If you haven’t heard of SOPA and PIPA, you’ve been living under a technological rock for the last few months. SOPA and PIPA are the bills sitting before congress that supposed to give authorities a stronger ability to enforce online piracy. While it sounds like a reasonable proposal, some parts of the bills could spell an effective “death penalty” for many websites. For this reason, many major technological companies, including Google, Wikipedia, and others, have voiced strong opposition to the bills.
On Saturday, these companies got a major win.
The White House officially responded to concerns, as seen in this press release. In effect, the White House sided with those opposed to the bills, stating:
“Any effort to combat online piracy must guard against the risk of online censorship of lawful activity and must not inhibit innovation by our dynamic businesses large and small.”
This is a win for everybody.
If allowed to pass in its original form, we could see sites like YouTube, Flikr, Facebook, and ChurchMag shut down completely. Even your personal website could be at risk!
If you have a single image on your website that isn’t properly credited or under proper licensing, you could have seen the site blocked from all ISP’s in the United States. While most of us try to obey the law as best we can, it can sometimes be difficult to avoid minor infractions on websites when dozens or even hundreds of photos are used.
Whoa.
SOPA and PIPA are like combatting shoplifting by breaking shopping carts so that they can’t be used to store things before they’re shoplifted. Turns out, that means they can’t store stuff before it’s bought either. Like Obama or not, this is the right call on this piece of legislation.
Paul
Spot on.
Hey while we’re at it, let’s outlaw wheels since crooks use them on get-away cars.