And it comes equipped with a website called Madison that houses the bill for all to see and discuss.
A bi-partisan group of congressman have offered up an alternative to the controversial House and Senate bills SOPA and Protect IP Act. The new bill is called OPEN: Online Protection & ENforcement of Digital Trade Act, sponsored by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR).
The bill can be seen at KeepTheWebOpen.com, which states “The OPEN Act is built to protect creative ownership in America while securing the open, accessible Internet you deserve. We’re going further by actually opening up the legislative process with a new tool named Madison.”
This, quite simply, has to be one of the most encouraging moves by the Congress since… hell, I can’t remember.
Interested individuals can login into Madison and become part of the discussion of the bill in an open-source way. Now, if only individuals could tinker with the language, it would truly be open-source, democratic government.
The bill’s opening language states the OPEN Act is “A BILL to amend the Tariff Act of 1930 to address unfair trade practices relating to infringement of copyrights and trademarks by certain Internet sites, and for other purposes.”
It would empower the International Trade Commission, and independent agency, to investigate complaints alleging copyright infringement without demanding that ISPs blacklist websites such as Tor, which is used by activists and dissidents but also by individuals engaging in music or motion picture piracy.
To help defray investigation costs, the Commission has the right to charge a fee to a complainant.
This is certainly a much more promising bill than SOPA or PROTECT IP, but it could certainly use some commentary from interested individuals to further shape a bill that makes both copyright holders, websites and internet users happy.
To read the full text of the bill, head over to KeepTheWebOpen.com and join the discussion.
December 09, 2011 at 3:11 pm, Anonymous said:
No. We don’t need a single one of these. Call it what you want, it’s still taking away from free information of the internet. Terrible idea.
December 09, 2011 at 3:29 pm, Chilly8 said:
OPEN is the least of the three evils, OPEN is the only viable option
December 10, 2011 at 12:33 am, Pop said:
This is the plan all along, create a bill so over the top that people cry, then push forward the bill they originally want through, oldest trick in the book.
STOP THEM ALL!!
December 17, 2011 at 3:06 pm, Anonymous said:
Government. cannot. own. the. internet. When they take ANYTHING that cannot truly be owned and try to impose laws on it, reprecussions will be massive. Possible economic issues, possibly political issues. I’ve read all three, and none of them no matter what they say, they do NOT protect artists. To me it seems easier for the COMPANIES to take what’s yours, say it’s theirs and then sue you for infringement.
December 18, 2011 at 1:39 am, Soundmagus said:
Blah blah blah – its all cloak and daggers, its all BS, they will eventually win, they will eventually get some kind of control, and when they have a little you can be sure it wont be long before they have the lot.
December 31, 2011 at 11:46 pm, Dude said:
Hey geniuses: the government brought the Internet into the world, they can take it out.
If you ever get a job that pays more than minimum wage, you’ll see pretty quickly why “keeping the Internet free” won’t work. When it’s YOUR warez being shared for free instead of putting money towards the bottom line, maybe you’ll get the picture.
Next, you’ll want the gumm’it to hand out free 4G service so you can bit torrent from your Occupy pup tent.
January 08, 2012 at 10:44 pm, Another Dude said:
It’s not that we support piracy. It’s that this bill won’t stop it in it’s current form.
The reason for piracy prevalence is that it has provided the easiest way for consumers to get what they want. There are plenty of services available today which have begun to counter that, such as Netflix. Users engaging in piracy have to search for a contraband movie they want, waste time downloading it to their hard drive, and risk getting malware or a low-quality copy. Netflix lets them stream said movie, save them time by streaming instead of downloading, and are guaranteed a certain level of quality, without risk of malware.
It’s true; piracy is killing jobs in the industries, and it needs to be fought. But, this kind of censorship is like prohibition of alcohol in the 1920′s in that it creates more barriers, hence encouraging piracy.
If the industry wants to keep profiting from their wares, they need to adapt and develop a better business model.
January 19, 2012 at 12:57 am, Aso Mediagroup said:
Actually the inventor of the internet was
Tim Berners-Lee not the government, and I dont understand why you would knock someone expressing their views because they want to remain a free man or woman.
January 14, 2012 at 2:53 am, TheRazorsEdge said:
If any of these bills are going to be passed it better be this one. Honestly though, I hope none of these bills get passed, the internet is 100% perfect the way it is now, it is as Joe Biden said “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it”. I do not support piracy, but there is no “real” way to stop it, so its kinda dumb to attempt to make ways to stop it, because all it does is wound the actual internet without fixing the problem it was set out to do in the first place, how about we wait until we actually have the right technology before we look into this issue?
January 14, 2012 at 2:53 am, TheRazorsEdge said:
If any of these bills are going to be passed it better be this one. Honestly though, I hope none of these bills get passed, the internet is 100% perfect the way it is now, it is as Joe Biden said “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it”. I do not support piracy, but there is no “real” way to stop it, so its kinda dumb to attempt to make ways to stop it, because all it does is wound the actual internet without fixing the problem it was set out to do in the first place, how about we wait until we actually have the right technology before we look into this issue?
January 14, 2012 at 2:53 am, TheRazorsEdge said:
If any of these bills are going to be passed it better be this one. Honestly though, I hope none of these bills get passed, the internet is 100% perfect the way it is now, it is as Joe Biden said “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it”. I do not support piracy, but there is no “real” way to stop it, so its kinda dumb to attempt to make ways to stop it, because all it does is wound the actual internet without fixing the problem it was set out to do in the first place, how about we wait until we actually have the right technology before we look into this issue?
January 19, 2012 at 1:11 am, Aso Mediagroup said:
This was the plan and the only people who have realized it is southeasttexastoday
January 20, 2012 at 7:38 pm, Online reviews said:
i think a greAT idea?
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