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[Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>]

End Piracy, Not Liberty – Google
https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/

Google End Piracy, Not Liberty

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    More about SOPA and PIPA
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Millions of Americans oppose SOPA and PIPA because these bills would
censor the Internet and slow economic growth in the U.S.

Two bills before Congress, known as the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the
Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House, would
censor the Web and impose harmful regulations on American business.
Millions of Internet users and entrepreneurs already oppose SOPA and
PIPA.

The Senate will begin voting on January 24th. Please let them know how
you feel. Sign this petition urging Congress to vote NO on PIPA and
SOPA before it is too late.

More about SOPA and PIPA

Members of Congress are trying to do the right thing by going after
pirates and counterfeiters but SOPA and PIPA are the wrong way to do
it.
1. SOPA and PIPA would censor the Web

The U.S. government could order the blocking of sites using methods
similar to those employed by China. Among other things, search engines
could be forced to delete entire websites from their search results.
That’s why 41 human rights organizations and 110 prominent law
professors have expressed grave concerns about the bills.
2. SOPA and PIPA would be job-killers because they would create a new
era of uncertainty for American business

Law-abiding U.S. internet companies would have to monitor everything
users link to or upload or face the risk of time-consuming litigation.
That’s why AOL, EBay, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Mozilla, Twitter,
Yahoo and Zynga wrote a letter to Congress saying these bills “pose a
serious risk to our industry’s continued track record of innovation
and job-creation.” It’s also why 55 of America’s most successful
venture capitalists expressed concern that PIPA “would stifle
investment in Internet services, throttle innovation, and hurt
American competitiveness”. More than 204 entrepreneurs told Congress
that PIPA and SOPA would “hurt economic growth and chill innovation”.
3. SOPA and PIPA wouldn’t stop piracy

To make matters worse, SOPA and PIPA won’t even work. The censorship
regulations written into these bills won’t shut down pirate sites.
These sites will just change their addresses and continue their
criminal activities, while law-abiding companies will suffer high
penalties for breaches they can’t possibly control.

There are effective ways to combat foreign “rogue” websites dedicated
to copyright infringement and trademark counterfeiting, while
preserving the innovation and dynamism that have made the Internet
such an important driver of American economic growth and job creation.
Congress should consider alternatives like the OPEN Act, which takes
targeted and focused steps to cut off the money supply from foreign
pirate sites without making US companies censor the Web.

A rapidly growing community

Opposition to the Protect IP Act (PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act
(SOPA) grows with each day. This brief list is just a sampling of
businesses. Visit the Center for Democracy and Technology’s list for a
more complete look at the individuals, organizations, experts and
legislators that know how bad this legislation could be.

    American Express Company
    AOL
    Boing Boing
    BuzzFeed
    CloudFlare
    Copyblogger
    ConsumerBell
    Creative Commons
    Curse
    Daily Kos
    deviantART
    Discover
    Disqus
    DreamHost
    Dyn
    eBay
    Embedly
    Engine Advocacy
    ESET
    Etsy
    Facebook
    Fantagraphics
    foursquare
    Gandi
    Google
    GreenHostIt
    HostGator
    Hover
    I Can Has Cheezburger?
    IndieGoGo
    Internet Archive
    Irregular Times
    Jive Software
    Kaspersky Lab

        

    Kickstarter
    LinkedIn
    MetaFilter
    Mozilla
    Name.com
    Namecheap
    OpenDNS
    O’Reilly Radar
    Pastebin.com
    PayPal
    Quora
    Rackspace
    Reddit
    ReferralCanday
    Riot Games
    ServInt
    Scribd
    Teachers Pay Teachers
    Techdirt
    Torrentfreak
    Tucows
    Tumblr
    Twitter
    Ubu Web
    Uservoice
    Vimeo
    Webs, Inc.
    Wikipedia
    WordPress
    Yahoo!
    Y Combinator
    Zopim
    Zynga Game Network

View more opponents of SOPA and PIPA
http://cdt.org/report/growing-chorus-opposition-stop-online-piracy-act

Bad for jobs and innovation

    “We are proud to be part of an industry that has been crucial to
U.S. economic growth and job creation… We urge you not to risk either
this success or the tremendous benefits the Internet has brought to
hundreds of millions of Americans and people around the world.”

    – Google, Facebook, Twitter, eBay, Zynga, LinkedIn, Mozilla, AOL, Yahoo!

    “The current bill will not only fail to achieve [its] goal, it
will stifle investment in Internet services, throttle innovation, and
hurt American competitiveness.”

    – 55 Venture Capitalists representing $13 billion in investments

    “Before we impose a sprawling new regulatory regime on the
Internet, we must carefully consider the risks that it could pose for
this vital engine of our economy.”

    – Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA)

    “Copyright law exists to promote the arts, but the new penalties
in PIPA could be used against the new social media channels we depend
on to make a living, and endanger freedom of expression.”

    – Letter from individual artists

    “[these bills] would have a dire impact on the socio-­economic
interests and civil rights of members of various marginalized
communities and other underserved intellectual property stakeholders.”

    – Institute for IP and Social justice at Howard University

Chills Free Expression

    “By instituting this practice in the United States, SOPA sends an
unequivocal message to other nations that it is acceptable to censor
speech on the global Internet.”

    – International human-rights groups’ letter in opposition

    “[This bill is a] blunderbuss rather than a narrowly tailored
response, and its stiff penalties would significantly endanger
legitimate websites and services. It would undermine the openness and
free exchange of information at the heart of the Internet. And it
would violate the First Amendment.”

    – Larry Tribe, First Amendment scholar at Harvard

    “Congress, under pressure to take action against the theft of
intellectual property, is considering misguided legislation that would
strengthen China’s Great Firewall and even bring major features of it
to America.”

    – Rebecca MacKinnon, Global Voices Online, in NYT Op-Ed

Undermines Internet security

    “Congress is getting ready to pass a copyright enforcement bill
that could kill our best hope for actually securing the Internet.”

    – Stewart Baker, former Assistant Secretary of Department of
Homeland Security and General Counsel of NSA

    “The U.S. Government and private industry have identified Internet
security and stability as akey part of a wider cyber security
strategy, and if implemented, the DNS related provisions of PROTECT IP
would weaken this important commitment.”

    – Engineers’ white paper