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<div style="direction: ltr;font-family: Tahoma;color: #000000;font-size: 10pt;">Hi,<br>
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Having just been in DC, both the Sopa and Protect IP bills are seen there as basically a Northern California vs Southern California, ie Silicon Valley v Hollywood, squabble.
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So score a round to the Valley.<br>
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But Hollywood's not going away.<br>
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Unfortuantely even if the rest of us can weigh in, it's likely up to Valley heavyweights to also protect the Internet from the Protect IP act, just like they belatedly engaged on sopa.
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Now reporting from outside the Beltway,<br>
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Lee<br>
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<div style="direction: ltr;" id="divRpF435520"><font color="#000000" face="Tahoma" size="2"><b>From:</b> governance@lists.cpsr.org [governance@lists.cpsr.org] on behalf of Narine Khachatryan [ms.narine.khachatryan@gmail.com]<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Friday, December 16, 2011 4:32 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> governance@lists.cpsr.org<br>
<b>Subject:</b> [governance] SOPA victory for tech community today. Now delayed until 2012.<br>
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<font face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">Dear all, </font></h1>
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<font face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">Sopa victory for tech community as US House committee adjourns</font></h1>
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<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms',sans-serif; line-height: 1.25;">Congress to vote at a later date on internet piracy legislation in a surprise low to Hollywood and top media firms</span></p>
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<div><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/dec/16/congress-delays-vote-on-sopa-internet-piracy" target="_blank">http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/dec/16/congress-delays-vote-on-sopa-internet-piracy</a>
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<p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 13px; border-collapse: collapse;">The US House Judiciary committee considering the controversial Stop Online <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/piracy" title="More from guardian.co.uk on Piracy" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border-collapse: collapse; color: rgb(0, 86, 137); text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Piracy</a> Act
(Sopa) abruptly adjourned Friday with no new vote date set. The surprise victory for the tech community came amidst a barrage of online criticism and in spite of the fact that most politicians on the committee appeared to support the act.</p>
<p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 13px; border-collapse: collapse;">On the second day of discussions committee chairman and chief sponsor of the legislation, Rep Lamar Smith (R-Texas), conceded to calls for further investigation of claims that the legislation
will damage the infrastructure of the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/internet" title="More from guardian.co.uk on Internet" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border-collapse: collapse; color: rgb(0, 86, 137); text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">internet</a>.</p>
<p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 13px; border-collapse: collapse;">Top media firms, including some of the biggest names in Hollywood, have been lobbying hard for the legislation claiming online piracy is costing them billions in lost sales and jobs.</p>
<p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 13px; border-collapse: collapse;">But executives from Google, Wikipedia and other high profile tech firms have accused the committee of pursuing the same strategy used by China to censor its internet and claimed the legislation
as drafted would damage the Internet's global structure.</p>
<p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 13px; border-collapse: collapse;">The online community has rallied against Sopa. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales threatened to pull his website offline if the legislation wasn't amended. The hashtag Sopa has been trending
on Twitter this week as people worried about its implications.</p>
<p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 13px; border-collapse: collapse;">But Sopa isn't dead. Smith said the hearing would resume at the "earliest practical day that Congress is in session." With the Christmas holidays coming, the next hearing will be weeks
away at the earliest and with the 2012 election looming it will become increasingly difficult to schedule an early vote.</p>
<p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 13px; border-collapse: collapse;">At the hearing, Rep Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) urged Smith to postpone the session until technical experts could be brought in to discuss the impact of altering the internet's domain-naming
system to fight piracy.</p>
<p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 13px; border-collapse: collapse;">The tech industry's biggest names have come out against Sopa, including computer scientist Vint Cerf, one of the founders of the internet. He recently warned Sopa would begin "a worldwide
arms race of unprecedented 'censorship' of the Web." Stuart Baker, former homeland security assistant secretary has also warned Sopa would do "great damage to internet security."</p>
<p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 13px; border-collapse: collapse;">Given that the majority of the committee's members seemed to be in favor of the legislation, the decision to delay will come as a major blow to the media firms that have lobbied hard
for its passage. Holmes Wilson, co-founder of Fight For The Future, a lobbying group, said: "It's a huge victory, if a temporary one. This is not what they wanted."</p>
<p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 13px; border-collapse: collapse;">He said it was clear that the number of people watching the proceedings online and discussing it on Twitter and Facebook made it difficult to pass the bill without greater scrutiny. "In
the past legislation could just have been passed with few people noticing. That isn't possible anymore," he said.</p>
<p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 13px; border-collapse: collapse;">The legislation is not the only anti-piracy bill now passing through Washington. Another bill, know as Protect IP, is also pending.</p>
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<div><font color="#666666" face="'comic sans ms', sans-serif"><span style="line-height: 25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Nariné</span> Khachatryan</font></div>
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