The Online News Association announced Thursday that it was adding it’s name to the growing opposition to the Stop Online Piracy ACT (SOPA). Poynter’s Tracie Powell reports on what journalists need to know about the Act now being debated in the U.S. House. “What jouralists need to know about SOPA”/ via Poynter
MediaShift’s top media law stories for 2011 include journalists’ coverage of Occupy movements; the proposed online piracy legislation; net neutrality; coverage of live police actions; Righthaven and the “hot news” doctrine. -db From a commentary in MediaShift, December 23, 2011, by Rob Arcamona, Jeff Hermes and Andy Sellars. Full story
Domain-name host Go-Daddy has withdrawn its name from the judiciary’s list of SOPA supporters two days shy of the Move-Your-Domain-from-Go-Daddy protest scheduled for Dec. 29 inspired by pan avalanche of comments to a post on Reddit. Read all about Go Daddy’s reaction and much, much more web and political reaction to SOPA on Techdirt.
Leading Constitutional scholars say the online piracy legislation currently before Congress throttles constitutional rights, writes Corynne McSherry for the Electronic Freedom Foundation. She says the revised legislation only gives lip service to the First Amendment and denies due process and free speech in ways described by the scholars. -db From a commentary for the Electronic Freedom Foundation, December 14, 2011, by Corynne McSherry. Full story
The Electronic Freedom Foundation takes on what it says are distortions of the positions taken by those opposing the online piracy legislation recently introduced in both houses of Congress. While acknowledging that the tech industry recognizes the importance of copyright as it applies to the Internet, writes Trevor Timm for EFF, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act already allows copyright holders to direct websites to remove copyrighted content. The new legislation overreaches, says Timm, adversely affecting