The tide may be changing in the controversy over SOPA and PROTECT IP (or “PIPA”), the anti-piracy bills that have been making their way through, respectively, the House and the Senate in recent months. Yesterday’s unprecedented 24-hour global blackout of the English Wikipedia site in protest of the legislation and the new enforcement powers it would create has acted as a lightning rod for public attention.… More
Back in May, we wrote about MAFIAA Fire, a browser plug-in created by anonymous coders to counteract the government’s efforts to shut down copyright-infringing web sites by seizing the domain names.
The ongoing conflict between content-industry groups and “open Internet” proponents has been heating up recently in a battle over Internet sites that allegedly allow users to access pirated or counterfeit content. Since last summer, the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division has been running a campaign it calls “Operation: In Our Sites” to seize domain names used in alleged criminal copyright infringement activities.… More