Update 12/16
The hearings are still going on; please keep calling, emailing, and otherwise spreading the word!
Tomorrow the House Judiciary Committee will debate and potentially vote on SOPA, the Internet Blacklist bill that would break the Internet.
Our friends at the Electronic Frontier Foundation have compiled a list of 12 actions you can take now to stop SOPA.
Do them.
Soon you’ll find a huge banner at the top of every page on the CC site protesting SOPA. The Wikimedia community is considering a blackout to bring massive attention to the danger posed by SOPA. Many others are taking action. What are you doing?
For background on the bill, why it would be especially bad for the commons, and links for news, check out our previous post calling for action against SOPA and a detailed post from Wikimedia’s General Counsel.
Finally, remember that CC is crucial to keeping the Internet non-broken in the long term. The more free culture is, the less culture has an allergy to and deathwish for the Internet. We need your help too. Thanks!
Is it possible to sue a website for license violation?
Could this act stop people from using licenses that could be obtained from other websites even if people follow the terms of the licenses?
As a musician who works only under creative commons, I agree as an artist to share my works with the world for free. If someone wants to download my music, and share it, I give them permission to freely share my works. I made it why shouldn’t I be allowed to share my music for free? why block resources such as netlabels from giving indie artists a chance at sharing their art with the world, without profit in mind? not all of us care about making money from our art we just wish to share it. Why ruin something great, our culture of netaudio has nothing to do with this mainstream, hollywood media, so why break down what we created with the LEGAL sharing of our works!
If this passes, our voices as indie artists will not have a chance to be heard any longer, and this is a sick sad thing that could happen and add much darkness to a cultured world.