I will be joining in this action tomorrow by “going dark” in protest of two bills before Congress that will effectively give internet censorship rights to business and government interests. The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its evil twin Protect IP Act (PIPA) may sound like a good idea to keep Hollywood copyrights from being stolen, but like a lot of legislation with reasonable sounding names, it’s more like little red riding hood’s surprise at grandma’s house.
Do you like YouTube? Do you share videos you’ve seen with your friends? That will be a thing of the past. You’ve often heard popular songs from music and film as background to videos and shared them with your friends on Twitter and your blog. Under SOPA you would be sued, and your website could be shut down. And what about research on Google? Oops…
The US is the country that has championed the internet as the innovative platform it is, and now this? You can read more on Tucows about how corrupt SOPA and PIPA legislation is , and from Organic Hat on Facebook a great piece from Techdirt that gives you an encapsulated history of Hollywood’s fight against innovation and why Hollywood’s idea of innovation is SOPA.
And don’t forget to call your representative – see how easy the internet makes it?
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