SOPA Didn't Die, It Just Emigrated

It's hard to believe that the heady times that saw SOPA's rise and fall are only a year and a half ago. Of course, SOPA didn't die, but was merely "delayed". But if you've ever wondered what happened to it, wonder no more; it emigrated to Russia, as TorrentFreak reports: 

On Techdirt.

EU Mandate For TAFTA Leaked: Includes Investor-State Dispute Resolution For Intellectual Monopolies

One of the concerns about TAFTA/TTIP is that it would repeat the mistakes of ACTA and SOPA as far as intellectual monopolies were concerned. This led to a call by a group of public interest organizations for things like copyright and patents to be excluded from TAFTA (disclosure: I was involved in the drawing up of the text.) Needless to say, no notice was taken of that, and a couple of weeks ago the European Parliament duly passed a resolution on TAFTA that said: 

On Techdirt.

Taiwan's Copyright Proposals Would Combine SOPA With A Dash Of The Great Firewall Of China

You might have hoped that the extensive discussions that took place around SOPA a year or so ago would have warned off governments elsewhere from replicating some of the really bad ideas there, like DNS blocking, but it seems that Taiwan didn't get the message, as Global Voices reports: 

On Techdirt.

Leading Italian Film Producer Calls For $16 Billion Lawsuit Against Italian State For Alleged Inaction Against Piracy

Last year we wrote about EMI suing the Irish government for having the temerity not to pass a SOPA-Like censorship law. That truly extraordinary sense of entitlement seemed to be a one-off, but The Hollywood Reporter now brings us another (via @LifeinSicily): 

On Techdirt.

Why CISPA Shows We Need Strong EU Data Protection

It seems hard to believe that it was only a little over a year ago that the threat from the US SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) was averted (and that ACTA was still with us in the EU). But of course the war is never won: new threats to freedom and openness on the Internet just keep on coming. 

On Open Enterprise blog.