“In countries whose judicial systems are less independent and where legal defense for bloggers is rare, abuse of copyright law to stifle activism is much easier. The Russian government last year used a crackdown on software piracy as an excuse to confiscate activists’ computers. The Chinese government used copyright claims to crack down on critics of the 2008 Beijing Olympics who sometimes used modified images of the Olympic mascots in their critiques.
“In China ‘copyright’ is one of many excuses to crack down on political movements,” a Chinese blogger, Isaac Mao, told us. “If a new law like SOPA is introduced in the U.S., the Chinese government and official media will use it to support their version of ‘anti-piracy.’”

Ivan Sigal and Rebecca MacKinnon, CNN.com
  • CNN

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