sopa

The songwriter behind the 2007 Internet hit "I Got a Crush on Obama" is now taking aim at the Stop Online Piracy Act.

Leah Kauffman, a Philadelphia-based singer and songwriter, has released "Firewall" to protest the Hollywood-backed copyright bill, which a House of Representatives committee had been scheduled to debate tomorrow. Earlier today, the committee debate was postponed until 2012.

In addition, Dan Bull, a U.K. singer, has released "SOPA Cabana," a none-too-flattering rap taking aim against SOPA. (SOPA can "ban" you--get it?)

Opposition from the two musicians is notable because … Read more

The U.S. Senate will debate a controversial Hollywood-backed copyright bill as soon as senators return in January.

A vote on the Protect IP Act, a close cousin of the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, will be held January 24, thanks to a last-minute push by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) over the weekend.

"This is a bipartisan piece of legislation which is extremely important," Reid said Saturday. "I repeat, it is bipartisan. I hope we can have a productive couple of days, pass this bill, and move on to other matters."

Both Protect IP … Read more

A marathon U.S. House of Representatives debate on the Stop Online Piracy Act took an unusual detour: into the popularity of online porn.

A two-day debate in the House Judiciary committee--which has been postponed until at least next Wednesday and perhaps until 2012--was interrupted by the appearance of the popular meme "The Internet is for Porn."

Rep. Jared Polis, a Colorado Democrat who presumably knows his way around the Internet better than any other member of Congress (he founded BlueMountainArts.com), was the committee member who decided to bring up the prevalence of online porn. (See CNET'… Read more

A marathon congressional hearing on the Stop Online Piracy Act, which detoured through discussions of Twitter-borne insults and the popular meme "The Internet is for Porn," was expected to resume sometime in 2012.

But Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican, said this afternoon on Twitter that the hearing will continue Wednesday morning -- but only if the U.S. House of Representatives is in session.

Any delay represents a victory for opponents of SOPA, who pulled off a quasi-filibuster by repeatedly presenting critiques of the controversial Hollywood-backed copyright legislation and offering over 70 amendments that sought to rewrite … Read more

A new version of the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act was introduced this week but failed to satisfy critics and a vote ultimately got pushed off until at least Wednesday, but more likely 2012.

Many of Silicon Valley's most successful entrepreneurs and executives warned of the dangers of the SOPA in an open letter to Washington, D.C. It's signed by Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, PayPal co-founder Elon Musk, Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, among others. It's appearing as a paid advertisement in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other newspapers.

The … Read more

Vint Cerf, the legendary computer scientist who's known as one of the fathers of the Internet for his work on TCP/IP, is the latest technologist to oppose the Stop Online Piracy Act.

Cerf, a onetime DARPA program manager who went on to receive the Turing Award, sent a letter yesterday warning of the dangers of SOPA to its author, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas). The House Judiciary chairman, also Hollywood's favorite House Republican, has scheduled discussion of the bill to resume at 7a.m. PT tomorrow.

Smith announced a revised version of SOPA earlier this week. Cerf, now … Read more

After a marathon debate on the Stop Online Piracy Act, it's clear that the Hollywood-backed bill enjoys enthusiastic support among key members of the U.S. House of Representatives and is one step closer to becoming law.

That became obvious after every legislative attempt to defang, rewrite, or significantly alter SOPA over nearly a 12-hour period today ended in victories for large copyright holders--and defeat upon defeat for the bill's critics.

The committee vote totals on the try-to-fix-SOPA amendments varied but revealed that two-thirds to three-quarters of the members of the Judiciary committee were staunch allies of … Read more

While Congress debates the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a real-world copyright dispute has been unraveling with a major music conglomerate flexing its muscle against an online content hosting company based in Hong Kong.

Megaupload posted a promo video for its online hosting and file transfer service on YouTube on Friday, and Universal Music Group quickly had it removed for alleged copyright violation. The video features Kanye West, Puff Daddy, Snoop Dogg, Jamie Foxx, Mary J. Blige, and others voicing, and even singing, their praise for the service. UMG claimed some of the artists had not consented to appearing … Read more

A marathon debate today in the House of Representatives on the Stop Online Piracy Act wasn't derailed by procedural questions, even though not one hearing had been held on how the law would actually work.

It wasn't derailed by questions about SOPA's substance, even though legal scholars and technologists have said it could suppress free speech by virtually deleting Web sites accused of copyright infringement.

Instead, today's markup of SOPA in the House Judiciary committee was derailed by a snarky post on Twitter. (See CNET's FAQ on SOPA.)

The tweet in question came from Rep. … Read more