Posted on 12/12/2011 4:09:06 PM PST by khnyny
An online piracy bill in the House would "criminalize linking and the fundamental structure of the Internet itself," according to Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt.
Schmidt said the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) would punish Web firms, including search engines, that link to foreign websites dedicated to online piracy. He said implementing the bill as written would effectively break the Internet.
"By criminalizing links, what these bills do is they force you to take content off the Internet," Schmidt said, calling it a form of censorship.
The search giant has been at the forefront of a tech industry backlash against the legislation from House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas).
"If Congress writes a bad law, we all suffer," Schmidt said.
He compared the proposal to the Web censorship practiced by repressive foreign governments like China and doubled down on that comparison when speaking with reporters after his remarks at the Economic Club of Washington.
"It's not a good thing. I understand the goal of what SOPA and PIPA are trying to do," Schmidt said of the Senate counterpart bill, the Protect IP Act. "Their goal is reasonable, their mechanism is terrible. They should not criminalize the intermediaries. They should go after the people that are violating the law."
Schmidt also criticized SOPA for targeting the Domain Name System, which experts have warned could undermine the security of the Web.
"What they're essentially doing is whacking away at the DNS system and that's a mistake. It's a bad way to go about solving the problem," Schmidt said.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
IF????
SOPA allows confiscation without due process. Make false infringement allegations and watch your competitor or political adversary’s website get shut down without a hearing.
Lamar Smith should be primaried because of this steaming pile of draconian feces. A perfect example of what’s wrong with the GOP today.
Google supports and LOVES the illegal Halfrican Kenyan Muslim in the White Hut. Think all that verbal fellatio saved you? Think again.
He supports the commie in the White House that has been taking down websites by the hundreds without due process though.
What began as an attempt to restrain foreign piracy on the Internet has morphed into a domestic “kill switch” on First Amendment freedom in the fastest-growing corner of the marketplace of ideas.
Proposed federal legislation purporting to protect online intellectual property would also impose sweeping new government mandates on internet service providers – a positively Orwellian power grab that would permit the U.S. Justice Department to shut down any internet site it doesn’t like (and cut off its sources of income) on nothing more than a whim.
According to Chris Dodd, they want the same censorship power as China.
To clarify, Dodd is for it.
The last round of Homeland Security and other Alphabet Agencies are moving us toward being forced to accept “The Cloud”. It is again about making money for the big software companies at the expense of the privacy of users and small companies. Maintaining the monopoly.
My local ISP just notified us that our e-mails would be changing into Google Apps on “the Cloud”. They did not give us an “option” and it takes place this month. I am convinced that the cost of compliance with the recent rule making is what is driving this. Engineered by HS and Google.
/johnny
I'm fairly sure that should read Luddite Idiot.
/johnny
He's gotta be gone.
/johnny
"By criminalizing links, what these bills do is they force you to take content off the Internet," Schmidt said, calling it a form of censorship.Gotta protect the limo libs of the entertainment industry -- whlie simultaneously preventing tens of thousands of "shovel ready jobs".
Yes, I am sure you are correct. My ISP is a very well run local Coop phone company. But I think this is more than about man hours, I think it is about required record keeping on e-mails. Compliance with bureaucraps.
I used the local telephone company because I like their personnel. I trust their techies. I don’t know a single large internet company that I “trust”.
Is that being paranoid? Not sure, but I have seen enough to be very cautious about the motives of the big providers.
I had e-mails frozen by ATT/Yahoo where they leave my local ISP. They froze all my e-mails with attachments to a @yahoo.com address (my daughter has one). It was because of a screen shot from a Technorati search that displeased the Dem Rats. It was almost a year before it got “fixed”.
I am looking for a replacement e-mail provider. Have been with this company for about 10 years, using the same e-mail address.
I wonder if the Cart & Buggy Manufactures Association lobbied this hard to get the automobile regulated back in the day. Make no bones about it, the old copyright laws are a pre-digital relic.
I violate copyrights monthly, every time I make a video of my kids and put some background music to it. Music I paid $20 for at Wall-Mart.
You violate copyrights by trying to backup your CD or Movie Library amongst many other actions. Sharing isn’t the only thing that is a violation.
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