On Wednesday, January 25th Media Action Grassroots Network (MAG-Net) members Steven Renderos (Main Street Project) and amalia deloney (Center for Media Justice) spoke about SOPA & PIPA on First Person Radio. Ernesto Falcon from Public Knowledge (MAG-Net partner) also joined the conversation. Don't worry if you missed it, you can still listen to the broadcast.
Originally aired – Wednesday, January 25, 2012
And please don't forget to let your members of Congress know that #PIPA/#SOPA are bad bills that hurt communities, artists and small business owners. Tell them we say NO to Internet censorship.
Participant Bios
Steven Renderos leads Main Street Project's media justice and community building efforts, including the Minnesota Digital Justice Coalition and our collaborative work with the nationwide Media Action Grassroots Network (MAG-Net). He brings more than seven years of community organizing and training experience, and more than ten years of filmmaking and media production experience.
amalia deloney coordinates the media policy initiatives of the Center for Media Justice and the Media Action Grassroots Network (MAG-Net). She has over 15 years of experience in community and cultural organizing, with a specific interest in human rights, cultural rights and traditional knowledge. At CMJ, amalia uses her extensive experience for field-building, community-building, and policy advocacy.
Ernesto Falcon is Director of Public Affairs at Public Knowledge in Washington D.C. and came to PK from the office of Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI), where he worked for three years as the senior legislative assistant dealing with issues related to the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet. Ernesto previously worked on Capitol Hill for Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) for three years as a technology manager and legislative assistant.
Don't know what SOPA and PIPA are?
(from Whatis.com) The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), also known as House Bill 3261, is legislation introduced in the United States House of Representatives to enforce current laws that make stealing intellectual property and trafficking in counterfeit goods illegal.
The legislation will provide a way for United States courts to penalize foreign websites that are currently outside the reach of United States courts. If SOPA becomes law, Internet service providers (ISPs) will be required to filter domain names to identify sites that are found by federal courts to be in violation of the law. ISPs will be required to redirect traffic from such sites. The legislation also specifies that a federal court can order a direct payment company to sever ties with a site that has been found in violation.
Proponents of the legislation are eager to shut down sites that break United States laws, pointing out that online piracy and the trafficking of counterfeit goods deprives the United States economy of a highly significant amount of revenue each year.
Critics of the legislation and its United States Senate equivalent, the Protect IP Act, are concerned that legislators do not fully understand how the Internet works. On the technical side, IT security professionals throughout the world have raised concerns that PIPA's domain name system (DNS) filtering is incompatible with DNSSEC. DNSSEC is a set of Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standards that address vulnerabilities in the Domain Name System (DNS) and protect it from online threats.
Continue reading about SOPA and PIPA:
The United States House of Representatives website has more information about SOPA.
The United States Senate website has more information about PIPA.
