This site could be taken down

[SimLyons]

More than alarming! I would have to consider selling my Volvos and getting Hondas and/or Toyotas if I didn't have access to the information on MVS! OK, a little dramatic, but not too far for me.

I've done what I can do so far. Written e-mails and snail mail. Now, after the Thanksgiving recess, I'll try calling their local offices and rant a bit. Ron Wyden, one of our senators, is solidly against this bill, so I don't have to work on him at all. The other Senator is probably leaning the same direction. Our local congressman is probably supporting the bill the way he behaves.

This just stinks! Not getting any local press, either. "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!!"

[ed7]

We know about the "job creators" and what's important to them.
Ed

[Xilikon]

I'm from Canada but I'm as disgusted about that stupid bill as anyone else because if it get into law, we can bet the Canada will follow up on this shortly.

I'm truly baffled about how clueless those congressman are when they deal with anything internet related. It's not just a bunch of tubes.

[FCPEURO]

I don't think they are clueless as much as I think they are brought. The all might dollar is definitely playing a big hand in this one.

[TRuck]

did it.
T

[FCPEURO]

Still no update on this Bill?

[hanzbe420]

Sorry for the drama in that title, but it's true. Also, sorry for the politics. I'm breaking my own rule.

If you're an American, please note that there's a bill called "SOPA" now in Congress that -- if voted into law -- allows anyone to allege copyright infringement linking vs. any site. The site owner then has only five days to respond. Five. Then the feds will have the site blocked in the US.

At a minimum, this means that any service that hosts user generated content is going to be under enormous pressure to actively monitor and filter that content. That’s a huge burden, and worse for services that are just getting started – the YouTubes of tomorrow that are generating jobs today. And no matter what they do, we’re going to see a flurry of notices anyway – as we’ve learned from the DMCA takedown process, content owners are more than happy to send bogus complaints. What happened to Wikileaks via voluntary censorship will now be systematized and streamlined – as long as someone, somewhere, thinks they’ve got an IP right that’s being harmed.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/10/sopa-hollywood-finally-gets-chance-break-Internet

My bolds. That means I'll have to read every post and follow every link to see where it ends up. If it ends up at a page that has unauthorized copyrighted material, I'd have to remove the link or MVS could get taken down. And no, I'm not going to ask my moderators to do this. They do enough already.

Currently, MVS is protected by what's known as Safe Harbor. SOPA would kill most of Safe Harbor.

https://eff.org/r.C8A

Please go there, put in your zip code, and you're done. An email will be sent to both your senators and your congressman. And no, that link is nothing to worry about in privacy terms, I've been donating to the EFF for almost 10 years. And the EFF is probably the world's most effective proponent of privacy.


Thank you
Matt, owner/admin

Please make a full backup of the site and all the information! I signed up.

[matthew1]

SOPA update on EFF.org:

But the most important thing to happen this week was that thousands of people took action to oppose the bill, calling their representatives and spreading the word via blogs, tweets, social media videos and word of mouth.

And it looks like it made a difference. In a marathon markup session yesterday, which we covered on our live-Tweeting stream @EFFLive, a persistent group of Representatives attacked SOPA from all fronts. Although there wasn’t enough opposition to kill the bill outright, the messages we’ve been sending for weeks — that the bill would create blacklists for online censorship, harm cybersecurity efforts, set a bad international precedent and lead to a fractured Internet — couldn’t be ignored.

During a markup session earlier today, Chairman Lamar Smith acknowledged that the Judiciary Committee didn’t yet have all the facts, especially on the cybersecurity questions. After an amendment vote he abruptly announced that markup would be suspended, and consideration of the bill would be resumed at the next practicable opportunity — which is tentatively scheduled for next week, but could be pushed to late January.

I'd like to think we're having an effect on this.

[SimLyons]

Our beloved Senator, Ron Wyden, put a "hold" on the bill and it will remain so indefinitely. He is a huge fan of open internet and promised to kill the bill.