Updated below. The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) was signed yesterday by the European Commission, leading to protests across Europe but especially in Poland where thousands of citizens took to the streets over concerns of online censorship. See Also: Final Draft of ACTA watered down; TPP still dangerous on IP. Some EU leaders are unhappy as well. […]
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Alyssa Rosenberg captions: Often, when we see robots in popular culture, they’re actually more powerful than we are. If the Cylons were a metaphor for, say, Irish immigrants to the United States, they’d be telling a story about workers rising up from the slums and engulfing us all in whiskey and potatoes. These metaphors tend […]
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SOPA, PIPA, ACTA – the four-letter acronyms of the various laws and trade agreements aimed at cracking down on internet piracy have been swirling about the internet lately. More often than not these regulations have been crafted behind closed doors, leading to discussions about each that are too murky and confusing by half. Hyperbole abounds, often magnifying […]
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Super PAC is the new buzz phrase this election season. All the GOP primary candidates appear to have one or two of them working alongside them, airing one attack ad after another. At the heart of all this election drama is the Supreme Court decision, Citizens United, which allows corporations to spend unlimited funds from […]
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Updated below. When sites like Wikipedia and Reddit banded together for a major blackout January 18th, the impact was felt all the way to D.C. The blackout had lawmakers running from the controversial anti-piracy legislation, SOPA and PIPA, which critics said threatened freedom of speech online. Unfortunately for free-speech advocates, these pieces of legislation are […]
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Julian Sanchez has an excellent piece in Ars Technica which takes a look at the claim that content creators are being discouraged from creative pursuits due to online piracy – a claim that has fueled the recently stalled anti-piracy legislation in congress. Whether SOPA and PIPA would have actually worked is an open question, but […]
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Kodak has filed for bankruptcy to the sadness of many but to nobody’s surprise: The New York Stock Exchange today said that trading in Eastman Kodak shares “should be suspended immediately.” And in fact trading in the stock on the NYSE was halted earlier this morning. The statement follows Kodak’s announcement early this morning that it […]
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During its blackout Wednesday Wikipedia asked users to imagine a world without free knowledge and then call their representatives in congress. Millions of Americans took that to heart. Along with the 4.5 million people who signed the anti-censorship petition, millions more looked up information about their congressional representatives. No wonder politicians are starting to feel […]
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The internet went dark Wednesday, and D.C. was paying attention. For opponents of SOPA and PIPA, Wednesday’s internet blackout and ‘s was a huge success. Eighteen Senators changed their position on PIPA, reports; and 4.5 million people signed ‘s anti-censorship petition, according to the LA Times. “There’s no need to make American social networks, blogs […]
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According to the Google Politics & Elections page on Google Plus, Colbert is seeing a big spike in search traffic lately. “Over the weekend we posted that searches for Stephen Colbert of the +The Colbert Report saw a 189% jump in South Carolina traffic, while +Ron Paul, Rick Santorum, +Mitt Romney and +Newt Gingrich all saw declines during the […]
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