SOPA/PIPA

1. Questions: - Doesn't the RIAA and MPAA have enough money? - Was the blackout a success? - Who was behind the Blackout - Who created the SOPA and PIPA bills - Innovation not Legislation (valve) - How does SOPA Effect the world - Easily going to jail - How businesses could go under - Who is Lamar Smith and Alexis Ohanian.

2. SOPA Blackout Sites: - Reddit - Wikipedia - Mozilla - Tor Project - WordPress - XDA Developers - Imgur - 4Chan - 9GAG - Demonoid - The Pirate Bay (Obviously) - Amazon - Flickr - Facebook - Etsy - Epic games - Gizmodo - IGN - Newgrounds - Host Gator - Paypal - C-Panel - Zynga - Megaupload (Obviously)

3. Critical Information about SOPA The beating heart of SOPA is the ability of intellectual property owners (read: movie studios and record labels) to effectively pull the plug on foreign sites against whom they have a copyright claim. If Warner Bros., for example, says that a site in Italy is torrenting a copy of The Dark Knight, the studio could demand that Google remove that site from its search results, that PayPal no longer accept payments to or from that site, that ad services pull all ads and finances from it, and—most dangerously—that the site's ISP prevent people from even going there. Around 10am, news hit the web that SOPA and PIPA had lost three of their co-sponsors in Congress. A little before 1pm TheVerge.com reported that U.S. Senate websites were experienceing technical difficulties… Webpages for Representatives crashed as well. The issues were due to a flood of traffic to their contact thanks to google. The reason that services like iTunes, Spotify, Hulu and Steam have found success is because they make it easy for users to pay for content they want to access. Instead of investing in legislation that attempts to turn back the digital clock, these lobbying groups should be focusing on initiatives that modernize the way content is delivered.

4. Links to information: - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PROTECT_IP_Act - http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/2012/sopa-pipa-blackout-sites/ (Blackout Images) - http://www.oreillynet.com/mac/blog/2003/10/legislation_vs_innovation_part.html - http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-57361906-501465/sopa-and-pipa-internet-blackout-aftermath-staggering-numbers/ - http://mashable.com/2012/01/18/sopa-and-pipa-wont-stop-piracy/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Mashable+%28Mashable%29

5. Discussion Topics: - History of SOPA/PIPA - The Blackout - Debates - Opposing - Defending - Consequences - Piracy - Legislation VS Innovation - RIAA and other Major Companies - How to fix Piracy - Young vs Old Generation Views - Godaddy.com - Megaupload - Megabox - Why SOPA/PIPA wont stop piracy