SOPA and PIPA are not gone. We didn’t win. We were impressive. But, the politicians and the commercial interests involved have just stepped aside and allowed the wave of protest to pass. They are expecting us to go back to sleep.
Alec Rawls writes on Watt’s Up With That about Cass Sunstein, an Obama czar, wanting to use copyright laws to stop rumors and conspiracies, in other words to stifle free speech. The copyright laws in the US have the idea of fair use. That idea is to be modified so that you can’t write about ideas I espouse on this site. That would stop discussion of those rumors and ideas.
Harry Reid, the chairman of the US Senate, is rewriting PIPA to try and get it through the Senate and to the House. The bill is about getting the government to enforce copyright law for Hollywood. The most heinous aspect is the efforts to dispose of due process. The change is to make one guilty until they can prove their innocence. That’s an over simplification but…