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Vint Cerf, the legendary computer scientist who's known as one of the fathers of the Internet for his work on TCP/IP, is the latest technologist to oppose the Stop Online Piracy Act.

Cerf, a onetime DARPA program manager who went on to receive the Turing Award, sent a letter yesterday warning of the dangers of SOPA to its author, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas). The House Judiciary chairman, also Hollywood's favorite House Republican, has scheduled discussion of the bill to resume at 7a.m. PT tomorrow.

Smith announced a revised version of SOPA earlier this week. Cerf, now … Read more

After a marathon debate on the Stop Online Piracy Act, it's clear that the Hollywood-backed bill enjoys enthusiastic support among key members of the U.S. House of Representatives and is one step closer to becoming law.

That became obvious after every legislative attempt to defang, rewrite, or significantly alter SOPA over nearly a 12-hour period today ended in victories for large copyright holders--and defeat upon defeat for the bill's critics.

The committee vote totals on the try-to-fix-SOPA amendments varied but revealed that two-thirds to three-quarters of the members of the Judiciary committee were staunch allies of … Read more

Rep. Lamar Smith, whose congressional district in Texas encompasses the cropland and grazing land stretching between Austin and San Antonio, might seem an unlikely ally for Hollywood on Internet piracy.

Smith, a Republican member of the Tea Party Caucus, is from an old South Texas ranching family and proudly subscribed to Field and Stream magazine as a college freshman. He earned a perfect "A+" rating from the National Rifle Association and, in a move not calculated to endear him to coastal elites, tried to increase fines for "indecent" broadcasts.

The self-described former ranch manager has become … Read more

Foes of the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act are rallying opponents ranging from Internet engineers to First Amendment scholar Laurence Tribe ahead of an expected committee vote on the legislation this week.

Their aim is to sway the 39 members of the House Judiciary committee, which oversees copyright law. The panel's chairman is Lamar Smith of Texas, Hollywood's favorite House Republican and the principal author of SOPA, which has drawn what may be an unprecedented public outcry from Internet users and companies including Facebook, Twitter, Mozilla, eBay, and Google.

Tribe, a high-profile Harvard law professor and author of … Read more

For more than 10 years, Brendan Smith has been telling the story of the Bible in a very unusual way: with Legos.

Through his hit Web site and three popular books, Smith has spread the gospel of "The Brick Testament." But now, because of what it says are concerns about "mature content," Sam's Club, one of the nation's largest retailers, has banned in-store sales of the fourth book in the series, "The Brick Bible."

On his Web site, Smith's Brick Testament contains a series of interpretations of sexually suggestive passages of … Read more

While it's probably long been the fantasy of nerdy women everywhere, it took a charity to get the shirt off of The Doctor's back.

As part of this year's annual Children in Need Telethon in the U.K., Matt Smith of "Doctor Who" announced that the show will be auctioning off one of The Doctor's familiar tweed and bow-tie costumes, with all proceeds going to the children's charity. Smith announced the auction in character before unveiling a trailer for the "Doctor Who Christmas Special, The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe."

While all sorts of bylaws make it difficult for Americans to tune in to BBC content online for licensing reasons, it would seem the good ole' limping dollar is good over at BBC headquarters. There's nothing in the auction rules that I can see preventing U.S. fans of The Doctor from bidding and buying the costume. Exchange rates would apply, and (with the pound running roughly double the dollar) an American fan would have to dig deep. But, it's a good cause.… Read more

A little-noticed portion of a controversial House of Representatives copyright bill could require Internet providers to monitor customers' traffic and block the addresses of Web sites suspected of copyright infringement, a significant expansion of requirements in an earlier version of the bill.

The Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, says a network provider can be ordered to "prevent access by its subscribers located within the United States" to the allegedly piratical Web site. That language did not appear in an earlier Senate version called the Protect IP Act.

"It would cover IP blocking," says Markham Erickson, … Read more

The first House of Representatives hearing devoted to a controversial online copyright bill began in an unusual way: with politicians defending themselves from charges that the proposal goes too far.

It's "beyond troubling to hear hyperbolic charges that this bill will open the floodgates to government censorship," Rep. Mel Watt, a North Carolina Democrat, said during a House Judiciary committee hearing this morning.

Claiming that the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, will transform the United States into "a repressive regime belittles the circumstances under which true victims of tyrannical governments actually live," said Watt, … Read more

Foes of a controversial copyright measure have gained some high-profile allies: Google, Facebook, Twitter, Zynga, and other Web companies have joined the ranks of the bill's opponents.

They sent a letter (PDF) last night to key members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, saying the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, "pose[s] a serious risk to our industry's continued track record of innovation and job creation, as well as to our nation's cybersecurity."

The protest was designed to raise objections in advance of a hearing before the full House Judiciary committee … Read more