STOP SOPA & PIPA!

This is how my FaceBook will appear for the rest of the day & possibly until this nonsense [SOPA & PIPA] is over. Say NO! to SOPA & PIPA!!!! If you don't know what SOPA and/or PIPA is, I advise you to get informed. They are TERRIBLE & must not be passed!!!!

Stop Online Piracy Act [SOPA]: will work in conjunction with PIPA. As described by such entities as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, SOPA is nothing more so than the U.S. government and private corporations black list. The breakdown of the power given to the government and private corporations:

• *The U.S. Attorney General can now seek a court order that would force search engines, advertisers, DNS providers, servers, and payment processors from having any contact with allegedly infringing websites
• *It will allow private corporations to create their own personal hit lists composed of websites they feel are breaking their copyright policies, ironically this doesn’t have any odd feelings of a legal mafia at all. These companies will be able to directly contact a website’s payment processors a notice to cut all off payment involvement with the targeted website. This payment processors and website of question will then have five days to act before it is simply taken down.
• *Payment processors will have the power to cut off any website they work with, as long as they can provide a strong reason of why they believe this site is violating copyrights.

Protect IP Act [PIPA]: will give U.S. corporations and the government the right to seek affirmative legal action with any website that they see as enabling copyright infringement whether of U.S. origin or not. The breakdown of all that they will have the power to do:

• *Force U.S. internet providers to block access to websites deemed as enablers of copyright infringement
• *Seek legal action by suing search engines, blog sites, directories, or any site in general to have the black listed sites removed from their website
• *Will be able to force advertising services on infringing websites, and those supporting of them, to remove them from their advertising accounts
• *Companies will also have the power to sue any new websites that get started after this bill is passed, if they believe that they are not doing a good job of preventing infringement on your website

Learn how these two Acts can affect YOU. ---> http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/design/how-sopa-pipa-can-affect-you/ To learn more, go to http://www.google.com and click on Please Don't Censor The Web. Google has already taken part in the "Blackout", along with Tumblr and lots of other major websites. SOPA & PIPA MUST BE STOPPED!!!!!