It looks like the US Senate is serious about destroying the Internet as we know it. Backed by record companies and the entertainment industry, this bill, if passed, might well be the end for Youtube, Facebook or sites like DailyKos. The Act would allow the US Justice Department to go after anyone who they allege is committing copyright infringement, and to get court orders to shut those websites down, not only in the US, but in particular also outside the US. The Act would also mean that court orders could be sought to ban search engines from linking to those sites, and to force payment processors and advertisers to stop doing business with them.
A similar piece of legislation is currently before the House of Representatives, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).
Making websites liable for user-posted content would set a dangerous precedent, and all it would take to shut down say Youtube, is one or two complaints about copyright infringement. Who would even think about setting up any new web content in such a scenario ?
No, those bozos are about to destroy the Internet and get us on the way to China-style censorship, and the only ones who would benefit from this are the record companies and the entertainment industry.
You can sign petitions against this move towards Internet censorship here and here.
Those petitions probably won’t make any difference. Both of the major parties in the U.S. have lucrative backing by the the film and music industries. The support for the bill is basically bi-partisan.
This is why political “donations” should be outlawed completely.
Ben, one of the petitions is suggesting to have the petitioners’ names read by Sen. Ron Wyden during a filibuster in the Senate, aimed to stop the bill from being voted on. It’s at least a nice symbolic act.