Aaron Swartz: So, you might say, surely COICA would get declared unconstitutional, as well. But I knew that the Supreme Court had a blind spot around the First Amendment, more than anything else, more than slander or libel, more than pornography, more even than child pornography. Their blind spot was copyright. When it came to copyright, it was like the part of the justices’ brains shut off, and they just totally forgot about the First Amendment. You got the sense that, deep down, they didn’t even think the First Amendment applied when copyright was at issue, which means that if you did want to censor the Internet, if you wanted to come up with some way that the government could shut down access to particular websites, this bill might be the only way to do it. If it was about pornography, it probably would get overturned by courts, just like the adult bookstore case. But if you claimed it was about copyright, it might just sneak through.
And that was especially terrifying, because, as you know, because copyright is everywhere. If you want to shut down WikiLeaks, it’s a bit of a stretch to claim that you’re doing it because they have too much pornography, but it’s not hard at all to claim that WikiLeaks is violating copyright, because everything is copyrighted. This speech, you know, the thing I’m giving right now, these words are copyrighted. And it’s so easy to accidentally copy something, so easy, in fact, that the leading Republican supporter of COICA, Orrin Hatch, had illegally copied a bunch of code into his own Senate website. So if even Orrin Hatch’s Senate website was found to be violating copyright law, what’s the chance that they wouldn’t find something they could pin on any of us? [emphasis added]AlterNet
“If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing." — Malcolm X (h/t Stephan Ewald)
TO CALL Aaron Swartz gifted would be to miss the point. As far as the internet was concerned, he was the gift. In 2001, aged just 14, he helped develop a new version of RSS feeds, which enable blog posts, articles and videos to be distributed easily across the web. A year later he was working with Sir Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the world wide web, and others on enhancing the internet through the Semantic Web, in which web-page contents would be structured so that the underlying data could be shared and reused across different online applications and endeavours. At the same time he was part of a team, composed of programmers like himself (albeit none quite as youthful), lawyers and policy wonks, that launchedCreative Commons, a project that simplified information-sharing through free, easy-to-use copyright licences.
Most of this he did for little or no compensation. One exception was Reddit, though he later sounded almost contrite about the riches showered on him and his colleagues by Condé Nast, the publisher of Vogue and over a dozen other prominent lifestyle magazines, which bought the popular social news site in 2006. In any case, he wasn't a good fit for corporate life, he said, and left a few months later—or, depending on whom you talk to, was asked to leave. But the cash did let him focus on his relentless struggle to liberate data for online masses to enjoy for free....Then the tale descends into darkness as government wields its coercive power to advance and protect enclosure.
This country is in dire straights, and both sides of the aisle in Congress seem hell bent on destroying the very fabric of the Republic by usurping the civil liberties of its citizens. The latest power grab comes in the form of the "Stop Online Piracy Act" (SOPA). Writing at theHill.com, Bill Wilson argues that this bill is basically a "kill switch" on First Amendment rights on the internet.
This legislation was introduced in the House of Representatives on October 26, 2011, and while it is ostensibly designed to protect intellectual property rights on the internet, in practice it is just another unconstitutional power grab by the Federal Government. The scope of the bill is unprecedented in that it would impose government mandates on internet service providers, which essentially gives the Feds free rein over the web.
If SOPA becomes law, the government could shut down a website with the mere accusation that the site displayed copyright-protected content. Furthermore, the Justice Department could bar advertisers and payment providers from doing business with the site and charge them as co-conspirators in the alleged "piracy" of content.Read the rest at Benzinga
