Thread: On Jan. 18th there is going to be an all-out strike on the internet.

On Jan. 18th there is going to be an all-out strike on the internet.

Websites across the internet are going dark in protest of the internet censorship bills in Congress, SOPA and PIPA.

Code:

Ultimategamersparadise.com

and

Code:

hostmafia.net

are going on strike too.

Some of the biggest sites in the world are participating,like Reddit, Mozilla,minecraft.
And some others may join (e.g. Twitter,wikipedia), but they need a nudge.

If we can get them to join this will be EPIC.
Ask the biggest sites on the internet to join the strike,and also join your website.

Click here to join.

as i can see this is news and i think this site and the people on this site should sign to i know i did already F***k that SOPA and PIPA BIlls we have our rights!!!

Wrong section !!!

NOT PLAYSTATION NEWS!!!!

F*CK!!!! Please start handing out infractions, staff!!

They need only make me staff, and I personally will handle this right here. I am strict, but fair. LY, and Mac0707 can attest to that.

moved NOW

Good news guys:

Sopa plans set to be shelved as Obama comes out against piracy legislation

Congress ready to drop Sopa vote after White House says it would not support legislation that threatens openness of internet

Sopa and e-Parasite aim to tackle online piracy by preventing Google and Yahoo from directing users to sites distributing stolen material. Photograph: Lucy Nicholson/Reuters

Congressional leaders are preparing to shelve controversial legislation aimed at tackling online piracy after president Barack Obama said he would not support it.
California congressman Darrell Issa, an opponent of Sopa, the Stop Online Piracy Act, said he had been told by House majority leader Eric Cantor that there would be no vote "unless there is consensus on the bill."
"The voice of the internet community has been heard. Much more education for members of Congress about the workings of the internet is essential if anti-piracy legislation is to be workable and achieve broad appeal," said Issa.
The news is a major blow for Sopa's backers in Hollywood, who had enjoyed broad support in Congress. But the Motion Pictures Association of America, one of the bill's biggest sponsors, said it would continue to press for new laws. "The failure to pass meaningful legislation will result in overseas websites continuing to be a safe haven for criminals stealing and profiting from America," the MPAA said in a blogpost.
The tech community has fought hard to stop Sopa and a rival bill, Protect IP, also known as the Enforcing and Protecting American Rights Against Sites Intent on Theft and Exploitation Act, or the e-Parasite act. Websites including Reddit and Wikipedia are planning to "go dark" on Wednesday in protest against the legislation. Issa said he remained concerned about Protect IP, which will go before the Senate on 24 January.
But both bills now look severely damaged after the White House came out firmly against their biggest proposals at the weekend.
"Let us be clear – online piracy is a real problem that harms the American economy, threatens jobs for significant numbers of middle-class workers and hurts some of our nation's most creative and innovative companies and entrepreneurs," the white House said in its first official comment on Sopa and Protect IP.
However, the White House said it would not support legislation that "reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risks or undermines the dynamic, innovative global internet."
The two bills aim to tackle online piracy by preventing American search engines like Google and Yahoo from directing users to sites distributing stolen materials. The bills would also allow people and companies to sue if their copyright was being infringed.
The White House expressed concern about both these elements and about passing legislation that threatened the openness of the internet. In the online statement it said any new legislation must be "narrowly targeted".
"Any provision covering internet intermediaries such as online advertising networks, payment processors, or search engines must be transparent and designed to prevent overly broad private rights of action that could encourage unjustified litigation that could discourage startup businesses and innovative firms from growing," said the White House.
The Obama administration also came out firmly against any plans to target the Domain Name System (DNS), a foundation of internet security, in order to tackle sites accused of piracy. Any proposed legislation "must not tamper with the technical architecture of the internet," said the White House.
The move effectively scuppers Sopa for now, and puts pressure on legislators ahead of a Senate vote on the e-Parasite act.
This weekend Rupert Murdoch – whose News Corporation includes the Hollywood studio 20th Century Fox, took toTwitter to attack the Obama administration for its criticism of Sopa.
"So Obama has thrown in his lot with Silicon Valley paymasters who threaten all software creators with piracy. Plain thievery," Murdoch wrote in a series of tweets that accused Google of hosting pirated material and selling advertising against it. Google dismissed his claims as "nonsense".
Art Brodsky, director for Public Knowledge, a Washington-based public interest group that has campaigned against Sopa, said: "You can't view this bill in isolation; it's part of a continuum. They will try to muddle through with something."
But he said the White House statement was "very helpful" and it was clear that any legislation that tried to make wide-ranging changed to the internet would now face tougher opposition.

Eric Cantor has now killed the SOPA bill but we still the have the PIPA(Protect IP Act) still in question.

We may have won the small battle, but we must maintain this vigilance because you KNOW they will try to sneak some new law down the line past everybody. They will fail, but it won't stop them from trying.

Is there still going to be a blackout?

Originally Posted by esteban32

Is there still going to be a blackout?

Yes there Still Going to be a blackout Because SOPA Has Not Been Killed Its Back Please Read. t should come as no surprise that SOPA has come back off its proverbial “shelf” but feel free to be surprised that it came back so fast. A mere 4 days after announcing he was dropping the DNS blocking provisions of the bill and putting it on the shelf until a “consensus” was reached, Representative Lamar Smith has brought SOPA back out to play, and just in time for the January 18th SOPA blackouts.

4 days is awfully –impossibly– fast for a consensus of any kind to be reached, which is probably why Representative Smith avoided saying anything about his previous plans in this new statement. Instead, the new announcement states rather plainly that “[Smith] expects the Committee to continue its markup of the Stop Online Piracy Act in February.” In a similarly nonchalant fashion, the announcement proceeds to touch on your standard pro-SOPA talking points of saving American jobs, and protecting intellectual property, without so much as a passing reference to recent developments. It almost makes you wonder if you dreamt them.

So just when you may have been thinking that the anti-SOPA (but also anti-PIPA) blackouts being undertaken by Wikipedia, Reddit, Cheezburger, Mojang, and others were going to be oddly misaimed, it turns out that their primary target has been brought back into the sights. The really interesting thing is that these protest may actually be what brought it back. When pressured with constant pleas unagainst DNS blocking in combination with a rather embarassing instance of copyright infringement, Representive Smith seemed to have gotten a little flustered, enough so that he backed off DNS blocking. The problem is that backing off failed to fix the problem, which is why it seems he’s abandoned compromise.

With the continuing snowball of sites blacking out, culminating in an anti-SOPA demonstration by the Internet giant, Google, I think it’s very likely that Representative Smith has realized retreat will get him nowhere and that no mutation of SOPA will ever be acceptable. That being the case, what better option than to charge ahead at full speed? If the Internet at large is willing to take this much action to stop a bill that has been “shelved,” taking time to reach a consensus will do little more than buy time for SOPA to be neutered beyond recognition, perhaps out of existence. Its best shot at survival –albeit a poor shot– is a mad dash towards the gates, in the hope that it can make it through before sustaining any further, crippling injuries.

The good news is that this resurrection is more of a last resort than anything. A desperate measure. The bad news is that it also means SOPA is back, and likely with a vengeance. Hold onto your seats, ladies and gentlemen, this ride is going to get a whole lot bumpier before it slows down, if ever does.



The announcement in its entirety:

Stop Online Piracy Act Markup to Resume in February

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) today said that he expects the Committee to continue its markup of the Stop Online Piracy Act in February.

Chairman Smith: “To enact legislation that protects consumers, businesses and jobs from foreign thieves who steal America’s intellectual property, we will continue to bring together industry representatives and Members to find ways to combat online piracy.

“Due to the Republican and Democratic retreats taking place over the next two weeks, markup of the Stop Online Piracy Act is expected to resume in February.

“I am committed to continuing to work with my colleagues in the House and Senate to send a bipartisan bill to the White House that saves American jobs and protects intellectual property.”

PIPA support collapses, with 13 new Senators opposed
By Timothy B. Lee | Published about 6 hours ago
PIPA support collapses, with 13 new Senators opposed

Members of the Senate are rushing for the exits in the wake of the Internet's unprecedented protest of the Protect IP Act (PIPA). At least 13 members of the upper chamber announced their opposition on Wednesday. In a particularly severe blow for Hollywood, at least five of the newly-opposed Senators were previously co-sponsors of the Protect IP Act. (Update: since we ran this story, the tally is up to 19 Senators, of which 8 are former co-sponsors. See below.)

The newly-opposed Senators are skewed strongly to the Republican side of the aisle. An Ars Technica survey of Senators' positions on PIPA turned up only two Democrats, Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR), who announced their opposition on Wednesday. The other 11 Senators who announced their opposition on Wednesday were all Republicans. These 13 join a handful of others, including Jerry Moran (R-KS), Rand Paul (R-KY), Mark Warner (D-VA), and Ron Wyden (D-OR), who have already announced their opposition.

Marco Rubio, a freshman Republican Senator from Florida who some consider to be a rising star, withdrew his co-sponsorship of the bill, citing "legitimate concerns about the impact the bill could have on access to the Internet and about a potentially unreasonable expansion of the federal government's power to impact the Internet." He urged the Senate to "avoid rushing through a bill that could have many unintended consequences."

Another co-sponsor, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) echoed that sentiment. He blamed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) for "pushing forward w/ a flawed bill that still needs much work."

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), one of the chamber's longest-serving members and another co-sponsor, described the Protect IP Act as "simply not ready for prime time."

The partisan slant of the defections is surprising because copyright has not traditionally been considered a partisan issue. Before Wednesday's protests, PIPA had 16 Republican co-sponsors and 23 Democratic ones. The bill lost a quarter of its Republican co-sponsors on Wednesday, while we know of only one Democrat, Ben Cardin (D-MD), who dropped his support.

Those who dropped their support were most likely bolstered by strong opposition from conservative think tanks and blogs. On Tuesday, the influential Heritage Foundation announced that it would include SOPA and PIPA as a key issue on its voter scorecard. And the popular conservative blog redstate.com, whose founder threatened to mount primary challengers to SOPA supporters last month, has been hailing Senators who come out in opposition.

Neither side is close to having a majority. A whip count by OpenCongress found 35 supporters (including 34 co-sponsors), 18 opponents, and 12 more Senators leaning toward opposition. About 35 Senators have not committed to a position, perhaps reluctant to do so for fear of angering either deep-pocketed Hollywood campaign contributors or their constituents back home.

Here is the full list of new opponents. An * indicates a former co-sponsor.

Roy Blunt (R-MO) *
John Boozman (R-AR) *
Scott Brown (R-MA)
Ben Cardin (D-MD) *
John Cornyn (R-TX)
Jim DeMint (R-SC)
Orrin Hatch (R-UT) *
James Inhofe (R-OK)
Mark Kirk (R-IL)
Jeff Merkley (D-OR)
Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
Marco Rubio (R-FL) *
Olympia Snowe (R-ME)

Update (7 PM): David Vitter (R-LA) is now also opposed. He was previously a co-sponsor of the legislation.

Update (9 PM): Three more opponents, all Republicans: Tom Coburn (R-OK), Pat Toomey (R-PA), and Mike Johanns (R-NE).

Update (10 PM): Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) is jumping on the bandwagon. She was a PIPA co-sponsor.

Update (11 PM): Michael Bennet (D-CO) says he wants "a more balanced approach than what's reflected in the statute right now." He was a co-sponsor.