Censorship

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

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

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

Rep. Lamar Smith, whose congressional district in Texas encompasses the cropland and grazing land stretching between Austin and San Antonio, might seem an unlikely ally for Hollywood on Internet piracy.

Smith, a Republican member of the Tea Party Caucus, is from an old South Texas ranching family and proudly subscribed to Field and Stream magazine as a college freshman. He earned a perfect "A+" rating from the National Rifle Association and, in a move not calculated to endear him to coastal elites, tried to increase fines for "indecent" broadcasts.

The self-described former ranch manager has become … Read more

Large copyright holders are warning that a new proposal called the OPEN Act is ineffective because it would do nothing to thwart what they view as the Internet's most notorious Web site: ThePirateBay.org.

The owners of the popular BitTorrent search site make money by running advertisements along links to not-exactly-legal versions of movies including "Transformers 3" and "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn."

Because the advertisements are placed by two Israel-based ad networks, they would likely not be affected -- meaning The Pirate Bay's revenues wouldn't be affected -- by an order under … Read more

Many of Silicon Valley's most successful entrepreneurs and executives are warning of the dangers of the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act in a new 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 will appear as a paid advertisement in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other newspapers.

The letter's timing is no coincidence. Rep. Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican who drafted SOPA, has scheduled a committee vote tomorrow on a slightly revised version and still … Read more

Rep. Darrell Issa, a senior House Republican, is predicting a dim future for the Stop Online Piracy Act.

"I would expect this bill is not going to become law in this Congress unless these problems are resolved," Issa, whose district includes portions of San Diego and Riverside counties, told CNET in a telephone interview.

The problems he's referring to are a long list of criticisms from opponents of SOPA, including Internet engineers, Web companies including Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Zynga, and civil liberties and human rights groups. Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe says SOPA "should not … Read more

Rep. Jared Polis probably knows more about how Internet businesses work than does any other member of the U.S. Congress.

Which is why it should be no surprise that Polis, 36, a Colorado Democrat who has founded a series of successful Web businesses including the BlueMountainArts.com electronic greeting card company, has become an ardent foe of the Stop Online Piracy Act. SOPA will "destroy the Internet as we know it," he warns.

SOPA represents the latest effort from the Motion Picture Association of America, the Recording Industry Association of America, and their allies to counter what … Read more