General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAnnouncement: Raw Story to go dark on January 18
to protest SOPA/PIPA
The news doesnt stop. But if Congress passes the Stop Online Piracy Act or the Protect Intellectual Property Act, your access to it could and the owners and publisher of Raw Story wont stand for that. In protest of Congress interest in passing the legislation, Raw Story will join with sites like BoingBoing, Reddit, Wikipedia and IMGUR and black out from 8 am ET until 8 pm ET tomorrow, just to demonstrate what the government could end up doing to Americans in service of corporate interests (and their political donations and lobbying dollars).
Raw Story is, as always, a small, privately-owned company, so we understand uniquely the problems caused by people who reprint our articles without permission or attribution, taking the intellectual property of our company and our employees without so much as a pageview in return. But our reporting has shown, time and again, that neither SOPA nor PIPA will help small companies like ours do much, if anything, to combat the theft of our intellectual property heck, even the movie industry cant say that its profits are actually down, despite rampant piracy. SOPA/PIPA is simply a cudgel supported by large, corporate interests who would rather spend money lobbying for outmoded legislation intended to stall the internets engine for change rather than learning a new way to operate in a modern world.
But even worse than SOPA/PIPA doing nothing to help us assert our rights, the legislation could actually harm our small company and interfere with our mission to provide readers with news ignored by the mainstream media like, ironically, the harm that could be wrought by SOPA/PIPA. In an online environment regulated by this corporate-designed legislation, one commenter, even a sock puppet, posting copyrighted material in a comment thread that isnt immediately set upon by our dedicated volunteer comment moderation team, and Raw Story could go dark even permanently. That should be unacceptable to anyone who uses the Internet, including our elected officials
but somehow its not.++<snip>
Link: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/01/17/announcement-raw-story-to-go-dark-on-january-18-to-protest-sopapipa/
So, what about DU? Is DU committed to fighting SOPA/PIPA?
boston bean
(36,219 posts)but I haven't seen a sign of it yet, but am hoping!
NorthCarolina
(11,197 posts)if DU does not show solidarity on this very important issue.
qanda
(10,422 posts)The list keeps growing.
joshcryer
(62,269 posts)I'd be fine with no announcement (more impact that way).
riverwalker
(8,694 posts)Mar15Syria Syrian Revolution
ATTENTION! Mar15.info will be shutting down tonight at midnight EST for 24 hours to protest against SOPA
http://mar15.info/