title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: On December 12, 2011 a revised version of the bill was tabled. Titled the "Manager's Amendment", it contained a number of changes in response to criticism of the original. As part of the revisions, the definition of sites that might be subject to enforcement was narrowed: the amendment limited such actions to sites that are designed or operated with the intent to promote copyright infringement, and it now only applies to non-US sites.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: According to Rep. Goodlatte, "Intellectual property is one of America's chief job creators and competitive advantages in the global marketplace, yet American inventors, authors, and entrepreneurs have been forced to stand by and watch as their works are stolen by foreign infringers beyond the reach of current U.S. laws. This legislation will update the laws to ensure that the economic incentives our Framers enshrined in the Constitution over 220 years ago—to encourage new writings, research, products, and services— remain effective in the 21st century's global marketplace, which will create more American jobs."


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Rights holders see intermediaries—the companies who host, link to, and provide e-commerce around the content—as the only accessible defendants.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Sponsor Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) said, "Millions of American jobs hang in the balance, and our efforts to protect America's intellectual property are critical to our economy's long-term success." Smith added, "The Stop Online Piracy Act helps stop the flow of revenue to rogue websites and ensures that the profits from American innovations go to American innovators."


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) representative who testified before the committee said that the motion picture and film industry supported two million jobs and 95,000 small businesses.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Pfizer spokesman John Clark testified that patients could not always detect cleverly-forged websites selling drugs that were either misbranded or simply counterfeit.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: RxRights, a consumer-advocacy group, issued a statement saying that Clark failed "to acknowledge that there are Canadian and other international pharmacies that do disclose where they are located, require a valid doctor's prescription and sell safe, brand-name medications produced by the same leading manufacturers as prescription medications sold in the U.S." They had earlier said that SOPA "fails to distinguish between counterfeit and genuine pharmacies" and would prevent American patients from ordering their medications from Canadian pharmacies online.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Bill sponsor Smith accused Google of obstructing the bill, citing its $500 million settlement with the DOJ on charges that it allowed ads from Canadian pharmacies, leading to illegal imports of prescription drugs. Shipment of prescription drugs from foreign pharmacies to customers in the US typically violates the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act and the Controlled Substances Act.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Mentioned on the Texas Insider, President Obama "will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression", said interviewer Jay Carney.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: On "TIME" "Techland blog", Jerry Brito wrote, "Imagine if the U.K. created a blacklist of American newspapers that its courts found violated celebrities' privacy? Or what if France blocked American sites it believed contained hate speech?" Similarly, the Center for Democracy and Technology warned, "If SOPA and PIPA are enacted, the US government must be prepared for other governments to follow suit, in service to whatever social policies they believe are important—whether restricting hate speech, insults to public officials, or political dissent."


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Laurence H. Tribe, a Harvard University professor of constitutional law, released an open letter on the web stating that SOPA would "undermine the openness and free exchange of information at the heart of the Internet. And it would violate the First Amendment".


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: The AFL–CIO's Paul Almeida, arguing in favor of SOPA, has stated that free speech was not a relevant consideration, because "Freedom of speech is not the same as lawlessness on the Internet. There is no inconsistency between protecting an open Internet and safeguarding intellectual property. Protecting intellectual property is not the same as censorship; the First Amendment does not protect stealing goods off trucks."


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, proxy servers, such as those used during the Arab Spring, can also be used to thwart copyright enforcement and therefore may be regulated by the act.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: John Palfrey, co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, expressed disagreement with the use of his research findings to support SOPA. He wrote that "SOPA would make many DNS circumvention tools illegal," which could put "dissident communities" in autocratic countries "at much greater risk than they already are." He added, "The single biggest funder of circumvention tools has been and remains the U.S. government, precisely because of the role the tools play in online activism. It would be highly counter-productive for the U.S. government to both fund and outlaw the same set of tools."


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Marvin Ammori has stated the bill might make The Tor Project illegal. Initially sponsored by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, the Tor Project creates encryption technology used by dissidents in repressive regimes (that consequently outlaw it). Ammori says that the U.S. Supreme Court case of "Lamont v. Postmaster General" 381 U.S. 301 (1965) makes it clear that Americans have the First Amendment right to read and listen to such foreign dissident free speech, even if those foreigners themselves lack an equivalent free speech right (for example, under their constitution or through Optional Protocols under the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights).


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Opponents have warned that SOPA could have a negative impact on online communities. Journalist Rebecca MacKinnon argued in an op-ed that making companies liable for users' actions could have a chilling effect on user-generated sites such as YouTube. "The intention is not the same as China's Great Firewall, a nationwide system of Web censorship, but the practical effect could be similar," Mackinnon stated. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) warned that websites Etsy, Flickr and Vimeo all seemed likely to shut down if the bill becomes law. Policy analysts for New America Foundation say this legislation would enable law enforcement to take down an entire domain due to something posted on a single blog, arguing, "an entire largely innocent online community could be punished for the actions of a tiny minority".


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Additional concerns include the possible impact on common Internet functions such as links from one site to another or accessing data from the cloud. EFF claimed the bill would ban linking to sites deemed offending, even in search results and on services such as Twitter. Christian Dawson, Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Virginia-based hosting company ServInt, predicted that the legislation would lead to many cloud computing and Web hosting services moving out of the US to avoid lawsuits. Even without SOPA, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) has already launched extradition proceedings against Richard O'Dwyer in the UK. O'Dwyer hosted the TVShack.net website which had links to material elsewhere and did not host any files. ICE has stated that it intends to pursue websites even if their only connection to the USA is a .com or .net web domain.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: The Electronic Frontier Foundation stated that the requirement that any site must self-police user generated content would impose significant liability costs and explains "why venture capitalists have said en masse they won't invest in online startups if PIPA and SOPA pass".


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Proponents of the bill argue that filtering is already common. Michael O'Leary of the MPAA testified on November 16 that the act's effect on business would be more minimal, noting that at least 16 countries already block websites and that the Internet still functions in those countries. MPAA Chairman Chris Dodd noted that Google figured out how to block sites when China requested it. Some ISPs in Denmark, Finland, Ireland and Italy blocked The Pirate Bay after courts ruled in favor of music and film industry litigation, and a coalition of film and record companies has threatened to sue British Telecom if it does not follow suit. Maria Pallante of the United States Copyright Office said that Congress had updated the Copyright Act before and should again, or "the U.S. copyright system will ultimately fail." Asked for clarification, she said that the US currently lacks jurisdiction over websites in other countries.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: The 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) includes the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act, that provides a "safe harbor" for websites that host content. Under that provision, copyright owners who felt that a site was hosting infringing content are required to request the site to remove the infringing material within a certain amount of time. SOPA would bypass this "safe harbor" provision by placing the responsibility for detecting and policing infringement onto the site itself, and allowing judges to block access to websites "dedicated to theft of U.S. property".


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: According to critics of the bill such as the Center for Democracy and Technology and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the bill's wording is vague enough that a single complaint about a site could be enough to block it, with the burden of proof resting on the site. A provision in the bill states that any site would be blocked that "is taking, or has taken deliberate actions to avoid confirming a high probability of the use of the U.S.-directed site to carry out acts that constitute a violation." Critics have read this to mean that a site must actively monitor its content and identify violations to avoid blocking, rather than relying on others to notify it of such violations.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Law professor Jason Mazzone wrote, "Damages are also not available to the site owner unless a claimant 'knowingly materially' misrepresented that the law covers the targeted site, a difficult legal test to meet. The owner of the site can issue a counter-notice to restore payment processing and advertising, but services need not comply with the counter-notice."


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Goodlatte stated, "We're open to working with them on language to narrow [the bill's provisions], but I think it is unrealistic to think we're going to continue to rely on the DMCA notice-and-takedown provision. Anybody who is involved in providing services on the Internet would be expected to do some things. But we are very open to tweaking the language to ensure we don't impose extraordinary burdens on legitimate companies as long as they aren't the primary purveyors [of pirated content]."


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: O'Leary submitted written testimony in favor of the bill that expressed guarded support of current DMCA provisions. "Where these sites are legitimate and make good faith efforts to respond to our requests, this model works with varying degrees of effectiveness," O'Leary wrote. "It does not, however, always work quickly, and it is not perfect, but it works."


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: An analysis in the information technology magazine "eWeek" stated, "The language of SOPA is so broad, the rules so unconnected to the reality of Internet technology and the penalties so disconnected from the alleged crimes that this bill could effectively kill e-commerce or even normal Internet use. The bill also has grave implications for existing U.S., foreign and international laws and is sure to spend decades in court challenges."


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Art Bordsky of advocacy group Public Knowledge similarly stated, "The definitions written in the bill are so broad that any US consumer who uses a website overseas immediately gives the US jurisdiction the power to take action against it potentially."


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: On October 28, 2011, the EFF called the bill a "massive piece of job-killing Internet regulation," and said, "This bill cannot be fixed; it must be killed."


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Gary Shapiro, CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association, spoke out strongly against the bill, stating, "The bill attempts a radical restructuring of the laws governing the Internet", and that "It would undo the legal, safe harbors that have allowed a world-leading Internet industry to flourish over the last decade. It would expose legitimate American businesses and innovators to broad and open-ended liability. The result will be more lawsuits, decreased venture capital investment, and fewer new jobs."


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Lukas Biewald, founder of CrowdFlower, stated, "It'll have a stifling effect on venture capital... No one would invest because of the legal liability."


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Booz & Company on November 16 published a Google-funded study finding that almost all of the 200 venture capitalists and angel investors interviewed would stop funding digital media intermediaries if the bill became law. More than 80 percent said they would rather invest in a risky, weak economy with the current laws than a strong economy with the proposed law in effect. If legal ambiguities were removed and good faith provisions in place, investing would increase by nearly 115 percent.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: As reported by David Carr of "The New York Times" in an article critical of SOPA and PIPA, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and other companies sent a joint letter to Congress, stating "We support the bills' stated goals – providing additional enforcement tools to combat foreign 'rogue' Web sites that are dedicated to copyright infringement or counterfeiting. However, the bills as drafted would expose law-abiding U.S. Internet and technology companies to new uncertain liabilities, private rights of action and technology mandates that would require monitoring of Web sites. We are concerned that these measures pose a serious risk to our industry's continued track record of innovation and job creation, as well as to our nation's cybersecurity." Smith responded, saying, the article "unfairly criticizes the Stop Online Piracy Act", and, "does not point to any language in the bill to back up the claims. SOPA targets only foreign Web sites that are primarily dedicated to illegal and infringing activity. Domestic Web sites, like blogs, are not covered by this legislation." Smith also said that Carr incorrectly framed the debate as between the entertainment industry and high-tech companies, noting support by more than "120 groups and associations across diverse industries, including the United States Chamber of Commerce".


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Lateef Mtima, director of the Institute for Intellectual Property and Social Justice at Howard University School of Law, expressed concern that users who upload copyrighted content to sites could potentially be held criminally liable themselves, saying, "Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of the bill is that the conduct it would criminalize is so poorly defined. While on its face the bill seems to attempt to distinguish between commercial and non-commercial conduct, purportedly criminalizing the former and permitting the latter, in actuality the bill not only fails to accomplish this but, because of its lack of concrete definitions, it potentially criminalizes conduct that is currently permitted under the law."


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: An aide to Rep. Smith said, "This bill does not make it a felony for a person to post a video on YouTube of their children singing to a copyrighted song. The bill specifically targets websites dedicated to illegal or infringing activity. Sites that host user content—like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter—have nothing to be concerned about under this legislation."


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: A paper by the Center for Democracy and Technology claimed that the bill "targets an entire website even if only a small portion hosts or links to some infringing content."


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: According to A. M. Reilly of "Industry Leaders Magazine", under SOPA, culpability for distributing copyright material is extended to those who aid the initial poster of the material. For companies that use virtual private networks (VPN) to create a network that appears to be internal but is spread across various offices and employees' homes, any of these offsite locations that initiate sharing of copyright material could put the entire VPN and hosting company at risk of violation.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Answering similar criticism in a CNET editorial, Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) head, Cary Sherman wrote, "Actually, it's quite the opposite. By focusing on specific sites rather than entire domains, action can be targeted against only the illegal subdomain or Internet protocol address rather than taking action against the entire domain."


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: The Electronic Frontier Foundation expressed concern that free and open source software (FOSS) projects found to be aiding online piracy could experience serious problems under SOPA. Of special concern was the web browser Firefox, which has an optional extension, MAFIAAFire Redirector, that redirects users to a new location for domains that were seized by the U.S. government. In May 2011, Mozilla refused a request by the United States Department of Homeland Security to remove MAFIAAFire from its website, questioning whether the software had ever been declared illegal.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Edward J. Black, president and CEO of the Computer & Communications Industry Association, wrote in the "Huffington Post" that "Ironically, it would do little to stop actual pirate websites, which could simply reappear hours later under a different name, if their numeric web addresses aren't public even sooner. Anyone who knows or has that web address would still be able to reach the offending website."


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: An editorial in the "San Jose Mercury-News" stated, "Imagine the resources required to parse through the millions of Google and Facebook offerings every day looking for pirates who, if found, can just toss up another site in no time."


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: John Palfrey of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society commented, "DNS filtering is by necessity either overbroad or underbroad; it either blocks too much or too little. Content on the Internet changes its place and nature rapidly, and DNS filtering is ineffective when it comes to keeping up with it."


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: According to Markham Erickson, head of NetCoalition, which opposes SOPA, the section of the bill that would allow judges to order internet service providers to block access to infringing websites to customers located in the United States would also allow the checking of those customers' IP address, a method known as IP address blocking. Erickson has expressed concerns that such an order might require those providers to engage in "deep packet inspection," which involves analyzing all of the content being transmitted to and from the user, raising new privacy concerns.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Policy analysts for New America Foundation say this legislation would "instigate a data obfuscation arms race" whereby by increasingly invasive practices would be required to monitor users' web traffic resulting in a "counterproductive cat-and-mouse game of censorship and circumvention [that] would drive savvy scofflaws to darknets while increasing surveillance of less technically proficient Internet users".


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: The Domain Name System (DNS) servers, sometimes likened to a telephone directory, translate browser requests for domain names into the IP address assigned to that computer or network. The original bill requires these servers to stop referring requests for infringing domains to their assigned IP addresses. DNS is robust by design against failure and requires that a lack of response is met by inquiries to other DNS servers.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Andrew Lee, CEO of ESET North America, objected that since the bill would require internet service providers to filter DNS queries for the sites, this would undermine the integrity of the Domain Name System.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: According to David Ulevitch, the San Francisco-based head of OpenDNS, the passage of SOPA could cause Americans to switch to DNS providers located in other countries who offer encrypted links, and may cause U.S. providers, such as OpenDNS itself, to move to other countries, such as the Cayman Islands.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: In November 2011, an anonymous top-level domain, .bit, was launched outside of ICANN control, as a response to the perceived threat from SOPA, although its effectiveness (as well as the effectiveness of other alternative DNS roots) remains unknown.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: On January 12, 2012, House sponsor Lamar Smith announced that provisions related to DNS redirection would be pulled from the bill.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: A white paper by several internet security experts, including Steve Crocker and Dan Kaminsky, wrote, "From an operational standpoint, a resolution failure from a nameserver subject to a court order and from a hacked nameserver would be indistinguishable. Users running secure applications need to distinguish between policy-based failures and failures caused, for example, by the presence of an attack or a hostile network, or else downgrade attacks would likely be prolific."


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Stewart Baker, former first Assistant Secretary for Policy at the Department of Homeland Security and former General Counsel of the National Security Agency, stated that SOPA would do "great damage to Internet security" by undermining Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC), a proposed security upgrade for DNS, since a browser must treat all redirects the same, and must continue to search until it finds a DNS server (possibly overseas) providing untampered results. On December 14, 2011 he wrote that SOPA was "badly in need of a knockout punch" due to its impact on security and DNS:


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: DNSSEC is a set of protocols developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) for ensuring internet security. A white paper by the Brookings Institution noted, "The DNS system is based on trust", adding that DNSSEC was developed to prevent malicious redirection of DNS traffic, and that "other forms of redirection will break the assurances from this security tool".


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: On November 17, Sandia National Laboratories, a research agency of the U.S. Department of Energy, released a technical assessment of the DNS filtering provisions in the House and Senate bills, in response to Representative Zoe Lofgren's (D-CA) request. The assessment stated that the proposed DNS filtering would be unlikely to be effective, would negatively impact internet security, and would delay full implementation of DNSSEC.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: On November 18, House Cybersecurity Subcommittee chair Dan Lungren stated that he had "very serious concerns" about SOPA's impact on DNSSEC, adding, "we don't have enough information, and if this is a serious problem as was suggested by some of the technical experts that got in touch with me, we have to address it".


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Brooklyn Law School professor Jason Mazzone warned, "Much of what will happen under SOPA will occur out of the public eye and without the possibility of holding anyone accountable. For when copyright law is made and enforced privately, it is hard for the public to know the shape that the law takes and harder still to complain about its operation."


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: The Stop Online Piracy Act was introduced by Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX) and was initially co-sponsored by Howard Berman (D-CA), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Mary Bono Mack (R-CA), Steve Chabot (R-OH), John Conyers (D-MI), Ted Deutch (D-FL), Elton Gallegly (R-CA), Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), Timothy Griffin (R-AR), Dennis A. Ross (R-FL), Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Lee Terry (R-NE). As of January 16, 2012, there were 31 sponsors.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: The legislation has broad support from organizations that rely on copyright, including the Motion Picture Association of America, the Recording Industry Association of America, Entertainment Software Association, Macmillan US, Viacom, and various other companies and unions in the cable, movie, and music industries. Supporters also include trademark-dependent companies such as Nike, L'Oréal, and Acushnet Company.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Both the AFL–CIO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce support H.R. 3261, and many trade unions and industry groups large and small, have also publicly praised the legislation. In a joint statement, the American Federation of Musicians (AFM), American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), Directors Guild of America (DGA), International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Moving Picture Technicians, Artists and Allied Crafts of the United States, Its Territories and Canada (IATSE), International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), and Screen Actors Guild (SAG) all showed support for SOPA. Smaller trade organizations, such as A2IM, which represents independent musicians, have also backed the bill.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: In June 2011, former Bill Clinton press secretary Mike McCurry and former George W. Bush advisor Mark McKinnon, business partners in Public Strategies, Inc., started a campaign which echoed McCurry's earlier work in the network neutrality legislative fight. McCurry represented SOPA/PIPA in "Politico" as a way to combat theft online, drawing a favorable comment from the MPAA. On the 15th, McCurry and Arts + Labs co-chair McKinnon sponsored the "CREATE – A Forum on Creativity, Commerce, Copyright, Counterfeiting and Policy" conference with members of Congress, artists and information-business executives.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: On September 22, 2011, a letter signed by over 350 businesses and organizations—including NBCUniversal, Pfizer, Ford Motor Company, Revlon, NBA, and Macmillan US—was sent to Congress encouraging the passage of the legislation. Fightonlinetheft.com, a website of The Coalition Against Counterfeiting and Piracy (a project of the United States Chamber of Commerce Global Intellectual Property Center,) cites a long list of supporters including these and the Fraternal Order of Police, the National Governors Association, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National Association of Attorneys General, the Better Business Bureau, and the National Consumers League.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: On November 22 the CEO of the Business Software Alliance (BSA) said, "valid and important questions have been raised about the bill." He said that definitions and remedies needed to be tightened and narrowed, but "BSA stands ready to work with Chairman Smith and his colleagues on the Judiciary Committee to resolve these issues".


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: On December 5, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a non-partisan non-profit, published an article that blasted critics of SOPA and defended the bill. The report called opponents' claims about DNS filtering "inaccurate," their warnings against censorship as "unfounded" and recommended that the legislation be revised and passed into law.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: On December 22, Go Daddy, one of the world's largest domain name registrars, stated that it supported SOPA. Go Daddy then rescinded its support, its CEO saying, "Fighting online piracy is of the utmost importance, which is why Go Daddy has been working to help craft revisions to this legislation—but we can clearly do better. It's very important that all Internet stakeholders work together on this. Getting it right is worth the wait. Go Daddy will support it when and if the Internet community supports it."


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: In January 2012, the Entertainment Software Association announced support for SOPA, although some association members expressed opposition. Creative America, a group representing television networks, movie studios, and entertainment unions, produced a "fact vs. fiction" flyer that aimed to correct misperceptions about rogue sites legislation.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Professor and Intellectual Property rights lawyer, Hillel I. Parness, a Partner of Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi has reviewed the bill, stating in a legal analysis that "There's a court involved here." In regards to "safe harbors," he stated the safe harbor provisions created by the DMCA in 1998 would still apply. "I think the proponents of the bill would say, what we're looking at today is a very different kind of Internet. The fact that the courts have said that entities like YouTube can be passive when it comes to copyright infringement, and just wait for notices rather than having to take any affirmative action, is also frustrating to them", he said. Regarding censorship concerns, he explained that none of the criminal copyright statutes in the bill were new, and therefore, "if there was a risk of abuse, that risk has always been there. And I have confidence in the structure of our court system, that the prosecutors and the courts are held to certain standards that should not allow a statute such as this to be manipulated in that way."


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Constitutional law expert Floyd Abrams, on behalf of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), the Directors Guild of America (DGA), the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees (IATSE), the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and others, reviewed the proposed legislation and concluded, "The notion that adopting legislation to combat the theft of intellectual property on the Internet threatens freedom of expression and would facilitate, as one member of the House of Representatives recently put it, 'the end of the Internet as we know it,' is thus insupportable. Copyright violations have never been protected by the First Amendment and have been routinely punished wherever they occur; including the Internet. This proposed legislation is not inconsistent with the First Amendment; it would protect creators of speech, as Congress has done since this Nation was founded, by combating its theft."


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: On January 14, 2012, the Obama administration responded to a petition against the bill, stating that while it would not support legislation with provisions that could lead to Internet censorship, squelching of innovation, or reduced Internet security, it encouraged "all sides to work together to pass sound legislation this year that provides prosecutors and rights holders new legal tools to combat online piracy originating beyond U.S. borders while staying true to the principles outlined above in this response." More than 100,000 people petitioned the White House in protest. Three officials from the Obama administration articulated the White House's position on proposed anti-piracy legislation, balancing the need for strong antipiracy measures while respecting both freedom of expression and the way information and ideas are shared on the Internet. "While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet."


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) expressed opposition to the bill, as well as Representatives Darrell Issa (R-CA) and presidential candidate Ron Paul (R-TX), who joined nine Democrats to sign a letter to other House members warning that the bill would cause "an explosion of innovation-killing lawsuits and litigation". "Issa said the legislation is beyond repair and must be rewritten from scratch", reported "The Hill". Issa and Lofgren announced plans for legislation offering "a copyright enforcement process modeled after the U.S. International Trade Commission's (ITC) patent infringement investigations". Politico referred to support as an "election liability" for legislators. Subsequently, proponents began hinting that key provisions might be deferred with opponents stating this was inadequate. Representative Jared Polis (D-CO) was known to lobby against SOPA in the game "League of Legends", also making a post in the official game message boards.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Opponents include protest organizer, Fight for the Future, Google, Yahoo!, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, AOL, LinkedIn, eBay, Mozilla Corporation, Mojang, Riot Games, Epic Games, Reddit,


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation, in addition to human rights organizations such as Reporters Without Borders, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the ACLU, and Human Rights Watch.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Kaspersky Lab, a major computer security company, demonstrated its opposition to SOPA and "decided to discontinue its membership in the BSA".


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: On December 13, 2011, Julian Sanchez of the libertarian think tank Cato Institute came out in strong opposition to the bill saying that while the amended version "trims or softens a few of the most egregious provisions of the original proposal... the fundamental problem with SOPA has never been these details; it's the core idea. The core idea is still to create an Internet blacklist..."


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: The Library Copyright Alliance (including the American Library Association) objected to the broadened definition of "willful infringement" and the introduction of felony penalties for noncommercial streaming infringement, stating that these changes could encourage criminal prosecution of libraries. A Harvard law professor's analysis said that this provision was written so broadly that it could make mainstream musicians felons for uploading covers of other people's music to sites like YouTube.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: On November 22, Mike Masnick of Techdirt called SOPA "toxic" and published a detailed criticism of the ideas underlying the bill, writing that "one could argue that the entire Internet enables or facilitates infringement", and saying that a list of sites compiled by the entertainment industry included the personal site of one of their own artists, 50 Cent, and legitimate internet companies. The article questioned the effect of the bill on $2 trillion in GDP and 3.1 million jobs, with a host of consequential problems on investment, liability and innovation. Paul Graham, the founder of venture capital company Y Combinator opposed the bill, and banned all SOPA-supporting companies from their "demo day" events. "If these companies are so clueless about technology that they think SOPA is a good idea", he asks, "how could they be good investors?" Prominent pro-democracy movement, Avaaz.org started a petition in protest over SOPA and so far has got over 3.4 million signatures worldwide.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: The Center for Democracy and Technology maintains a list of SOPA and PIPA opponents consisting of the editorial boards of "The New York Times", the "Los Angeles Times", 34 other organizations and hundreds of prominent individuals.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Zynga Game Network, creator of Facebook games "Texas HoldEm Poker" and "FarmVille", wrote to the sponsors of both bills highlighting concerns over the effect on "the DMCA's safe harbor provisions ... [which] ... have been a cornerstone of the U.S. Technology and industry's growth and success", and opposing the bill due to its impact on "innovation and dynamism".


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Computer scientist Vint Cerf, one of the founders of the Internet, now Google vice president, wrote to Smith, saying "Requiring search engines to delete a domain name begins a worldwide arms race of unprecedented 'censorship' of the Web", in a letter published on CNet.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: On December 15, 2011, a second hearing was scheduled to amend and vote on SOPA. Many opponents remained firm even after Smith proposed a 71-page amendment to the bill to address concerns. NetCoalition, which works with Google, Twitter, eBay, and Facebook, appreciated that Smith was listening, but says it nonetheless could not support the amendment. Issa stated that Smith's amendment, "retains the fundamental flaws of its predecessor by blocking Americans' ability to access websites, imposing costly regulation on Web companies and giving Attorney General Eric Holder's Department of Justice broad new powers to police the Internet".


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: In December 2011, screenwriter and comics writer Steve Niles spoke out against SOPA, commenting, "I know folks are scared to speak out because a lot of us work for these companies, but we have to fight. Too much is at stake."


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: In January 2012, novelist, screenwriter and comics writer Peter David directed his ire at the intellectual property pirates whose activities he felt provoked the creation of SOPA. While expressing opposition to SOPA because of his view that the then-current language of the bill would go too far in its restriction of free expression, and would probably be scaled down, David argued that content pirates, such as the websites that had posted his novels online in their entirety for free downloads, as well as users who supported or took advantage of these activities, could have prevented SOPA by respecting copyright laws.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Twenty-one artists signed an open letter to Congress urging them to exercise extreme caution, including comedian Aziz Ansari, The Lonely Island music parody band, MGMT, OK Go, Jason Mraz and Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. The letter reads, "As creative professionals, we experience copyright infringement on a very personal level. Commercial piracy is deeply unfair and pervasive leaks of unreleased films and music regularly interfere with the integrity of our creations. We are grateful for the measures policymakers have enacted to protect our works. [...] We fear that the broad new enforcement powers provided under SOPA and PIPA could be easily abused against legitimate services like those upon which we depend. These bills would allow entire websites to be blocked without due process, causing collateral damage to the legitimate users of the same services - artists and creators like us who would be censored as a result." Filmmaker Michael Moore also shut down his websites during the week of protest,


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: while other celebrities, including Ashton Kutcher, Alec Baldwin, and rapper B.o.B expressed their opposition via Twitter. "The Daily Show"s Jon Stewart stated that SOPA will "break the Internet".


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: According to a "New York Times" report (February 8, 2012), Art Brodsky of Public Knowledge said, "The movie business is fond of throwing out numbers about how many millions of dollars are at risk and how many thousands of jobs are lost ... We don't think it correlates to the state of the industry." The report also noted that "some in the internet world, including Tim O'Reilly, ... go so far as to question whether illegitimate downloading and sharing is such a bad thing. In fact, some say that it could even be a boon to artists and other creators." Tim O'Reilly is quoted as saying, "The losses due to piracy are far outweighed by the benefits of the free flow of information, which makes the world richer, and develops new markets for legitimate content ... Most of the people who are downloading unauthorized copies of O'Reilly books would never have paid us for them anyway."


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Organizations in the international civil and human rights community expressed concerns that SOPA would cause the United States to lose its position as a global leader in supporting a free and open Internet for public good.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: On November 18, 2011, the European Parliament adopted by a large majority a resolution that "stresses the need to protect the integrity of the global Internet and freedom of communication by refraining from unilateral measures to revoke IP addresses or domain names".


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Private individuals petitioned the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, asking for the British government to condemn the bill.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Vice-President of the European Commission and European Commissioner for Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes said she is "Glad [the] tide is turning on SOPA," explaining rather than having "bad legislation" there "should be safeguarding benefits of open net". "Speeding is illegal too but you don't put speed bumps on the motorway", she said.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: On November 16, 2011, Tumblr, Mozilla, Techdirt, the Center for Democracy and Technology were among many Internet companies that protested by participating in American Censorship Day. They displayed black banners over their site logos with the words "STOP CENSORSHIP."


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Google linked an online petition to its site, and says it collected more than 7 million signatures from the United States.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Markham Erickson, executive director of NetCoalition, told Fox News that "a number of companies have had discussions about [blacking out services]" and discussion of the option spread to other media outlets.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: In January 2012, Reddit announced plans to black out its site for twelve hours on January 18, as company co-founder Alexis Ohanian announced he was going to testify to Congress. "He's of the firm position that SOPA could potentially 'obliterate' the entire tech industry", Paul Tassi wrote in "Forbes". Tassi also opined that Google and Facebook would have to join the blackout to reach a sufficiently broad audience. Other prominent sites that planned to participate in the January 18 blackout were Cheezburger Sites, Mojang, Major League Gaming, Boing Boing, BoardGameGeek, xkcd, SMBC and The Oatmeal.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Wider protests were considered and in some cases committed to by major internet sites, with high-profile bodies such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, Amazon, AOL, Reddit, Mozilla, LinkedIn, IAC, eBay, PayPal, WordPress and Wikimedia being widely named as "considering" or committed to an "unprecedented" internet blackout on January 18, 2012. On January 17 a Republican aide on Capitol Hill said that the protests were making their mark, with SOPA having already become "a dirty word beyond anything you can imagine".


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: A series of pickets against the bill were held at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. Two picketers were arrested.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: On January 21, 2012 RT news reported, "Bill Killed: SOPA death celebrated as Congress recalls anti-piracy acts". The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a rights advocacy non-profit group opposing the bill, said the protests were the biggest in Internet history, with over 115 thousand sites altering their webpages.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: SOPA supporters complained that the bill was being misrepresented amidst the protests. RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy said, "It's a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts to incite their users and arm them with misinformation", a sentiment echoed by RIAA CEO Cary Sherman who said "it's very difficult to counter the misinformation when the disseminators also own the platform". At the American Constitution Society's 2012 National Convention, the Democratic Party's chief counsel to the United States House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet said that the protests were "orchestrated by misinformation by a few actors," adding that "activism is welcome on the Hill, but... There's this thing called 'mob rule', and it's not always right."


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: The English Wikipedia blackout occurred for 24 hours on January 18–19, 2012. In place of (with the exception of those for SOPA and PIPA themselves), the site showed only a message in protest of SOPA and PIPA asking visitors to ""Imagine a world without free knowledge."" It is estimated in excess of 160 million people saw the banner. A month earlier, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales initiated discussion with editors regarding a potential knowledge blackout, a protest inspired by a successful campaign by the Italian-language Wikipedia to block the Italian DDL intercettazioni bill, terms of which could have infringed the encyclopedia's editorial independence. Editors and others mulled interrupting service for one or more days as in the Italian protest, or presenting site visitors with a blanked page directing them to further information before permitting them to complete searches. On January 16, the Wikimedia Foundation announced that the English-language Wikipedia would be blacked out for 24 hours on January 18.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: SOPA's sponsor in the House, Chairman Smith, called Wikipedia's blackout a "publicity stunt" saying: "It is ironic that a website dedicated to providing information is spreading misinformation about the Stop Online Piracy Act." Smith went on to insist that SOPA "will not harm Wikipedia, domestic blogs or social networking sites".


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: On January 19, 2012, Megaupload, a Hong Kong–based company providing file sharing services, was shut down by the US Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Some commentators and observers have asserted that the FBI shut down of Megaupload proves that SOPA and PIPA are unnecessary.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: The House Judiciary Committee held hearings on November 16 and December 15, 2011. The Committee was scheduled to continue debate in January 2012, but on January 17 Chairman Smith said that "Due to the Republican and Democratic retreats taking place over the next two weeks, markup of the Stop Online Piracy Act is expected to resume in February." However, in the wake of online protests held on January 18, 2012, Rep. Lamar Smith has stated, "The House Judiciary Committee will postpone consideration of the legislation until there is wider agreement on a solution", and Sen. Reid announced that the PIPA test vote scheduled for January 24 would also be postponed.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: At the House Judiciary Committee hearing, there was concern among some observers that the set of speakers who testified lacked technical expertise. Technology news site CNET reported "One by one, each witness—including a lobbyist for the Motion Picture Association of America—said they weren't qualified to discuss... DNSSEC." Adam Thierer, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center, similarly said, "The techno-ignorance of Congress was on full display. Member after member admitted that they really didn't have any idea what impact SOPA's regulatory provisions would have on the DNS, online security, or much of anything else."


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Lofgren stated, "We have no technical expertise on this panel today." She also criticized the tone of the hearing, saying, "It hasn't generally been the policy of this committee to dismiss the views of those we are going to regulate. Impugning the motives of the critics instead of the substance is a mistake."


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Lungren told Politico's "Morning Tech" that he had "very serious concerns" about SOPA's impact on DNSSEC, adding "we don't have enough information, and if this is a serious problem as was suggested by some of the technical experts that got in touch with me, we have to address it. I can't afford to let that go by without dealing with it."


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Gary Shapiro, CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association, stated, "The significant potential harms of this bill are reflected by the extraordinary coalition arrayed against it. Concerns about SOPA have been raised by Tea Partiers, progressives, computer scientists, human rights advocates, venture capitalists, law professors, independent musicians, and many more. Unfortunately, these voices were not heard at today's hearing."


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: An editorial in "Fortune" wrote, "This is just another case of Congress doing the bidding of powerful lobbyists—in this case, Hollywood and the music industry, among others. It would be downright mundane if the legislation weren't so draconian and the rhetoric surrounding it weren't so transparently pandering."


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: Since its introduction, a number of opponents to the bill have expressed concerns. The bill was presented for markup by the House Judiciary Committee on December 15.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: An aide to Smith stated that "He is open to changes but only legitimate changes. Some site[s] are totally capable of filtering illegal content, but they won't and are instead profiting from the traffic of illegal content."


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: After the first day of the hearing, more than 20 amendments had been rejected, including one by Darrell Issa which would have stripped provisions targeting search engines and Internet providers. "PC World" reported that the 22–12 vote on the amendment could foreshadow strong support for the bill by the committee.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: The Committee adjourned on the second day agreeing to continue debate early in 2012. Smith announced a plan to remove the provision that requires Internet service providers to block access to certain foreign websites. On January 15, 2012, Issa said he has received assurances from Rep. Eric Cantor that the bill would not come up for a vote until a consensus could be reached.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: The 2014 Sony Pictures hack revealed that the MPAA had continued its efforts to enact SOPA-like blocking principles since the bill died in Congress. The emails indicated that the MPAA was actively exploring new strategies to implement SOPA-like regulations, such as using the All Writs Act to "allow [the MPAA] to obtain court orders requiring site blocking without first having to sue and prove the target ISPs are liable for copyright infringement."


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: The MPAA has also allied itself with National Association of Attorneys General president Jim Hood, who supports SOPA principles and has stated that "Google's not a government… they don't owe anyone a First Amendment right… [i]f you're an illegal site, you ought to clean up your act, instead of Google making money off it." On November 27, 2013, Hood sent a letter to Google outlining his grievances. It was later revealed that much of the letter was drafted by the law firm representing the MPAA.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: On October 21, 2014, Hood issued a subpoena to Google for information about, among other items, its advertising partnerships and practices concerning illegal and sexual content. Google requested an injunction to quash the subpoena from the United States District Court of the Southern District of Mississippi, Northern Division. Google was granted such an injunction on March 2, 2015. The injunction also prevented Hood from bringing a charge against Google for making third-party content available to internet users. Effectively, the injunction protected Google from having Hood's claims enforced until after the conclusion of the case.


title: Stop Online Piracy Act

text: An MPAA spokesperson criticized Google's use of the First Amendment, accusing the company of using freedom of speech "as a shield for unlawful activities." Leaders in the technology industry commended the federal court for issuing the injunction. In addition, one of Google's head lawyers noted that "[w]e're pleased with the court's ruling, which recognizes that the MPAA's long-running campaign to censor the web — which started with SOPA — is contrary to federal law."


title: Into the Great Wide Open

text: Into the Great Wide Open is the eighth studio album by American rock band Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, released in July 1991. The album was the band's last with MCA Records. The album was the second Petty produced with Jeff Lynne after the success of "Full Moon Fever".


title: Into the Great Wide Open

text: The first single, "Learning to Fly", became the band's joint longest-running No. 1 single (along with "The Waiting" from 1981's "Hard Promises") on "Billboard"s Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, spending six weeks at the top spot. The second single, "Out in the Cold", also made No. 1 on the Mainstream Rock chart, albeit for two weeks.


title: Into the Great Wide Open

text: The music video for the title song stars Johnny Depp as "Eddie", who moves to Los Angeles as a teenager to seek rock stardom, along with Gabrielle Anwar, Faye Dunaway, Matt LeBlanc, Terence Trent D'Arby and Chynna Phillips.


title: Into the Great Wide Open

text: "Into the Great Wide Open" was warmly received by critics. Dave DiMartino, reviewing the album for "Entertainment Weekly", said that the album was the closest "classic" album Petty and the band had made in 15 years, saying that the album was a return to their first two albums. He feels that this is due largely to Jeff Lynne and that the songs are better than the ones on "Full Moon Fever". "Rolling Stone" critic Parke Puterbaugh called the album a cross between "Full Moon Fever" and "Damn the Torpedoes", said that it features Petty's best lyrics and that it is much better than "Let Me Up (I've Had Enough)". Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic was less impressed, saying that "Into the Great Wide Open" sounds too much like "Full Moon Fever", and that the album was "pleasant" but was not Petty at his best. In his Consumer Guide, Robert Christgau gave the album a one-star honorable mention, indicating "a worthy effort consumers attuned to its overriding aesthetic or individual vision may well like".


title: Into the Great Wide Open

text: At the end of the cassette format of Side One, there is a brief spoken interlude by Tom Petty. It is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the "Hello CD Listeners" interlude from "Full Moon Fever", this time instructing cassette listeners on how to properly flip over their tape and prepare it for side 2.


title: Into the Great Wide Open

text: The first single "Learning to Fly" was released prior to the album on June 17, 1991, and was a big hit for Petty. The second single, the title track, was released shortly after the album's release and is also one of the band's biggest hits. They were both top 10 singles on various charts. The third single "Out in the Cold" was a minor hit; it did not achieve the commercial success of the first two. Throughout 1992, four other singles were released; "Makin' Some Noise", "All Or Nothin'" "Too Good To Be True" and "King's Highway".


title: Samantha Scaffidi

text: Samantha Scaffidi is an American actress. She began her career in short films before becoming known for her role as Victoria Heyes in "Terrifier" (2016) and "Terrifier 2" (2022), and Luce in "Demon Hole" (2017)—all three slasher films. In addition to acting, Scaffidi is known for directing the RAINN public service announcement "Wait".


title: Samantha Scaffidi

text: Scaffidi began her career with a minor role as a waitress in the short film "Uncomfortable Silence" and Bea in "Derailing" (both in 2013). In 2015, she portrayed Georgette in the feature film "Sam" and Samantha in the short film "Act, Naturally". The same year, Scaffidi had a supporting role as Michelle in the independent comedy film "The Networker". The following year, she portrayed the lead character Luce in the comedy horror film "Demon Hole" which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and was picked up by SC Films and SP Releasing. In 2018, Scaffidi had a supporting role as Alessandria in the feature length film "Sarah Q".


title: Samantha Scaffidi

text: Scaffidi read the script for a film titled "Terrifier" written by the director Damien Leone and was initially reluctant to sign on to the project due to finding it "grotesque" and "horrifying"—but joined after a meeting with Leone. Scaffidi had to choose between the parts of Dawn and Victoria, choosing the latter as she related to the character more. Filming began in 2016, and Scaffidi describes filming it as a fun experience because she got to see how everything got put together and found Art the Clown actor David Howard Thornton to be very friendly on the set. During filming, Leone made it known to her that he intended to bring her back as Victoria in the follow-up film, "Terrifier 2" (2022). She describes filming the sequel as a more enjoyable experience due to becoming familiar with the production crew (most of which were a part of the first film) and a better understanding of Victoria. Due to the Victoria character's disfigurement, Scaffidi had to wear extensive prosthetic makeup throughout filming parts "1" and "2". "Terrifier" went viral following its Netflix debut and has attracted a cult following, becoming Scaffidi's first role and project to obtain a growing fandom.


title: Samantha Scaffidi

text: Scaffidi is primarily a Manhattan based actress. She has a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration from Salve Regina University and a Certificate in Acting from the William Esper Studio.


title: Parable of the broken window

text: The parable of the broken window was introduced by French economist Frédéric Bastiat in his 1850 essay "That Which We See and That Which We Do Not See" ("") to illustrate why destruction, and the money spent to recover from destruction, is not actually a net benefit to society.


title: Parable of the broken window

text: The parable seeks to show how opportunity costs, as well as the law of unintended consequences, affect economic activity in ways that are unseen or ignored. The belief that destruction is good for the economy is consequently known as the broken window fallacy or glazier's fallacy.


title: Parable of the broken window

text: Suppose it was discovered that the little boy was actually hired by the glazier, and paid a franc for every window he broke. Suddenly the same act would be regarded as theft: the glazier was breaking windows to force people to hire his services. Yet the facts observed by the onlookers remain true: the glazier benefits from the business at the expense of the baker, the tailor, and so on.


title: Parable of the broken window

text: Bastiat argues that society endorses activities that are morally equivalent to the glazier hiring a boy to break windows for him:


title: Parable of the broken window

text: Bastiat is not addressing production – he is addressing the stock of wealth. In other words, Bastiat does not merely look at the immediate but at the longer effects of breaking the window. Bastiat takes into account the consequences of breaking the window for society as a whole, rather than for just one group.


title: Parable of the broken window

text: Austrian theorists cite this fallacy, saying it is a common element of popular thinking. The 20th century American economist Henry Hazlitt devoted a chapter to the fallacy in his book "Economics in One Lesson".


title: Parable of the broken window

text: The broken-window scenario is used as an analogy for destruction by natural disasters. Disasters disrupt economic activity. The economic effects of natural disasters are varied.


title: Parable of the broken window

text: Countries are more likely to have GDP fall after a disaster if they have more unemployment, more poverty, less effective local and national governments and institutions, and weaker economic and diplomatic connections. Countries are more likely to have a GDP boost and recover quickly from a disaster if they retain a skilled workforce and the ability to mobilize resources for reconstruction, including resources from outside the disaster area. On the one hand, prompt recovery has been attributed to prompt insurance and aid payments, with the contrast between Hurricane Andrew and Hurricane Katrina as an anecdotal example. On the other hand, slow recovery has been blamed on predatory behaviour, with those unharmed or less-harmed by the disaster taking advantage of those more harmed.


title: Parable of the broken window

text: Areas that have had repeated disasters tend to invest more in skills and education (possibly because this is preferred to riskier investment in infrastructure, which might be destroyed again), and they tend to have a higher total factor productivity (possibly also because infrastructure destroyed in disasters is replaced with better infrastructure, as, for instance, in the Great Fire of London). These tendencies could in theory lead to longer-term economic benefits (which may cause GDP growth).


title: Parable of the broken window

text: There is some evidence that geological disasters do more economic harm than climate-related disasters, in the long term. Geological disasters, such as landslides and earthquakes, happen with little immediate warning and kill many people. Climate-related disasters, such as hurricanes, are more predictable on a scale of days to hours, and kill fewer people. Such warning saves people, but not immovable property. This suggests that killing people does long-lasting economic harm, while destroying capital is not as harmful to GDP growth.


title: Parable of the broken window

text: "Destroy any amount of physical capital, but leave behind a critical number of knowledgeable human beings whose brains still house the culture and technology of a dynamic economy, and the physical capital will tend to reemerge almost spontaneously" — George Horwich, Purdue University


title: Parable of the broken window

text: Even in disasters with few physical injuries, a large portion of the economic cost may be public health effects (approximately a tenth, in the case of the summer 2007 floods in the UK). The economic costs of disruption to children's education are significant. Mental health issues may be triggered or exacerbated by the distress suffered during the disaster. Health advice on minimizing psychosocial stress has been given for disasters. While public health costs may contribute to economic activity and GDP growth, growth in demand for medical or educational assistance is unlikely to be seen as beneficial.


title: Parable of the broken window

text: Occasionally the argument has been made that war is a benefactor to society and that "war is good for the economy." A variant of this argument suggests that, while war cannot be fairly called a benefactor, it can and sometimes does confer some economic benefits. However, this belief is often given as an example of the broken window fallacy. The money spent on the war effort (or peacetime defense spending), for example, is money that cannot be spent on food, clothing, health care, or other sectors of the economy. The stimulus felt in one sector of the economy comes at a direct – but hidden – cost (via foreclosed production possibilities) to other sectors.


title: Parable of the broken window

text: Bastiat himself argued against the claim that hiring men to be soldiers was inherently beneficial to the economy in the second chapter of "That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen", "The Disbanding of Troops".


title: Boonie hat

text: A boonie hat or booney hat is a type of wide-brim sun hat commonly used by military forces in hot tropical climates. Its design is similar to a bucket hat but with a stiffer brim.


title: Boonie hat

text: The Australian giggle hat has a thinner brim. Often a fabric tape band of "branch loops" is sewn around the crown of the hat. This "foliage ring" is meant to hold additional vegetation as camouflage. A strap provides stability. The crown may be vented with eyelets or small mesh panels. Snaps may also be provided with which to fix the brim in the style of an Australian bush hat.


title: Boonie hat

text: A blue cap with an all around brim was issued as part of the 1937 blue denim fatigue uniform that was nicknamed the "Daisy Mae hat". The M1941 green herringbone twill cloth fatigue uniform featured the same hat. The military caps inspired "Johnny Jeep" hats (or "Johnny Jeepers") which were featured on the cover of the August 24, 1942 issue of "LIFE" magazine and mocked in the accompanying article. The cover features two female models wearing the hats in style, while the article notes that the fashion accessory cost $25 at John-Frederic's (from famous milliner known as Mr. John) and the "Army hat" costs 45¢. Photos of GIs demonstrating various ways to wear the hat are included in the tongue-in-cheek article. Lord & Taylor produced licensed copies for a reduced price; cheap knockoffs ("bootleg imitations") soon followed.


title: Boonie hat

text: The boonie hat was introduced to the United States Armed Forces during the Vietnam War, when U.S. Army Green Berets of the 5th Special Forces Group began wearing them in the field, along with Australian and Army of the Republic of Vietnam units. These leopard spot or tigerstripe boonie hats were locally procured, and the camouflage cloth was usually salvaged from other uniform items, parachutes, or fabricated by a tailor. The name is derived from "boonie", the abbreviated form of boondocks (itself originally American military slang derived from Tagalog "bundok", "mountain", during the Philippine–American War). The hat was similar to the hat worn with the pattern 1941 HBT fatigue uniform.


title: Boonie hat

text: In 1967, the U.S. Army began issuing boonie hats, as the "Hat, Jungle, with Insect Net", made of cotton and wind-resistant poplin, in olive drab, tigerstripe, and ERDL pattern. It was meant to supplement and replace the patrol and baseball caps that had been in service since World War II. As the U.S. military evolved away from a garrison mentality, the boonie hat found a permanent place as part of the uniform of all services. The boonie hat has changed little through the decades since the Vietnam War and was used in the Iraq War and still in the War in Afghanistan as an alternative to the patrol cap. The U.S. military boonie hat has come in a variety of camouflage patterns; the current assortment includes Woodland, three-color desert, UCP, MultiCam, and both desert and woodland versions of MARPAT, as well as the Air Force ABU pattern. The boonie hat is often worn with the wearer's rank insignia pinned or sewn to the front, above the branch loops.


title: Boonie hat

text: In 1968 the U.S. Army authorized use of the woodland ERDL pattern (Engineering Research Development Laboratory) material, used in the 1969 and later production of hats in cotton ripstop material. These were labeled, "Hat, Camouflage (Tropical Combat) Type II" with contract dates starting in 1968. They were in use from 1968 for both the Army and Air Force, and from 1969-70 for the Marine Corps and Navy.


title: Boonie hat

text: Later boonies are called "Hat, Sun" or "Hat, Sun, Hot Weather", which is still the designation for this type of cover. They are made in various patterns, in cotton ripstop or nylon blend cloth.


title: Boonie hat

text: Similar wide-brimmed hats in the Australian Army are known as giggle hats although today most Australian soldiers refer to them as bush hats, unlike in past where a slouch hat with the brim down was referred to as a bush hat. Along with slouch hats, giggle hats were issued as the standard uniform of Australian troops fighting in the South West Pacific theatre, during the Second World War. The design apparently originated from an earlier British uniform intended for fighting in hot and humid conditions. They were nicknamed "giggle hats" (as well as "hat ridiculous-for-the-use-of") by the Australian troops due to their appearance.


title: Boonie hat

text: The giggle hat gained popularity during the Malayan Emergency. Protection from the searing heat of Malayan conditions and heavy rain proved to be necessary. Alongside the British, the Australian Army started issuing this type of hat, which had a steeper and shorter brim than its earlier counterparts. It was made with the same materials as the hot weather combat uniforms, unlike the slouch hat, which was beginning to take on a more ceremonial role rather than being field gear.


title: Boonie hat

text: These hats gained popularity during the Vietnam War, where they were called 'hats utility, jungle green', although they were colloquially known by Australians as giggle hats. Their New Zealand counterparts referred to them as "J hats." During this conflict, most Australian soldiers were issued the hat. The army created several regulations: the hat was not allowed to be modified or cut whatsoever, and it had to be worn when outdoors at all times. The hat had also served to break up the recognizable outline of the soldier's head. It was made with cotton twill, and was issued in olive drab, the standard colour of Australian combat uniforms at the time.


title: Boonie hat

text: Current giggle hats are issued in Auscam and Desert Auscam. They continue to be heavily used by the Australian Defence Force, and are issued to nearly every person serving in the ADF.


title: Classes of computers

text: Computers can be classified, or typed, in many ways. Some common classifications of computers are given below.


title: Classes of computers

text: Microcomputers became the most common type of computer in the late 20th century. The term “microcomputer” was introduced with the advent of systems based on single-chip microprocessors. The best-known early system was the Altair 8800, introduced in 1975. The term "microcomputer" has practically become an anachronism as it has fallen into disuse.


title: Classes of computers

text: Minicomputers (colloquially, minis) are a class of multi-user computers that lie in the middle range of the computing spectrum, in between the smallest mainframe computers and the largest single-user systems (microcomputers or personal computers). The term supermini computer or simply supermini was used to distinguish more powerful minicomputers that approached mainframes in capability. Superminis (such as the DEC VAX or Data General Eclipse MV/8000) were usually 32-bit at a time when most minicomputers (such as the PDP-11 or Data General Eclipse or IBM Series/1) were 16-bit. These traditional minicomputers in the last few decades of the 20th century, found in small to medium-sized businesses, laboratories and embedded in (for example) hospital CAT scanners, often would be rack-mounted and connect to one or more terminals or tape/card readers, like mainframes and unlike most personal computers, but require less space and electrical power than a typical mainframe. This term has fallen into disuse.


title: Classes of computers

text: The term mainframe computer was created to distinguish the traditional, large, institutional computer intended to service multiple users from the smaller, single-user machines. These computers are capable of handling and processing very large amounts of data quickly. Mainframe computers are used in large institutions such as government, banks, and large corporations.


title: Classes of computers

text: They are measured in MIPS (million instructions per second) and can respond to hundreds of millions of users at a time.


title: Classes of computers

text: A supercomputer is focused on performing tasks involving intense numerical calculations such as weather forecasting, fluid dynamics, nuclear simulations, theoretical astrophysics, and complex scientific computations. A supercomputer is a computer that is at the front-line of current processing capacity, particularly speed of calculation. The term supercomputer itself is rather fluid, and the speed of today's supercomputers tends to become typical of tomorrow's ordinary computer. Supercomputer processing speeds are measured in floating-point operations per second, or FLOPS. An example of a floating-point operation is the calculation of mathematical equations in real numbers. In terms of computational capability, memory size and speed, I/O technology, and topological issues such as bandwidth and latency, supercomputers are the most powerful, are very expensive, and not cost-effective just to perform batch or transaction processing. These computers were developed in 1970s and are the fastest and the highest capacity computers


title: Classes of computers

text: Server usually refers to a computer that is dedicated to providing one or more services. A server is expected to be reliable (e.g. error-correction of RAM; redundant cooling; self-monitoring, RAID), fit for running for several years, and giving useful diagnosis in case of an error. For even increased security, the server may be mirrored. Many smaller servers are actually personal computers that have been dedicated to provide services for other computers.


title: Classes of computers

text: A server may run several virtual machines (VMs) for different activities, supplying the same environment to each VM as if it ran on dedicated hardware. Different operating systems (OS) can therefore be run at the same time. This technology approach needs special hardware support to be useful and was first the domain of mainframes and other large computers. Nowadays, most personal computers are equipped for this task, but for long-term operation or critical systems, specialized server hardware may be needed.


title: Classes of computers

text: Another approach is to implement VMs on the operating system level, so all VMs run on the same OS instance (or incarnation), but are fundamentally separated to not interfere with each other.


title: Classes of computers

text: Workstations are computers that are intended to serve one user and may contain special hardware enhancements not found on a personal computer. By the mid 1990s personal computers reached the processing capabilities of mini computers and workstations. Also, with the release of multi-tasking systems such as OS/2, Windows NT and Linux, the operating systems of personal computers could do the job of this class of machines. Today, the term is used to describe desktop PCs with high-performance hardware. Such hardware is usually aimed at a professional, rather than enthusiast, market (e.g. dual-processor motherboards, error-correcting memory, professional graphics cards).


title: Classes of computers

text: Information appliances are computers specially designed to perform a specific "user-friendly" function—such as editing text, playing music, photography, videography etc. The term is most commonly applied to battery-operated mobile devices, though there are also wearable devices.


title: Classes of computers

text: Embedded computers are computers that are a part of a machine or device. Embedded computers generally execute a program that is stored in non-volatile memory and is only intended to operate a specific machine or device. Embedded computers are very common. The majority are microcontrollers. Embedded computers are typically required to operate continuously without being reset or rebooted, and once employed in their task the software usually cannot be modified. An automobile may contain a number of embedded computers; however, a washing machine or DVD player would contain only one microcontroller. Embedded computers are chosen to meet the requirements of the specific application, and most are slower and cheaper than CPUs found in a personal computer.


title: Classes of computers

text: Public computers are open for public uses, possibly as an Interactive kiosk. There are many places where one can use them, such as cybercafes, schools and libraries.


title: Classes of computers

text: They are normally fire-walled and restricted to run only their pre-installed software. The operating system is difficult to change and/or resides on a file server. For example, "thin client" machines in educational establishments may be reset to their original state between classes. Public computers are generally not expected to keep an individual's data files.


title: Classes of computers

text: A personal computer has one user who may also be the owner (although the term has also come also mean any computer hardware somewhat like the original IBM PC, irrespective of how it is used). This user often may use all hardware resources, has complete access to any part of the computer and has rights to install/remove software. Personal computers normally store personal files, and often the owner/user is responsible for routine maintenance such as removing unwanted files and virus-scanning. Some computers in a business setting are for one user but are also served by staff with protocols to ensure proper maintenance.


title: Classes of computers

text: These are computers where different people might log on at different times; unlike public computers, they would have usernames and passwords assigned on a long-term basis, with the files they see and the computer's settings adjusted to their particular account. Often the important data files will reside on a central file server, so a person could log onto different computers yet still see the same files. The computer (or workstation) might be a "thin client" or X terminal, otherwise it may have its own disk for some or all system files, but usually will need to be networked to the rest of the system for full functionality. Such systems normally require a system administrator to set up and maintain the hardware and software.


title: Classes of computers

text: Computers that are used just to display selected material (usually audio-visual, or simple slide shows) in a shop, meeting or trade show. These computers may have more capabilities than they are being used for; they are likely to have WiFi and so be capable of Internet access, but are rarely firewalled (but have restricted port access or monitored in some way). Such computers are used and maintained as appliances, and not normally used as the primary store for important files.


title: Classes of computers

text: The history of computing hardware is often used to reference the different generations of computing devices:


title: Need for Speed: Undercover

text: Need for Speed: Undercover is a 2008 racing video game, and is the twelfth installment in the "Need for Speed" series. Developed by EA Black Box and published by Electronic Arts, it was released on November 18, 2008, for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS, and a number of mobile phone platforms. An edition of the game for iOS was later released on April 27, 2009. The game sees players conducting illegal street races within the fictional Tri-City Area, with the main mode's story focused on the player operating as an undercover police officer to investigate links between a criminal syndicate, stolen cars, and street racers.


title: Need for Speed: Undercover

text: Gameplay operates on the same manner as previous entries such as "" and "", now including a larger selection of licensed real-world cars, and RPG-styled system in the game's main story mode. Upon its release, the game received mixed reviews, many of which criticized the game's difficulty setting and repetitive elements, with some editions receiving lower scores due to severe issues. It was later succeeded by "" in 2009, and "" in 2010.


title: Need for Speed: Undercover

text: In the game, players take part in illegal street races that focus on different styles of races, utilizing a variety of licensed real-world cars (available at the time of the game's development and release) that can be upgraded and customized with new parts, while contending with the involvement of the police in their efforts to impede the player. Racing events featured in the game include the series' standard of circuit, point-to-point, and checkpoint races, alongside the return of Police Pursuit events featured in "Most Wanted" and "Carbon". In addition, "Undercover" includes new events such as "Outrun" - players must overtake a rival and stay ahead of them for a period of time - and "Highway Battle" - similar to "Carbon"s "Duel" and "Underground 2"s "Outrun" event, players attempt to stay ahead of a rival on a highway, battling against both them and local traffic, winning instantly if they pull far ahead and losing for the exact opposite - with its game modes consisting of Career, Single Event, and Multiplayer; both the PlayStation 2 and Wii editions also feature a fourth mode, Challenge Series, which operates similar in function as in "Most Wanted" and "Carbon".


title: Need for Speed: Undercover

text: In Career mode, players take on the role of an undercover police officer seeking to break up a syndicate operating within the underground street race world. Like "Most Wanted", players achieve this by completing both Racing Events and Pursuit events - the majority of events in this mode include the opportunity to "dominate" them by completing them faster than a specified time record for domination. In "Undercover", progress in the story involves completing events that not only earn money, but also experience (or Wheelman Rep) and a special performance bonus - these bonuses either improve the player's driving abilities with all cars or provide other bonuses to the player's playthrough (i.e. an increase in race earnings). Earning enough experience levels up the player's Wheelman level, unlocking a larger performance bonus, new cars and upgrade parts, as well additional events including Jobs - special story-based missions in which the player must complete a specific task such as taking down a criminal's car. Police pursuits in this mode function like in previous editions, though the player's Wheelman level directly impacts how aggressive the police are when in pursuit of the player; the higher the level, the more tactics and vehicle types used in the pursuit.


title: Need for Speed: Undercover

text: Players can freely select any event from the game's map, or by using a hotkey to move on to a highlighted event after completing their current one, and are able to replay previous events but only for a reduced amount of cash. The game features a wide variety of licensed real-world cars which are divided into three tiers of performance and four classes - Exotic, Tuner, Muscle, and Sport. Players begin Career mode with a limited selection of cars to use and purchase, but unlock more as they level up and can earn additional cars by defeating criminals in the story. Cars, upgrades and customisation can now be done by visiting the player's safehouse, rather than separate stores, with fine-tuning of a car's performance also conducted in this manner. For the Nintendo DS, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, and Wii editions of the game, players can also use police vehicles but only upon unlocking them during the main mode. Cars receive only cosmetic damage during the game, except in Highway Battles and Job events, where it is possible to "total" a car in these event, the latter per specific parameters assigned to the Job the player is undertaking.


title: Need for Speed: Undercover

text: Multiplayer mode varies across the platforms the game was launched on - online multiplayer is possible on Windows, PlayStation 3 , Xbox 360 and DS editions; PlayStation 2 and Wii editions feature split-screen multiplayer, while mobile phone platforms do not include the game mode. For online multiplayer, events consist of multiplayer versions of Sprint racing and Highway Battle, along with a team-based event entitled "Cops and Robbers" - two teams of players compete against each other to score points across two rounds; in the first round, the "Robbers" collect flags and deliver them to specified areas to score points, while the "Cops" attempt to arrest them to earn points, whereupon in the second round, the teams switch roles, with the team with the highest score winning the match. While the PlayStation 2 and Wii features Cops and Robbers in its multiplayer mode, albeit with fewer players allowed, they also feature two exclusive events - "Lap Knockout", in which players compete across a circuit, with the last player at the end of a lap being knocked out and the winner being the remaining player at the end; and "Timed Circuit", in which players compete across a circuit over a predetermined length of laps and time, with the player in first place at the end winning the event.


title: Need for Speed: Undercover

text: The game's story and events take place in the fictional region of the Tri-City Bay, mainly during the daytime between sunrise and sunset. The region consists of four boroughs - Palm Harbor, a downtown city district; Port Crescent, an industrial port that also houses a naval base; Gold Coast Mountains, a mountainous region of observatories and wind farms; and Sunset Hills, a suburban town with rural farms - with each borough linked to the other by a series of highways. The region's design was heavily influenced by the real-life city of Miami, alongside locations visited by the development team across the Gulf Coast and California Coast, with the setting's open world map consisting of around of road.


title: Need for Speed: Undercover

text: In the Nintendo DS edition, the boroughs are named Metropolis, North Port Crescent, South Port Crescent and Riverton, while in the Wii and PlayStation 2 editions, the game's setting takes place within a carbon-copy of two boroughs taken from "Most Wanted"s setting leaving Beach borough.


title: Need for Speed: Undercover

text: The player, an undercover police officer for the Tri-City Bay Police Department (TCBPD), is called in to Palm Harbor police station by their superior Lt. Jack Keller (Paul Pape). The player is informed that their current investigation into the region's underground street racing world is to be joined by Inspector Chase Linh (Maggie Q), a federal agent of the FBI, who wants to bring down an international criminal syndicate operating in the region that is involved in smuggling stolen cars. The player is instructed to pose as a new street racer and join in on major illegal street races, along with gaining infamy with the TCBPD, in order to secure entry into the syndicate. The player achieves this by being recruited into a gang that works with the syndicate, run by Hector Maio (Kurt Caceres) and his brother Zack (Joshua Alba). At the same time, they befriend Carmen Mendez (Christina Milian), a member of the gang. The brothers quickly assign the player to steal cars for them during their racing activities. Upon completing the jobs, Chase instructs the player to arrest the gang, including the brothers.


title: Need for Speed: Undercover

text: With Hector's gang out of action, the player is sent to Sunset Hills in order to get recruited by a crew operated by Gregory "GMAC" McDonald (David Rees Snell) - a former TCBPD police officer - Rose Largo (Heather Fox) - an honor student who turned to crime - and Freddy "Nickel" Rogers (Lawrence B. Adisa) - a former boxer. Whilst conducting races along with jobs for the crew, the player is instructed by GMAC to steal a car from Chau Wu (Jack Yang), the leader of the syndicate the player is investigating. When the player finds themselves confronted by Chau, he offers to overlook the theft in exchange for the player's help in recovering a car he lost that he needs back, believing it was stolen by GMAC's crew; a meeting with Carmen suggests the theft was likely committed by someone else. Eventually, the player is instructed to arrest GMAC and his crew, though is unable to locate the stolen car in their possession.


title: Need for Speed: Undercover

text: Shortly after arresting GMAC's crew, Carmen contacts the players and requests a meeting. Upon reaching her, she reveals that Zack and Hector unknowingly stole the missing car from Chau, and asks them to get rid of it for her. Chau quickly contacts the player the moment they take possession, and receive instructions to deliver it to a warehouse, learning that he knows them to be a police officer and that they have kidnapped Chase to coerce compliance from them. Upon delivering the car, Chase reveals herself to be a corrupt federal agent, who was working with Chau to recover the car as it possessed vital evidence of his activities and a sizeable quantity of cash. Before Chau can dispose of the player, Chase betrays him, murdering him and his henchman, before framing the player for their murder while escaping with the money and evidence.


title: Need for Speed: Undercover

text: The player is forced to flee from the TCBPD upon being wanted for the killings, but finds support from Keller. On his instructions, they proceed to take down Chase before she can flee the region, as it is the only way to clear their name. After successfully arresting Chase, Keller commends the player for their hard work at recovering the evidence and managing to not forget themselves during their undercover work, informing them that Carmen made a plea bargain with him in exchange for her testimony against the arrested crews. Some time later, the player meets with Carmen to give them a ride to the local university where she is studying as a med student.


title: Need for Speed: Undercover

text: Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello stated that the previous release in the series ("ProStreet") was only "an okay game...[and was] not good" and that "Undercover" would "be a much better game". He stated "Undercover" would have a considerably longer development cycle than its predecessors because the "Need for Speed" development team had been split up into two teams, both of which would work on a "two-year" development cycle with future titles, alternating releases between them. Riccitiello stated he was "torturing" the development team with a tight development cycle in the past. "When this change was implemented in mid-summer 2007, one team started working on "Undercover" (giving it only a 16.5 month development cycle), while the other team (that finished "ProStreet") would start working on the next title." Riccitiello also stated "Undercover" took inspiration from action films such as "The Transporter", with a large embedded narrative.


title: Need for Speed: Undercover

text: Frank Gibeau, President of the EA Games label, stated during development that due to the fact that the sales of "ProStreet" didn't live up to EA's hopes for the game, the "Need for Speed" franchise would go back to its roots (although "Undercover" was already being developed before "ProStreet"). "John Doyle (Developer at EA Black Box) said that "Undercover" would feature a brand new game mechanic and a "'"-ish' sandbox style of gameplay." The game was also provided with an all new damage system. Andy Blackmore (Senior Vehicle Concept Artist at EA) explained how one of the Porsche cars that was "conceptualized" in the game was then brought to life for the game from a brief description to being approved by Porsche.


title: Need for Speed: Undercover

text: A few days before "Undercover"s release, EA revealed a few plot details. A video was uploaded that showed the player evading capture from the Tri-City Police Department (TCPD).


title: Need for Speed: Undercover

text: Reception of "Undercover" was mixed. There were complaints about the game's easy difficulty, repetitiveness, and poor texture maintenance. The "IGN" review went as far as recommending the game's rivals such as Rockstar Games' "" and EA's own "Burnout Paradise".


title: Need for Speed: Undercover

text: The IGN review was critical of the PS3 version of "Undercover" giving it a 4/10, calling it a "poor game with a ton of problems" and with "practically no redeeming qualities". "IGN" also commented on how the reason for having an open world environment was lost because a player could only start an event from the map. However, the Xbox 360 and the PC versions received a higher score in contrast to the PS3 version in the "IGN" review, due to the fewer severe problems that occurred.


title: Need for Speed: Undercover

text: The 1UP.com review called the game only "fairly successful," but praised the games selection of cars and tighter handling on the vehicles. However, the "leveling" system that unlocks cars and upgrades was criticized for resembling "grinding". In general, sparse traffic, wide-open roads, and poor AI led to complaints about extremely low difficulty, however, one reviewer commented on how this may have been a marketing ploy to target a wider audience.


title: Need for Speed: Undercover

text: The reception to the live-action cutscenes was almost universally negative, with many critics noting that the videos were poorly acted and lacked purpose. Some compared the cutscenes to a Michael Bay or Roland Emmerich film. The lack of connection between the crime fighting undercover cop story and the racing game play was particularly criticized by "IGN" who said, "You ... run missions where you steal cars, make 'special' deliveries and things like this now and again, but you never actually see any sequences that show how the cops are putting the evidence together or anything of that sort. Chase Linh will tell you [what] you need to do to get on the inside of a racing group in order to get dirt on them, and then after a race she'll say 'We have enough, let's move in.' [But you're left asking: How did that help at all?]" Finally, the in-game frame rate received little praise, and "GameSpot" particularly criticized the PS3 version for this problem resulting in a lower score on the platform compared to the Xbox 360 and PC versions.


title: Axar Patel

text: Axar Rajeshbhai Patel, also spelled as Akshar Patel, (born 20 January 1994) is an Indian international cricketer who plays for the Indian cricket team in all formats of the game as a bowling All-rounder. He also plays for Gujarat in domestic cricket and for the Delhi Capitals in the Indian Premier League. He is a left-handed batter and slow left-arm orthodox bowler. He made his ODI debut on 15 June 2014 against Bangladesh. He was selected in India's 15-man squad for the 2015 Cricket World Cup held in Australia and New Zealand. He made his Test debut for India against England on 13 February 2021, where he took 7 wickets. He became the ninth bowler for India to take a five-wicket haul on debut in Test cricket. On 21 November, 2021, against New Zealand, he took his T20I career-best figures-3/9 (3) and was awarded the Man of the Match award.


title: Axar Patel

text: In his second first-class match, against Delhi in November 2013, Patel took 6 for 55 in the first innings. This was his first five-wicket haul.


title: Axar Patel

text: Patel played just one first-class game in his debut season for Gujarat, but had a more successful showing in 2013. Slotted primarily as a bowling allrounder, the left-arm spinner got his first IPL contract with Mumbai Indians ahead of IPL 2013, although he was on the bench for the entire season.


title: Axar Patel

text: He was one of the key contributors to India Under-23s' title win in the 2013 ACC Emerging Teams Cup, with seven wickets, including a four-for in the semi-final against UAE.


title: Axar Patel

text: He was one of the consistent performers for Gujarat in the 2013/14 Ranji Trophy, finishing the season with 369 runs at an average of 46.12 and 29 wickets at 23.58. In early 2014, he was named the BCCI Under-19 cricketer of the year for the 2012/13 season.


title: Axar Patel

text: In August 2019, he was named in the India Red team's squad for the 2019–20 Duleep Trophy. In October 2019, he was named in India C's squad for the 2019–20 Deodhar Trophy.


title: Axar Patel

text: Patel was signed up by the IPL franchise Mumbai Indians in 2013 but did not get a chance to play until he was released. He was then picked up by Kings XI Punjab in 2014 and had an impressive season with 17 wickets. He was retained by the Kings XI Punjab for the 2015 IPL season. Batting lower down the order, he scored 206 runs for the Kings XI Punjab in 2015 in addition to taking 13 wickets. On 1 May 2016, during a match against the Gujarat Lions, he took four wickets in five balls, including the first (and only) hat-trick of the 2016 IPL season, to pave the way for Kings XI Punjab's 23-run win against table-toppers Gujarat Lions in Rajkot. He was retained by Kings XI Punjab for the 2018 season.


title: Axar Patel

text: Axar Patel became the 9th Indian player to take a five-wicket haul on Test debut and only the second left-arm spinner after Dilip Doshi to take a five-for in his debut Test.


title: Axar Patel

text: In December 2018, he was signed up by the Delhi Capitals in the player auction for the 2019 Indian Premier League. He was retained by Delhi capitals for the 2021 season.


title: Axar Patel

text: After excellent performance in the 2014 IPL, Patel was rewarded with a place in the Indian ODI squad for the tour to Bangladesh and made his ODI debut in the first match of series at Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium and took 1/59 runs. He was part of India's 15-man squad for the 2015 Cricket World Cup.


title: Axar Patel

text: He made his Twenty20 International debut for India against Zimbabwe on 17 July 2015. He was named as a stand-by player for India's squad for the 2019 Cricket World Cup.