By Ben Popper 11/16/11 6:45am

SOPA Opera

Not a fan of censorship. Who knew!

Eric Schmidt Is No Fan of Censorship, Rips SOPA Act

It’s finally here! American Censorship Day is in full swing, with sites like AVC and upstart search engine DuckDuckGo censoring their banners in protest of the proposed anti-piracy bills going before a Congressional hearing. Yesterday the titans of the internet sent a letter to Coongress opposing the new SOPA bill. Sadly none of them have joined the American Censorship day movement. But luckily tech’s best big mouth, Eric Schmidt, got a few choice words in.

Back when he was CEO of Google, Mr. Schmidt was always getting into trouble for saying wild, borderline creepy stuff. But now that he is executive chairman, the man can finally let it rip without being the final word from Google. As Reuters reports, auring an appearance yesterday at MIT, Mr. Schmidt declared, “”The solutions are draconian. There’s a bill that would require (internet service providers) to remove URLs from the Web, which is also known as censorship last time I checked.” Read More

By Ben Popper 11/15/11 1:50pm

Can the Internet Save the Internet

Surveillance nation.

The Internet’s Big Guns Join Startup Land In Protesting SOPA Act

For the last couple of weeks venture capitalists and startup founders have been raising the alarm over new anti-piracy legislation making its way through Congress that would fundamentally endanger the functioning of a free internet.

Betabeat chatted with Fred Wilson yesterday, who said that this fight is part of a broader attempt to protect the innovation economy. “I hope that that big tech companies see that and join us in making our voice heard on this issue.”

Mr. Wilson and his partner Brad Burnham went down to D.C. to put in facetime with politicians. “We’re at a disadvantage here. The entertainment industry is a lot older, more mature, with deeper influence in Washington.”

The best chance for the tech industry? Getting the word out through those powerful online networks. “We’re hoping the internet can save the internet,” Mr. Wilson said.

Well, consider the call answered. Today, AOL, eBay, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Mozilla Corp, Twitter, Yahoo! and Zynga all signed on to a letter to Congress opposing SOPA: Read More

By Adrianne Jeffries 9/08/11 11:42am

Arghhhh!

anti-piracy

NYC’s 8th-Largest Accounting Firm: Oops We Didn’t Know Our Copies of Every Important Enterprise Software Were Pirated, Here’s $385 K. Thx Bye!

Citrin Cooperman, the 28th largest accounting firm in the country, was just fined $385,000 for having illegal copies of Adobe, Corel, Microsoft, and Symantec software installed on its computers. “As part of the settlement agreement, the company agreed to delete all unlicensed copies of software from its computers, acquire any licenses necessary to become compliant, and commit to implementing stronger software asset management (SAM) practices,” the Business Software Alliance, which polices pirated enterprise software, said in a press release.

BSA said it became aware of the piracy thanks to a tip submitted through its website, nopiracy.org, which gives out rewards for tips that lead to a monetary settlement. The tipster could receive up to $20,000 in this case. Read More

By Ben Popper 7/27/11 9:44am

Web TV

"Sorry if my beard tickles a little."

Fox Won’t Wait Till Hulu Sells Before Kneecapping the Platform

Poor Hulu. Born to a conglomerate of traditional TV networks that finally admitted they needed to do something about this whole, “web video” world, the company was always caught in a kind of Cronos paradox: the parents might kill their own child rather than let it grow up to threaten their power.

Recently the networks decided they would be better off selling Hulu to somebody else, making it easier down the road to reap lucrative fees for licensing the content they currently put on Hulu for free. But now it seems Fox has decided it can’t even wait for that sale to go down before basically cutting Hulu off at the knees.

The News Corp. network has announced that starting August 15th it will no longer put shows on Hulu the day after they air. Read More