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Christopher Dodd, chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America and former U.S. Senator, made a few comments recently that have made him extremely unpopular in the Web world.

According to VentureBeat, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales called for the MPAA to fire Dodd, saying that Dodd's statements undermine the MPAA and make the organization seem corrupt.

During last week's major online protest against SOPA and PIPA--the two antipiracy bills pending in the Senate and Congress--Dodd told Fox News, "Those who count on quote 'Hollywood' for support need to understand that this industry is watching … Read more

When emotions take you over, your rational mind often books a two-week trip to Cancun.

This is surely what happened when some protesters discovered that SOPA, that dastardly piece of proposed legislation aimed at preventing the online world from owning Hollywood (in an emotional sense), had its own Web site.

So, as the Register legislates it, the Web's advance herd barraged the site with dozens of messages of something not akin to goodwill.

Some, indeed, included swear words. For example: "You pass and you\'ll be hated everywhere in the world! Why can\'t you fat f*** americans … Read more

Having worked for years to connect with voters on the Internet, President Obama will actually hang out with some in a Google+ video chat.

Later this month, Obama will meet with selected members of the public in a videoconference chat using the Google+ hangout feature on January 30, said Ramya Raghavan, YouTube's news and politics manager, in a blog post yesterday.

It won't be just anybody, though. People must submit questions at the White House's YouTube page, either in text or 20-second video form.

"Your YouTube questions will drive the interview, and several participants with top-voted … Read more

In the movie, Christopher Dodd will be played by Robert DeNiro. Or Carrot Top.

I cannot quite decide which because I cannot quite decide just how, well, threatening Dodd truly intended to be when he spoke this week.

Dodd, should you have been too busy illegally downloading "The Godfather" series to have noticed, is the chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America.

This organization has enjoyed a troubling week as the SOPA and PIPA legislation--of which Hollywood is rather fond--was scuppered by millions of anonymous people (some of whom work at Google) who use that Internet … Read more

Internet opponents of a pair of controversial Hollywood-backed copyright bills won a temporary reprieve today, when upcoming votes in the Senate and House of Representatives were postponed.

But the lobbyists and politicians backing the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, and Protect IP haven't given up.

"We must take action to stop" online piracy and counterfeiting, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, said today. Reid, who previously called the Protect IP bill an "extremely important" piece of legislation, said he believed it could move forward "in the coming weeks." (See CNET's FAQ on SOPA … Read more

If you clicked a link distributed by Anonymous yesterday, you may have unwittingly helped the online activists in their attacks against U.S. government and entertainment industry sites that were organized to protest proposed antipiracy legislation.

Anonymous has launched distributed denial-of-service attacks, designed to shut down Web sites, against government and corporate sites in the past. Typically, supporters download software called Low Orbit Ion Canon (LOIC) that directs their computer to repeatedly try to connect to a target Web site. So many digital knocks on the door, as it were, can shut a site down so no one can get … Read more

week in review Some of the Internet's most popular destinations launched an experiment in political activism this week by urging their users to protest a pair of Hollywood-backed copyright bills in Congress.

Wikipedia's English-language pages went black at 9 p.m. PT Wednesday, with a splash page saying "the U.S. Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open Internet." The online encyclopedia's blackout, intended to precede a Senate floor vote on the legislation set for next week, was scheduled to last 24 hours.

Earlier today, Senate leaders announced they would … Read more

The times have a-changed. This generation's Bob Dylans, Joan Baezes, and Ramblin' Jack Elliotts aren't gathering in locales like New York's legendary Washington Square Park to swap chords and licks. They're busily congregating in the gigantic public park that is the Internet, via social media.

And, as a recent video makes clear, YouTube, Facebook, and other such sites seem also to be taking the place of street corners or truck beds when it comes to providing a stage for budding protest singers and their songs.

Forest Gibson and Zachary Cohn's "The Day the LOLcats Died" (embedded below) is certainly not the first Internet protest song, or even the first anti-SOPA tune to wend its way across the Web. ("Firewall" and "SOPA Cabana" are but two other anti-antipiracy screeds that have come before--with "Cabana" even suggesting Dylan and his "Subterranean Homesick Blues" via handwritten lyrics on cards).

But the presentation and form of "LOLCats" call to mind, in a way these other tunes don't, the stereotypical image of the protest singer: a lone soul busily killing fascists with his or her acoustic machine.… Read more

What a week. The SOPA/PIPA story got even bigger, as MegaUpload was shut down and Anonymous launched a successful attack against government sites.

The battle between the content industry and the open Internet may be going nuclear. We discuss with three great guests, all experts at CNET:

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