Formed in 2009, the Archive Team (not to be confused with the archive.org Archive-It Team) is a rogue archivist collective dedicated to saving copies of rapidly dying or deleted websites for the sake of history and digital heritage. The group is 100% composed of volunteers and interested parties, and has expanded into a large amount of related projects for saving online and digital history.
Google on Tuesday announced it would make an unprecedented change to its homepage for American users on Wednesday, January 18, in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), the two pieces of anti-online piracy legislation being considered by Congress that have been criticized by Web companies and tech writers for their potential to break the Internet.
“Like many businesses, entrepreneurs and web users, we oppose these bills because there are smart, targeted ways to shut down foreign rogue websites without asking American companies to censor the Internet,” a Google spokesperson told TPM in an emailed statement. “So tomorrow we will be joining many other tech companies to highlight this issue on our US home page.”
Google’s move provides the biggest backing yet to a mass online protest scheduled for Wednesday, January 18. The protest was originally started by Reddit, whose users are vocally opposed to the legislation, but has expanded to include Wikipedia, The Mozilla Foundation (makers of Firefox) and numerous other websites — though notably not Twitter or Facebook, at least not yet.
However, CNET reported that Google would not be following Reddit’s and Wikipedia’s plan to “black out” their websites throughout the day — making them unusable for U.S. users — but would rather post a link on the main Google U.S. search page in protest of the bills.
At the time of this posting, Google declined to provide details on where the link will actually appear on the homepage, let alone where it will take users or how long it will last. Google said it would provide more information on its protests against SOPA and PIPA on Wednesday.
But there’s a good bet whatever Google has in store, it will at least outline the company’s position on the legislation and urge U.S. users to contact their Congressional representatives, as previous online protests against SOPA and PIPA have done.
Google previously was the only tech company invited to testify in a hearing on SOPA in November, during which time Google policy lawyer Katherine Oyama mounted a formidable attack on SOPA and vigorously defended the company’s position against the legislation from the probing questions of lawmakers.
Even before Google’s late entry into the upcoming online protest, Wednesday was proving to be the most decisive day yet in the Internet’s battle against against SOPA and PIPA.
Aside from the mass online protests, NY Tech Meetup, a semi-formal coalition of tech companies and entrepreneurs in New York City, was also slated to physically protest New York Senators Kirtsen Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer over their co-sponsorship of PIPA, the Senate version of the legislation.
TPM has also learned that SF New Tech, the San Francisco counterpart to NY Tech Meetup, has scheduled a last-minute in-person protest at the San Francisco Civic Center.
Net Coalition, a Web industry group representing Google, Facebook, Twitter, Zynga and other leading companies, announced on Tuesday it would begin running radio, print and potentially TV ads against SOPA and PIPA in Colorado, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, Ohio and Oklahoma.
”We want to let people know that these bills will harm American jobs and our economy by stifling innovation and chilling investment in one of the few industries growing and hiring,” said Markham Erickson, Executive Director of NetCoalition, in a statement.
The action comes in advance of an impending Senate vote on PIPA (the Senate version of the anti-piracy legislation), scheduled for January 24.
Both SOPA and PIPA would give the U.S. Attorney General the power to order webpages with foreign domains to be shut down if accused of piracy by copyright holders, namely Hollywood and the American recording industry. American credit card companies, online payment companies and advertisers would also be forced to stop dealing with those websites accused of piracy.
Both bills also originally mandated that Internet Service Providers — such as Comcast, AT&T; and Verizon — alter their Doman Name Service (DNS) settings to block foreign websites accused of piracy.
But the sponsors of SOPA and PIPA made an incredible about-face late last week, agreeing to remove or at least delay the DNS-blocking part of the bills due to unanswered cybersecurity questions. SOPA was also reportedly postponed indefinitely in the House and the Obama Administration came out against key parts of the bills on Saturday.
Meanwhile, six Republican Senators sent a letter Friday to Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) asking him to postpone the January 24 vote on PIPA until a consensus could be reached on the bill.
Right now, PIPA has 48 supporters and 5 opponents in the Senate, according to ProPublica.
Chart by Clayton Ashley
Carl Franzen
Carl Franzen is TPM Idea Lab's tech reporter. He used to work for The Daily, AOL and The Atlantic Wire (though not simultaneously, thankfully). He's never met a button that didn't need to be pressed. He can be reached at carl@talkingpointsmemo.com.
Since there are 100 Senators, how can there be 48 supporters and 5 opponents?
Darlene Dee Lux The rest have not stated their position yet.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/05/cn...
CNET promoted piracy on its site! And now they use this proliferation to get behind draconian censorship laws. BOGUS.
To ask the obvious question: what about TPM? Which side are you on boys, which side are you on?
We need Facebook and Twitter to be affected as well.
FB for the grandpa's and grannies and the middle-aged who play Farmville...
And Twitter for the hipsters who tell us about their bowel movements, restaurant choices and share photo's.
Seriuosly, for this to take effect, you need to interrupt daily lives. That should do it.
It is important to remember that big media is quick to complain about piracy but very lax in accusing others of piracy. Google has been granting big media the ability to take down content from YouTube without any sort of due process. These bills will give big media yet another path to squelch fair use by those of us that can't afford to lawyer up to keep our free speech rights. Now if they would allow people whose websites are abused through bogus intellectual property claims a way to collect significant damages that might stop the big players from abusing the little guys but I'll believe it when I see it.
Here's some examples of companies issuing abusive takedowns: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091028/03061067...
Professor Wernstrom Do you think that if these bills pass or something like them, that it will spur a new kind of digital arms race with guerrilla providers or maybe building a shadow internet? Is the latter even possible?
nowhereman It's very easy to build shadow DNS. The pathetic thing about these bills is that they only punish the law-abiding. Look at the efforts to block Pirate Bay - there are so many ways around these sort of blocks that they are meaningless. But measures such as these are very damaging to legitimate websites - having your domain disappear or being removed from search results is extremely damaging.
The hilarious thing about all of this is that on one hand the state department is promoting ways around totalitarian network management like Tor while big media would like to install another chinese firewall within the US.
Professor Wernstrom Thanks for the reply. I like to think I'm tech savvy but these kind of issues baffle me and probably a great many other folks. They just seem so arcane but are really very critical matters. And then when I think of the mental titans we have elected to Congress, and that most of them are lawyers, I really get the heebie-jeebies.
nowhereman It's just a series of tubes. Everyone knows that.
Here's what Congress should ban: Naming bills in such a way as to make opponents of said bill sound like they are in favor of strangling puppies with their bare hands.
Fox reporter to politician: "So you voted against the Stop Online Piracy Act, correct? Why are you in favor of online pirates, Senator--and do you also support pirates on the high seas capturing American ships and holding the crews prisoner?"
nowhereman For real. It's like if you speak out against the Patriot Act, you're not patriotic.
This bill is so convoluted and confusing to me. Why is Al Franken, who I agree with 99% of the time a sponsor of this bill? I'd love to hear Josh's perspective on this. (Though he may have written about this already.)
Franken has a lot of friends and support in the entertainment industry from his career as an entertainer. This legislation, like the DMCA, is the baby of the entertainment industry.
twayn Yes, and if you were in the entertainment industry, seeing your hard work ripped off at will, you'd be for it, too. You're against it because you don't have anything to lose.
JimmyBobbytwayn You have an industry tied to a dying business model lashing out at an irrelevant target because they can't do anything about the real cause. It'd be pathetic if their wrath didn't have real victims. It does.
JimmyBobbytwayn I'm in the entertainment industry and I have seen my work ripped off. This is a terrible, terrible bill. We already have anti-piracy laws.
"Both SOPA and PIPA would give the U.S. Attorney General the power to order webpages with foreign domains to be shut down if accused of piracy by copyright holders, namely Hollywood and the American recording industry."
IF **ACCUSED**???
No way THAT will be abused, nope.
jthomas666 Obviously, there has to be some element of proof.
JimmyBobbyjthomas666 Ah, well that solves everything! Thanks for your unparalleled insight!
audiarjthomas666 Look, if someone breaks into your house and steals a tv set and is caught, there are layers of accusation, evidence, proof beyond a reasonable doubt, trial, conviction and appeal that stand in protection of the rights of that common thief before punishment enters the picture. Are you telling me NONE of those things is present under the law that is being contemplated, enacted by a democratically-elected legislature, operating under Constitutional restrictions? Sorry, I find that very hard to believe.
Yep, pretty much....
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/10/sopa-hollywo...
"Let’s make one thing clear from the get-go: despite all the talk about this bill being directed only toward “rogue” foreign sites, there is no question that it targets US companies as well." ..."And, it makes no difference that no judge has found you guilty of anything or that the DMCA safe harbors would shelter your conduct if the matter ever went to court."
JimmyBobbyaudiarjthomas666 You can't possibly have been paying very much attention to Congress lately.
JimmyBobbyjthomas666 So where in the bill does it require that? Now what if the piracy occurs in the comment section? Can I get whatever foreign domain I want to shut down by posting copyrighted stuff in their comment section?
it seems the only thing dems and repubs can agree on now a days is limiting the public's freedom or curtailing ones privacy. in chicago rahm emanuel wanted to charge protester $1,000 if arrested by police - that will keep the mididleclass and poor in line
One more step toward American Totalitarianism.
Censorship is the last resort of cowards! http://www.ignitink.com/ goes black in solidarity with Wikipedia against SOPA and state crackdown on freedom of expression
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