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Staring Down the SOPA Threat from the Public Square

SOPA is one of those sudsy scandals that don’t easily wipe off in the public wash.  Once you claim you’re all-in on SOPA, it’s difficult to recant and back out and say you didn’t mean it, and GoDaddy is learning that sticky lesson in heated spades:

GoDaddy was one of the few tech firms to back SOPA but it took its name off the public list of supporters following pressure by big web names and many angry customers.

Wikipedia said it would move its domains away from GoDaddy, as did the Cheezburger Network, owner of Lolcats, and image hosting firm Imgur.

In a statement explaining its change of heart, GoDaddy boss Warren Adelman said: “Fighting online piracy is of the utmost importance, which is why GoDaddy has been working to help craft revisions to this legislation – but we can clearly do better.”

In an interview with tech news site Gizmodo, Mr Adelman took a neutral stance on SOPA but said the company might support it if there were a consensus among net firms on its wording.

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WordPress.com is a DMCA Safe Harbor for Blog Publishers

There are moments when, as the publisher of the 13-blog strong — Boles Blogs Network here on WordPress.com — I find something on the web that instantly sickens my stomach with anger.  Yesterday was an example of that sort of “Immediate Internet Illness.”  I read an alarming article from Wired.com’s Threat Level concerning Righthaven — a “Copyright Troll” — and their purposeful, chilling, delight in making money by filing lawsuits against, what amounts to, fair use and freedom of speech by bloggers and online forums.

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Windows Live WordPress Spaces: Is Microsoft Buying Automattic?

Yesterday, it was announced that 30 million Windows Live Spaces blogs were being moved over to WordPress.com as Microsoft gives up the ghost of their free blogging space to Automattic.

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Locking Threads Letter of Support for WordPress.com Forums

There’s a bit of a tsunami taking over the WordPress.com support forums as a new policy is slowly being rolled out that new questions are locked for 30 minutes or so — so a paid staff member will have the first shot at answering the question instead of forum volunteers.  I wholly support that new policy and I’ll tell you why.

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