Recall what happened in 2011 and winter of 2012 for one moment. The United States wanted to pass two different acts called the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP. These acts aimed to grant the ability for companies to block sites that host illegal content. Of course, the legislation was so broad that companies and even the government can basically abuse it and request the Internet Service Provider to completely block a website for using copyrighted content, even if it covered under Fair Use under Copyright law for review or literary criticism.
If these two acts were to pass, it would allow companies to censor your content and limit your free speech. This means that you are not allowed to say anything bad about them because they can simply use these powers to take down your site. Of course, these two legislations never passed congress due to pubic outcry.
Shortly after, ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) came along, which is another treaty like SOPA and ACTA. It basically did the same thing, but is a lot worse since it is now worldwide. Just like the previously two failed pieces of legislation, ACTA died in a fire after public outcry.
Now, I am faced with another dilemma. It seems that the media industry is not happy with how the war on piracy is going on that they are resorting to other tactics, namely DMCA claims to Google. You might be wondering why I am writing this post. While I condone piracy, some of my posts became collateral damage as they DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) claimed some of them. In other words, they got removed for the search results, basically censoring my opinion about the show, which I am fighting against.
[Read more…] about False DMCA Claims and Daisuki – The Negative Implications on the Anime Blogosphere (Update: Getting fixed)