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Tag: OPEN

  • CES 2012: Issa, Wyden Blasting SOPA, Promoting OPEN

    Two congressmen are at CES proclaiming the good news of OPEN and the evils of SOPA.

    PCMag is reporting that Rep. Darrell Issa and Sen. Ron Wyden, co-sponsors of the OPEN Act, are at CES talking about SOPA and how OPEN is a much better alternative.

    Sen. Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, said, “This is a going to be a legal quagmire,” in regards to SOPA and its Senate buddy, PIPA.

    Rep. Issa, a California Republican, said that SOPA would be expensive and hurt the Internet.

    For those who still don’t know what SOPA is, check out previous coverage. In short though, it’s a bill that would go after foreign Web sites dealing in counterfeit goods or copyright infringing content. The wording of the bill, however, is vague enough to cause problems for legitimate Web sites that operate in the U.S. and abroad.

    This where the OPEN Act comes in. It would give the task of handling foreign infringing Web sites to the International Trade Commission. That task would fall to the Department of Justice under SOPA.

    Issa argued that since the ITC has handled unreasonable trade practices and foreign import since the 30s, they should be the ones who handle this new era of illegal online trade. He also said that the ITC usually addresses things in a faster and cheaper manner than the federal courts.

    Issa said that under the OPEN Act, the ITC would follow money trails, issue injunctions and shut down Web sites by cutting off their payment options.

    Issa acknowledged that while OPEN is not perfect, it’s a much better alternative to SOPA or PIPA.

    Wyden chimed in by saying that both bills agree that copyright infringment should be stopped. The only difference is that Wyden and Issa “don’t believe that you ought to go out and do all this damage to the architecture of the Internet [and] the DNS in the name of stopping copyright infringement.”

    Issa is planning on introducing the OPEN Act to the floor on January 17, a day before he holds a hearing on security problems surrounding DNS.

    Issa also spoke about Rep. Paul Ryan, the congressman who became a staunch opponent of SOPA after a successful campaign from Reddit. He said that Ryan now backed the OPEN Act. A spokesperson speaking to PCMag confirmed that Ryan had spoken to Issa about online piracy issues, but that he had not signed on as an official co-sponsor of the OPEN Act.

  • CES 2012: CEA President Shapiro Blasts SOPA In Keynote

    CES 2012: CEA President Shapiro Blasts SOPA In Keynote

    Speaking yesterday morning at the Qualcomm CES keynote, Gary Shapiro blasted SOPA and its backers and supporters for their efforts to stifle both free speech and innovation. Shapiro is president of the Consumer Electronics Association, the organization responsible for CES.

    Shapiro pulled no punches in his criticism of the act and its backers. He called SOPA a “threat to innovation,” that was supported primarily by “politicians who are proudly unfamiliar with how the internet works, but who are well familiar with favors from well-heeled copyright extremists.” These extremists, he says, “seek to inhibit free thought and speech.” Conversely, Shapiro praised the OPEN act (PDF), which has been proposed as an alternative to SOPA/PIPA.

    This is not the first time that Shapiro has been in the news for his opposition to SOPA. Just last week he offered similarly sharp criticism of the bill in an interview with VentureBeat. He said that SOPA is a distraction from what Congress should really be working on. He lamented that “in Washington, the urgent replaces the important,” and noted that opponents of SOPA “are being outspent 10 to 1 by the copyright extremists.” He went on to say that “[t]here are two types of members of Congress: those who understand the internet and those who will vote for SOPA because they have made commitments to the copyright extremists.”

    Shapiro’s comments at CES came on the same day as an announcement by Reddit that they would be blacking out the site for 12 hours on Wednesday, January 18th to show opposition to the SOPA. The popular link sharing site surpassed 2 billion pageviews in the month of December alone.

    [Source: DailyTech; International Business Times]