CISPA Passes House, Obama Threatens Veto

Associated Press  

Although the vote was set for tomorrow, the U.S. House just sneak-passed H.R. 3523, a.k.a. CISPA, the Cybersecurity Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, by a vote of 248-168.

Bad news bears...

Comedian Jim Gaffigan Releases New Special - Digital-Only

Emboldened by the half-a-million-dollar success that was fellow funnyman Louis C.K.'s latest comedy special, Jim Gaffigan is now taking a stab at the digital distro method with "Mr. Universe," a continuous, 75-minute stream of hilarity, available now directly from Gaffigan's website for only $5.

TechCrunch had Gaffigan in their studio weeks ago to talk about the potential dangers of digital distribution and comedy in the digital age. 

The TechCrunch interview and more details about "Mr. Universe" after the jump...

SOPA Being Resurrected? MPAA Head Thinks So

It appears the Stop Online Piracy Act could be back from beyond the legislative grave.

As Ars Technica reports, Chris Dodd, the former senator from Connecticut and current head of the Motion Picture Association of America, told The Hollywood Reporter he's "confident" that there are "conversations going on now" in regards to SOPA-style legislation.

Apparently, some people do not remember what happened last time Congress tried to push censoring legislation on the Internet. Seriously, I'm not going through another Reddit Blackout Day. That day was so boring.

A new way of looking at piracy

Last week, game dev and blogger Lars Doucet sounded off on his blog on the hot-button and ever-developing issue of piracy.

It wasn't another thinly-veiled rant a la TorrentFreak, mind you, but a open examination of the way content piracy is currently viewed.

Doucet's "four currencies" theory, which plans to differentiate the "cost" of pirated material from actual monetary cost caused quite a hullabaloo. As such, he's decided to expand a bit upon his little theory and turn it into a series of posts.

Read on and let us know if you agree with this new "model" of piracy.

Europe starts to tip against ACTA

Source: Nexus404

Just recently, digital demonstrators in the States hammered out a definitive victory against the Stop Online Piracy Act. Far-flung pockets of the Internet were gimped or blacked out entirely in protest of the censorship implications of SOPA.

This caused dozens of lawmakers - mostly bandwagon-jumpers to be sure - to think twice before supporting a bill that might make potential voters mad.

This won't stop those same lawmakers from pushing similar legislation on other countries - where anti-piracy proponents claim thieves are stealing the content of "hard-working" Americans on a daily basis.

Read on to see how the SOPA victory may not have meant a damn thing against the might of a pincer attack from foreign governments.