I Don’t Heart SOPA or PROTECT-IP: A Linkwrap

December 7, 2011 · by · in Copyright, Derivative Liability, Trademark

By Eric Goldman

Venkat and I have been covering SOPA and related topics. In case you missed our posts:

* Why I Oppose the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)/E-PARASITES Act

* Court OKs Private Seizure of Domain Names Which Allegedly Sold Counterfeit Goods–Chanel, Inc. v. Does

* Ad Network Avoids Contributory Copyright Infringement for Serving Ads to a Rogue Website–Elsevier v. Chitika

Next week, SOPA is supposed to go to committee markup. In anticipation of that, some of the SOPA-related links from the past few weeks that have caught my attention:

* Bose v. Ejaz (D. Mass Nov. 7, 2011). Paypal cut off funds transfers to an International eBay merchant at the request of Bose, a rightsholder. The court rejects the merchant’s tortious interference claim.

* Techdirt: The Definitive Post On Why SOPA And Protect IP Are Bad, Bad Ideas

* Politico: Shootout at the digital corral. The entertainment industry spent $91M this year on lobbying. Tech industry spent $15M. Guess who wins that battle?

* Op-eds against SOPA from NYT, LA Times and the Economist.

* EFF: What’s On the Blacklist? Three Sites That SOPA Could Put at Risk

* Public Knowledge explains why PROTECT-IP isn’t an acceptable compromise to SOPA. Both “solutions” are off-the-charts extreme.

* Wired: Analysis: Internet Blacklist Bill Is Roadmap to ‘the End’ of the Internet.

* WaPo: SOPA opposition goes viral. Partially related: interesting stats about SOPA’s lack of popularity.

* DHS/ICE seize another 150 domain names. Who needs SOPA? Reuters’ coverage.

* Hollywood Esq.: How Controversial Antipiracy Laws Could Be Enacted Even Without Congress.

* Nazerali v. Mitchell, 2011 BCSC 1581 (B.C. Sup. Ct. Oct. 19, 2011): A Canadian court ordered Google and other support providers to cut off the domain name of an allegedly defamatory website.

* EFF: Free Speech is Only as Strong as the Weakest Link. Check out their new resource, www.globalchokepoints.org.

* The RIAA wrote a letter to the editor headlined “RIAA largely succeeds in goal of bringing piracy under control.” Yet, they insist that SOPA is needed?

* Amusingly misguided: The $500,000,000 Cost of Google’s Five Million DMCA Notices. Partially related: Techdirt: As We Complain About SOPA & PIPA, Don’t Forget The DMCA Already Has Significant Problems