“The Washington Post is joining several other media organizations, including the Guardian and NPR, to encourage a one-day crowdsourcing solution for those left searching for answers: #altwiki.
That’s basically it. Ask a question on Twitter with the hashtag #altwiki, and we’ll ask our readers to help provide an answer.”
Read the full article to find out more about why Wikipedia is going dark tomorrow and for more resources.
Journalists are invited to this press briefing organized by The Media Consortium.
FOR PLANNING PURPOSES
CONTACT: Jo Ellen Green Kaiser at joellen@themediaconsortium.com
Congress is currently conducting hearings on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect-IP Act (PIPA). These bills are both aimed at preventing the illegal use of copyrighted materials, but have become hotly contested by media outlets and content providers concerned the bills go too far. On January 18, a number of media companies are planning to blackout their websites in protest of the bills. This briefing will offer background on the bills and information about the January 18 action. The briefing is sponsored by The Media Consortium. It is open to journalists from any media outlet or organization.
When: Tuesday, January 17, 10:00-11:00 AM EST
Where: Conference call with chat:
Please join the chat at https://www1.gotomeeting.com/join/236450089
Please join the conference call at +1 (213) 493-0606; Access Code: 236-450-089
Format:
10:00 am TMC welcomes press to call
10:05 am Josh Levy/Free Press to introduce the briefing and briefly give an overview of SOPA/PIPA
10:10 am Art Brodsky and Sherwin Siy/Public Knowlege to discuss policy implications of the bills
10:15 am Erik Martin/Reddit to discuss impact on media companies and blackout action
10:20 am Casey Rae-Hunter/Future of Music Coalition to discuss impact on content-creators
10:25 am Tiffiniy Cheng/Downhill Battle on grassroots activism
10:30 am Questions
Organizers will ask journalists to post questions via chat, so they can be asked in an orderly fashion.
The ONA Issues Tumblr is your platform to define and explore the pressing issues in digital media and get a better fix on how they impact your work. Here are the top five posts from last week.
To share an issue or join the conversation, submit your own post, reblog on your own Tumblr or comment on a post.
Media Matters has prepared a report on how the major news networks are responding to SOPA. An excerpt:
The legislation also has powerful supporters. As [David] Carr laid out in his article, ‘Virtually every traditional media company in the United States loudly and enthusiastically supports SOPA.’ This includes the parent companies of the TV news outlets now ignoring the fury over the bill during their primetime broadcasts, as well as two of the channels themselves.
ABC and CBS are listed as supporters of the bill on the House Judiciary Committee website, along with Comcast/NBCUniversal (which owns MSNBC and NBC News), Viacom (CBS), News Corporation (Fox News), and Time Warner (CNN). Disney Publishing Worldwide, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Corporation, which owns ABC, is also listed as a supporter, as are other Disney properties such as ESPN and Hyperion publishing.
To their credit, the online arms of most of these news outlets have posted regular articles about the fight over the legislation, but their primetime TV broadcasts remain mostly silent.
Read the full article here.
Free Press has a letter that you can sign to take action about the media blackout here.
With debate over SOPA’s future tabled until Congress reconvenes, you might think the issue would have entered a similar lull, but that’s not happened.
According to Markham Erickson, head of the NetCoalition trade association, there’s been talk of a so-called “nuclear option,” in which the likes of Google, Amazon, eBay, and Yahoo! would go simultaneously dark to protest the legislation to highlight the fundamental danger the legislation poses to the function of the internet.
“As an organization representing thousands of content creators, ONA strongly condemns infringement of intellectual property and the violation of copyright. However, we believe SOPA would do little to stem those problems and would actually cause harm to the Internet and to the American public.
Indeed, the act — and its counterpart in the Senate, the PROTECT-IP Act (PIPA) — would inappropriately shut down websites, disrupt the free flow of legitimate information and limit Americans from fully exercising their First Amendment rights.
That is why, consistent with ONA’s desire and mission to keep the Internet open and vibrant, we join with others to oppose SOPA and PIPA. Furthermore, we encourage our members to contact their representatives in Congress and ask that they, too, oppose these bills…”
The ONA Issues Tumblr is your platform to define and explore the pressing issues in digital media and get a better fix on how they impact your work. Here are the top five posts from last week.
Screenshot showing the Show Sources feature in action in the ProPublica story, Why Can’t Linda Carswell get Her Husband’s Heart Back?“A developer who calls himself T Rizk doesn’t have much faith in Congress making the right decision on anti-piracy legislation, so he’s built a work around for the impending censorship measures being considered: DeSOPA. The Firefox add-on is stunningly simple as the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) would block specific domain names (e.g. www.thepiratebay.com) of allegedly infringing sites, T Rizk’s lightweight tool allows you to revert to the bare internet protocol (IP) address (e.g. 194.71.107.15) which takes you to the same place.”
Read the full story on the Atlantic Wire.
The Atlantic also has another article which looks at Project Madison, a crowd-sourced project by Rep. Darrell Issa, which Fast Company’s Gregory Ferenstein explains as, “a stripped-down interactive blogging platform, which allows citizens to select individual passages of legislation, and strike or add their own language, with comments for each suggestion.”
Want more background on what SOPA is and how it may affect you? Read our background post.
Right now the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is being debated in a mark-up session in the House Judiciary Committee. (You can catch a livestream here.)
Elizabeth Flock of the Washington Post reports on how journalists are jumping into the debate:
“First came the critiques of civil liberties and human rights groups. Then came the slams from Internet engineers and Web giants, including Facebook, Twitter, and Google. Wednesday, the American Society of News Editors (ASNE) piled on by sending Congress a letter to ask that it stop the bill. ASNE represents newspaper editors, editors of wire services and online-only news organizations, and other journalists.”
Not sure what SOPA is all about or how it affects you? Here are some links to help guide you through the bill:
The Act itself, as currently written
The Senate version (called PIPA)
An alternative to SOPA by Rep. Darrel Issa (R-Calif.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.)
“The Latest from the SOPA Soap Opera”
“Lines Drawn on Antipiracy Bills”
With the bill in flux, we’ll be keeping an eye on any changes and the progress of the bill. As always, feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments, reblog with your thoughts or send us ideas by submitting to the ONA issues blog.
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