being done by software freedom advocates to bring openness to the web. Stallman should be using his visibility to promote adoption of the principles embodied in the Franklin Street Statement. Instead he is undermining those efforts by disingenuously dismissing the entire concept of network computing."Unfurl
Notes"For if we are observed in all matters, we are constantly under threat of correction, judgment, criticism, even plagiarism of our own uniqueness."Unfurl
Notes"Today the House Energy and Commerce Committee struck a blow to Internet freedom by voting down a proposal to protect Network Neutrality from attacks by companies like AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast."Unfurl
Notes"If you were there then you probably already understand this. If you weren't, then this is an opportunity to share one perspective of what happened." Four more years, and we can have this EVERYWHEREUnfurl
We, the Web Kids - Pastebin.com
The President's challenge - O'Reilly Radar
A List Apart: Articles: Say No to SOPA
US judge orders hundreds of sites "de-indexed" from Google, Facebook
Ex-RIAA Boss Ignores All Criticisim Of SOPA/PIPA, Claims Any Complaints Are Trying To Justify Stealing | Techdirt
The Copyright Industry – A Century Of Deceit | TorrentFreak
The roots of the UC-Davis pepper-spraying - Salon.com
Nintendo, EA, Sony sponsor Internet censorship bill [update] | Joystiq
Major Game Publishers Onboard with SOPA and Protect IP Act
US State Department not for internet freedom - Opinion - Al Jazeera English
Congress Weighs Fighting Internet Piracy Like the War on Drugs - Conor Friedersdorf - Politics - The Atlantic
Anti-piracy bill meets Web-freedom backlash - CNN.com
unfinished work - I Believe In The Internet - The Content Industry Doesn't
At Web censorship hearing, Congress guns for "pro-pirate" Google
Fight For The Future
Proposed Copyright Bill Threatens Whistleblowing and Human Rights | Electronic Frontier Foundation
Remarks on Internet Freedom
