Petition Hollywood to Formally Oppose SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (PROTECT IP Act)

In light of the fact that SOPA has been postponed indefinitely in the House and PIPA does not have enough votes to move forward in the Senate, I am closing this petition.

Given the strong language coming out of the office of the MPAA I doubt this specific petition had any affect. But, it added to the larger voice that was heard and finally culminated in the web blackout on January 18th. This blackout is what finally turned the tide and pointed a spotlight on these severly flawed bills.

The threat of online piracy remains and we still have to find a solution for this problem. But, I am pleased to see that cooler heads prevailed and we didn't rush legislation that was far more harmful than online piracy. Hopefully anything that comes forward in the future will take into account both online piracy AND "internet freedom".

Wow, a lot has happened since #J18 and mostly for the better. The bills SOPA and PIPA in their present form have been shelved! Now hopefully both sides of the issue can come together to create something that we can all support.

The specter of online piracy is still very real and present and needs to be dealt with and at least this issue has really shown a spotlight on this issue. But, we cannot rush in to stop one problem that would result in problems far greater than what we sought to solve.

Today's day of action and web blackouts will hopefully truly send the message, loud and clear, that these bills, as they are written now, will do far more harm than good. Online piracy needs to be dealt with, but these bills aren't the way to do it.

SOPA is "shelved", but could come back. And PIPA is still very much alive. Can't stop fighting yet.

This is huge!

PROGRESS!!!!!!

I know Wikipedia is also very seriously considering a similar action to protest SOPA/PIPA.

This another perspective. That while piracy exists perhaps it can be dealt with in this manner.

They unfortunately will not be speaking at the official Judiciary Committee handling the bill, but at the House Oversight Committee. Admittedly it is a fairly one sided guest list. But, one of the complaints I've read in the Mark Up Transcripts is that many of the committee members claimed that the committee essentially did not have the technical knowledge to be drafting this bill. And there had not been one technical expert that had come before the committee to speak for or against the bill.

Debate on PIPA resumes in the Senate on Jan 24

This is another article from TechDirt, which is the site that provided one of the links in the "About This Petition" tab.

Well, guys it looks like we've gone mainstream. ;-)

This is good news, folks. Having companies of this magnitude will to go "nuclear" in order to protest these bills gives me hope that we defeat them.

PS - Who have you gotten to sign this petition today?

Well done. But, we're going to need a lot more and the best thing you can do to help is by sharing this petition with as many people as possible. Twitter, email, Facebook and anywhere else you can think of.

This is a perfect illustration how a targeted actions by large numbers of people can hopefully affect change.

I decided that just telling IATSE was not enough. We need to tell all of the Hollywood "locals". The Teamsters, the DGA, SAG, AFTRA, WGA and most importantly the MPAA (now run by former US Senator Chris Dodd). All of these organizations together can tell Congress - "Thanks, but we can do better."