Stop SOPA and Protect IP Contact your congressman

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   paradigmsearchposted 13 years ago

   For those who neglect their emails:
   
   * Start *
   
   Stop SOPA and Protect IP
   Contact your congressman and save HubPages!
   
   While we prefer to leave political discussions to Hubbers in the Politics and Social Issues forum, a rather pressing matter has inspired us to break from our typically apolitical stance. Protect IP, as well as SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act (two bills currently in the United States Senate and House, respectively), threaten the world of online writing as we know it.
   
   While this legislation was first created in an effort to target offshore sites selling illegal goods to US consumers by operating outside the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice, these bills have evolved to hold websites accountable for any content that enables or promotes copyright infringement.
   
   According to these bills, HubPages could be shut down if just one Hub infringes on someone’s copyright, links to an illegal site, or even promotes visiting one. We are an open publishing platform and cannot review each and every Hub that gets published, hence Protect IP and SOPA leave us particularly vulnerable.
   
   We ask for your support in bringing an end to this legislation. If you enjoy writing on HubPages (and any other online publishing platform for that matter) and want to continue to be able to publish online, please call, email, or otherwise contact your Senators and your Representative and ask that Protect IP and SOPA be stopped.
   
   If you would like to take action, the Electronic Frontier Foundation offers a form letter that enables you to support an end to these bills in a couple of clicks. If you would like to contact your congressman via a phone call or letter, you can find your local senators’ and representatives’ numbers and addresses on Congress Merge.
   
   Fight for the Future created a short, simple video explaining Protect IP if you’re curious to learn more, and you can read in detail why SOPA threatens open publishing platforms, as well as free speech, online security, and the Internet industry in this report by NetCoalition.
   
   Hoping for your support.
   
   * End *

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      sean kinnposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      There is actually a fairly simple solution to the problem. In some instances, the term "copyright" no longer exists by default, because when you forward a web page link, it's no different than emailing to a friend the text found on the web page associated with the link you emailed. Google and many other web entities like this process, because their publishing platforms are mostly advertising based - and their ads get forwarded with the links (email is one of the original forms of social media, aye - especially if you sent the link to your entire address book, and then everyone in your address book did the same :-). The term "copyright" still very much exists for authors and publishers within the Amazon Kindle platform, though. So it's basically just a matter of understanding the difference in the two (the difference in the two publishing platforms: Google vs. Amazon). And it's all merely fallout from advent of the Internet, and ongoing digital substitution/disintermediation efforts.

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   paradigmsearchposted 13 years ago

   And the email has all sorts of live links in it for use.

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   Green Lotusposted 13 years ago

   Done! It was easy. I do hope my not too bright elected officials take action.

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   KeithTaxposted 13 years ago

   Yeah I read their drivel. HP can shut the **** up and follow the rules like everyone else. If not, they get unpublished. I will contact my Congressman and tell them I want the law and that it's about time it was passed.
   
   I didn't like the whiney email either. It's against my TOS. So knock off the crying game HP. I'm not your employee.
   
   By the way, this will be the excuse HP uses to take your work. Can't have anything they don't own on THEIR site. Since your work is on THEIR site, it will belong to them after a set number of days if not removed after you are sent an email requiring you to do so.

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      jimmythejockposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Keith I sense that you are not happy? according to your recent postings in the forums you are leaving Hubpages, then leave and take your unfounded and ridiculous accusations with you.
      Why tell people you are leaving anyway? just do it .....jimmy

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   paradigmsearchposted 13 years ago

   "Internet giants including Yahoo, Google, Facebook and the Consumer Electronics Association have joined forces to oppose the legislation, which they say would give the government too much power to shut down Web sites accused of pirating or counterfeiting content."
   
   What everyone is afraid of is the usual government incompetence when it comes to administering such a bill.

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      Aficionadaposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      
      Well said.

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      sean kinnposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Plus the two bills are the lazy way to fix a problem: They are mass punishment, in the sense that if law enforcement would get off it's lazy butt and figure out a way to prosecute plagiarizers, they could actually punish offenders - rather than punish innocent people. Anyone else agree?

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   WriteAngledposted 13 years ago

   Well, I simply hope more people outside the US start platforms where we can write. I don't see why the whole world has to twist itself into knots because of one whinging national government.

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      pedrogposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Under SOPA such platforms outside USA that are considered infringing the law will not be acessible to USA citizens.

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   pedrogposted 13 years ago

   Good luck USA!!!
   
   Freedom is not something that we earn and lasts for ever, it needs to be conquered every few ears, this is an opportunity you have to stand for your freedom, grab it!!!

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   Brenda Durhamposted 13 years ago

   Okay....I'm totally confused about this.
   Can't figure out if it's just a distraction the authorities are creating, or if it's just a conspiracy theory, or what.

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   Kangaroo_Jaseposted 13 years ago

   The people in US congress don't get the unprecedented scale of how this affects work and copyright in .....the.... entire.....world.
   
   If this law passes in the US, companies like the movie production houses and the music industry would have greater rights to get Internet Service Providers to shut down access to a website. To an ENTIRE website. Decided on almost a whim of these companies crying PIRATE!!!!!
   
   Shut down or face court over (alleged) copyright infringements.
   
   They would have power to shut you down, stop access to your work if they deemed it part of their copyright and they don't have to wait for a court order to do so.
   
   Due to free trade and digital rights agreements the US carries alot of weight with treaty countries as well (Europe, Philippines, Australia, United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and several other countries). So that also means if you made a reference to a Warner Bros movie and your a UK resident. Would not stop Warner Bros US clambering to close down access to that UK based ISP with the foreign relations dept of the US asking the UK authorities.
   
   This is power to shut down certain copyright activities on an unprecedented scale and complete and utter bullshit to us, the micro operators of valuable content.

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      sean kinnposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Kangaroo_Jase, I agree with everything you said. See my post above, because I think that in some instances, the term "copyright" no longer exists due to the inherent nature of the Internet. In other words, I don't think that forwarding a hyperlink is a copyright violation, and if it is, they're going to have shut down the entire Internet to stop people from doing it. I think they're examining copyright issues with a dated mindset. I highly respect author and musician copyright, and I'm building a Hub [http://seankinn.hubpages.com/hub/Protect-IP-SOPA] to start detailing solutions. I already contacted my congressional reps to ask them to stop the two Acts, because I think they will further damage world economies, and they won't figure that out until after the fact. SK

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         Kangaroo_Jaseposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Hi Sean,
         
         Its fine to forward on URL and a hyperlink for a website, otherwise half of Google would be shut down for search.
         
         But if I come and grab a portion of one of your hubs and use it on one of my blogs, word for word, that is copyright infringement as well as plagiarism.

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            sean kinnposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            I agree, but I think Google believes that the term "copyright" no longer exists. They *want* people to forward stuff, because their ads are attached to web pages. The real problem may be deciding how to apply that same concept to movies and music, don't know ...

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            dannyhodgeposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            I know this is incredibly late, but there is a case in which someone was arrested and fined hundreds of thousands for merely sharing a link to a pirating site.

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    logic,commonsenseposted 13 years ago

    Make sure you send cash with the letter or your congressperson will just ignore you.

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       sean kinnposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       I think it's interesting that someone wants the ability to shut down social media web sites just prior to, and during, an American presidential election year. Social media is powerful stuff, as evidenced by Arab Spring, and so forth ...

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