Before you regard this post as spam or just another one of “those” sort of messages please take the time to read it and really educate yourself on what’s about to happen in our government. I’ve never once written a chain post nor have I really passed them on and I probably will never again but I am so passionate about the SOPA and what it will do to our basic freedoms that I’m breaking down and doing it. So again please take the time to read this giant wall of text and all the articles linked in their entirety before moving on.
I love you.
This article really hits home and highlights many of the issues surrounding the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act.
Here’s a short quote that really highlights the ignorance in our government.
If you’re lazy and don’t want to click a link I’ve included the article at the end of this post.
We need to spread the word! Contact your representative and let your voice be heard!
If both the SOPA and NDAA pass heres a small scenario that very well could be in our future:
Remember we have to educate ourselves about what our government is doing otherwise we could lose the basic liberties that makes this America.
Please pass this message on to everyone you know or that would care or could even be affected by this outrage.
The Forbes Article, for those too lazy to click the link :)
Hi, my name is Paul, and I’m a small business owner. But my storefront isn’t quite of the traditional variety. Rather, it’s a virtual one, a website I built from scratch, and currently own and operate.
While I enjoy my time freelancing here at Forbes, it’s not how I make most of my money. Rather, my main source of income is from this personal site, Unreality. It’s a movie/tv/video game site that I started with a partner about three years ago. Since then, it’s grown to averaging between 2.8 and 3.2 million page views a month. Not a giant, but not bad for two people, and with ad revenue, it’s enough to live on.
But that might not be the case if the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) passes. My virtual small business, along with many others like it, might be history.
Why is this? Am I a pirate, who feeds my users stolen content every day and deserves to be slain by a new law like this? Not at all, and this is the fundamental problem with SOPA and other prospective laws like it (Protect IP most recently).
The goal of the entertainment industry to stop piracy is understandable. It’s hard to make a coherent case that you should be able to download a full movie or album completely for free, without giving a cent to anyone involved. But in trying to solve this singular issue, the entertainment lobby has opened up a can of worms that threatens the entire internet, and more specifically, my livelihood.
The “actual” piracy portions of the bill are debatable in their own right, namely that the government can simply block known rogue foreign sites like The Pirate Bay from American’s eyes. Though these are the most obvious infringers, it still reeks of Chinese and Iranian internet policies that allow the government to simply censor the internet the way they see fit, and the crux of the bill seems wholly unconstitutional.
But rather where we get into even more trouble is when you look at the details of SOPA, and how it might affect someone like me. Their definition of what piracy is ends up including most of the internet, including my own site, and the punishments for even minor infringements could be catastrophic and run me out of business completely.
The fine print of the law says sites that distribute copyrighted content could be subject to summary censorship, ie Torrent sites and the like. But it also encompasses any sites that LINK to copyrighted content, which is the bomb that blows up any semblance of sense this bill might have had.
My site likes to find the best media-related content on the internet. We post photos, artwork and embed YouTube videos that involve things about our favorite movies, shows and games. I always give credit where it’s due, but on occasion, a photographer or artist cannot be located. Under SOPA, should they find their content on my site, they would legally have the right to petition my advertisers to stop paying me, or report me to the government. The same goes for YouTube videos I might feature. Though the content is not mine, as I haven’t uploaded it to the web myself, I am indeed linking to it, and with this new law, I would be subject to the same sort of harsh penalties should the content within be something copyrighted like footage from a game or movie. I am willingly linking to “infringing” content, and under SOPA, can be branded a “rogue site” because of that. Such a classification could cause me to lose everything.
So how many of these reports would it take before I lose my advertisers? Get my site on a government blacklist? Twenty? A dozen? Five? As an owner of a YouTube channel and Facebook page, I’ve had content falsely reported for copyright many times. With one click of a button, anyone can say I’ve broken copyright, and rather than actually deal with the truth of it, often these sites are simply automated to delete the content without warning or further review.
This happens on a larger scale as well. Universal recently got YouTube to take down a video made by MegaUpload, which featured a number of recording artists who got together to assemble a song supporting the site, which Universal has previously gone after. Despite owning ALL the rights to the song, all Universal had to do was complain and without question, the song was banished. Under SOPA, this could potentially happen to entire websites.
Watching the House debate this bill yesterday was beyond pathetic. These representatives, if they deserve to be called that, have no idea the amount of power they’re giving the entertainment industry. Or maybe they do, as most of their pockets are lined with donations from media behemoths, and have been for years in the hopes that someday, they might pass a law like this.
Those opposed to the bill were the only voices of reason in the room. I remember a line in particular that said, “We’re operating on the internet without any doctors or nurses on the room,” which illustrated how practically every tech giant and pioneer on the web has opposed this draconian bill, as guess what, Google and Blogger and Bing and Reddit by definition, all link to copyrighted content, and would be subject to this new law.
Those in support of SOPA? One representative wanted to pass the bill because she was getting bored. Others openly admitted to not knowing how to use the internet. The consensus among them was merely “piracy sounds bad, therefore we should pass this anti-piracy bill” without any further investigation into its deeper implications. Implications that would in effect, destroy the entire idea behind the internet.
But to me, it’s personal. The internet is my life now. It’s how I pay my rent and it’s how I’ll support my future family. By passing a law that turns me and millions of others into copyright criminals, there’s no way to sink the economy faster than by shackling the one industry that has more innovation and growth than any other.
I don’t understand the entertainment companies’ end game here. They’ve gone beyond obtuse to straight up maniacal. Do they think if they manage to shut down every bit of copyright infringement on the internet, that sales are going to suddenly skyrocket? Do they think people have some secret horde of cash that they’ve just been waiting to blow on DVDs and CDs, but haven’t because of The Pirate Bay’s existence? If my site can’t link to gameplay videos or movie clips, are my readers going to run out and buy them to see what they’re missing? If they land Unreality on a rogue evil pirate site list, who benefits? I’m suddenly homeless, without any cash to go the movies.
This bill looks like it might pass. Amendments to make it slightly less insane have all been rejected, and the tide appears to be in favor of it actually going through the House. It is fathomable to even imagine that this actually will pass? It’s a scary thought, but unfortunately, a looming reality.
Stop SOPA, stop Protect IP, stop letting congressmen who don’t even understand the internet to dictate its future. Go here to voice your concerns, and pray that even if you’re not handing them tens of thousands of dollars in campaign cash, that your representatives might actually listen to you.
