SOPA is the Stop Online Piracy Act.
It sounds good, doesn’t it?
A classic technique used by governments and political organizations to pass horrible laws. It reminds me of the United Nations Religious Anti-Defamation Act. It sounds good. Who wouldn’t support a law that stopped the defamation of religion, right? In actuality, it made it legal to end proselytizing of religious and make it legal to murder Muslims who convert away from Islam in Islamic dominated Middle Eastern countries.
So goes SOPA.
It’s a piece of candy laced with poison.
Who wouldn’t be in support of stopping online piracy, right?
Read the fine print:
[tentblogger-vimeo 31100268]
Don’t skip the video.
I thought about writing all of this, but the video does such a slam-dunk job of explaining SOPA, there’s no reason to bore you with regurgitated technical drivel.
If you still think SOPA is a good idea, let me ask:
Don’t you think we’ve given the entertainment industry enough power already?
We the people. The people of the world. We need to keep our voice.
From fine arts to public opinion, the Internet as we know it will be eroded away one domain at a time.
Google’s copyright counsel Katerine Oyama said it best,
“We see copyright use all the time as an excuse to quell speech. If we mandate this type of approach here we really need to think carefully about what types of ramifications that will have on free expression globally.”
Of course, the real criminals. The real bootleggers. They still go about doing what they do. They’re already breaking laws, this isn’t going to slow them down for long.
This will, however, hurt the honest user. The atypical Internet users.
SOPA is a devious ploy by big businesses (pharmaceuticals, Hollywood, record companies, etc … ) to strong arm through legislation an undercurrent of new ideas and business’ that threatens to undermine the established way of doing things.
When Amazon threatens long established brick and mortars, pharmaceutics may not be far behind.
When a one minute YouTube video can garner millions of views in 24 hours, the entertainment industry gets nervous.
This is their retaliation.
This is SOPA.
[Image via A List Apart]
Dustin W. Stout says
I’m so frustrated by this. I will be passing this along. If this goes through, I’m moving to Canada!
Eric Dye says
That might not be a good idea, either: https://churchm.ag/metered-internet-usage/
ThatGuyKC says
Thank you for sharing this. I’ve signed the petition and shared on Twitter and Facebook. Not cool.
This would be something worth “occupying” for.
Eric Dye says
True story.
Tom McFarlin says
http://americancensorship.org/ <~~~
Eric Dye says
Excellent linkage.
Ben Miller says
SOPA is also known as HR 3261. You can make your voice heard at POPVOX:
http://www.popvox.com/bills/us/112/hr3261
Eric Dye says
Dude. Thanks.
Phil Schneider says
Not to sound too much like a conspiracy theorist, but this is just further proof that “we the people” don’t run this country anymore.
Eric Dye says
Ha! True.
Paul Clifford says
I agree. I got this from my one of my representatives and put it on my blog here: http://www.trinitydigitalmedia.com/2011/12/06/i-want-to-protect-copyright-but-not-break-the-internet/
I really hope this doesn’t go through, if it does, I’m claiming that all the record, movie industry sites, and politicians who voted for it violated my copyright (since just an accusation is enough to take their sites off-line.
Paul
Eric Dye says
Exactly.
Phil Schneider says
Per an e-mail I received from http://fightforthefuture.org, it looks like SOPA will head to a vote this week.
Eric Dye says
Thanks for the heads up, man!