And I don’t feel fine. Fine is very far from where I am, in fact. Why is that you ask? Well, it all has to do with legislation currently working its way through Washington called the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate. Together they could completely destroy the Internet as we know it.
I realize that this sounds like hyperbole, especially considering how in our polarized political environment every new piece of legislation or government action is met with a Chicken Little chorus heralding it as one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. To call this “catastrophe fatigue” would be an understatement so I get it if you’re sitting there right now, rolling your eyes, and thinking, “blah blah blah, the world is going to end and we’re all going to die, blah blah blah.”
But seriously, SOPA and PIPA are some seriously screwed up pieces of legislation that will have a profoundly negative impact on the Internet. If you’re not familiar with either piece of legislation, please check out the following links for analysis and FAQs:
CNET.com: How SOPA Would Affect You: FAQ
New York Times Op-Ed: Stop the Great Firewall of America
Stanford Law Review: Don’t Break the Internet
Google
In a nutshell, SOPA and PIPA would allow the government to create a list of sites that are suspected or accused of copyright infringement that are to be blocked by Internet service providers, search engines, ad networks, social media sites, credit card processors, and payment services. This would all be done without so much as a court hearing or a trial. Furthermore, any copyright holder would be allowed to sue any website for hosting any content that infringes on a copyright – whether knowingly or not and for however briefly said content is hosted. As Rebecca MacKinnon says in the New York Times Op-Ed that is linked above, this would make “companies liable for users’ actions. The burden would be on the Web site operator to prove that the site was not being used for copyright infringement. The effect on user-generated sites like YouTube would be chilling.”
Stopping online piracy is a noble and completely necessary goal. There are some who believe that everything on the Internet should be free, but the bottom line is that nothing is free. If you want musicians to write good music, then you need to compensate them for their time and their talent. The same goes for filmmakers, writers, game developers, and every other creative endeavor. Artists should be compensated and protected, but, a reasonable amount of sharing is to be expected and should be encouraged. After all, I discovered Pulp Fiction when a friend loaned me the VHS tape back in 1995 and I now own the special edition DVD. However, using SOPA/PIPA to combat online piracy is like trying to cure cancer with a sledge hammer or perform open heart surgery with a chain saw.
Just imagine what SOPA and PIPA could do to a service like Dropbox, which in my humble opinion is is one of the most useful applications available today. I remember having to email work-related documents to myself in order to work on them at home. Then along came thumb drives which made taking work home a little easier, until you lost the thumb drive, had it crash, or ran it through the washer. Dropbox changed all of this. Now if I want to work on something at home, I just open Dropbox and there it is. Yet in a post-SOPA/PIPA world, services like Dropbox could be blocked if accused of violating a copyright. This means that the simple act of someone putting a few copyrighted songs on Dropbox to share with a friend could potentially ruin it for the rest of us.
Now think about your favorite website or web service and imagine how SOPA/PIPA could affect and or ruin it. What happens when someone posts a clip of their favorite movie on Facebook or a link to an interesting article or great song on Reddit? Or worse, what happens when someone posts a link to a copyrighted picture in the comments section of your company’s website?
I hope you no longer think that I’m exaggerating. I also hope that you’re thinking, “my good lord man, we must do something about this,” and if you are, then awesome. The first thing you can do is contact your representatives in Congress and let them know where you stand on SOPA/PIPA. If you’re not sure who your representatives are, then check here:
http://whoismyrepresentative.com/
Another thing you can do is spread the word. Tell everyone you know who enjoys the Internet what this legislation would do. If you work for a company that does business on the Internet or uses the Internet for marketing, then ask your boss what the plan is with regards to SOPA/PIPA. If you work for a company that employs a lobbyist, then convince your company leadership that that lobbyist needs to be lobbying against SOPA/PIPA.
Blog about it, Tweet it, Facebook it, go tell it on a mountain (an old communication practice that might come back into fashion if SOPA/PIPA become law), just spread the word. If you really want to get funky with the fight you can download Boycott SOPA, an Android app that scans barcodes and tells you whether the object’s manufacturer or publisher supports the act.
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/112579-boycott-sopa-an-android-app-that-terrifies-publishers-and-politicians
This country is still a democracy and if we, the people don’t want certain bills to become law, then we can stop it.
-Dan Phenicie
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