SOPA Destroys Freedom
The English Wikipedia page on Jan. 18 participated in a blackout to protest SOPA and PIPA.
This bill was introduced in the House of Representatives by Lamar Smith, a Republican from Texas on Oct. 26. At the same time as SOPA is being debated in the House, the Senate is working on a parallel bill, entitled the Protect-IP Act. Both will have drastic consequences if passed.
Under SOPA, copyright holders would notify ad or payment companies that a website was violating their copyright. Ad or payment companies would be required to suspend their services to that website with no investigation into the claims. Another effect of SOPA is that the penalties for streaming video or selling illegal activities would increase to being a felony.
The problem with this proposed law is that it will affect more than just the United States. The ad and payment companies involved are not just US companies, and when they suspend their services and websites become blocked it will not just happen in the US.
Supporters of SOPA include the US Chamber of Commerce, Netflix, the Motion Picture Association of America, Viacom, the Recording Industry of America, and MasterCard. These all stand to lose money in copyright violations, which is why they support the bill. However, not all of them realize the far reaching ramifications SOPA will have.
Many major companies have expressed their dissent for this ridiculous bill, including Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter, ACLU, and Tumblr. Even the Library Copyright Alliance and the American Library Association, who must deal with fair-use and copyright issues on a regular basis, do not support it.
Campaigns have sprouted up all over the internet urging users to contact their representatives and protest the unfair act. The website tumblr.com showed examples of censorship to drive the point home. A coalition of Facebook, Google, Twitter, and other internet giants put a full page ad in the New York Times against SOPA.
Mashable.com, among others, has begun a petition to send to President Obama that shows the amount of people who do not support SOPA.
There is absolutely no way that SOPA will benefit the American people, or the world. Please, if you want to continue to use the internet, visit fightforthefuture.org/pipa to send a message to your representative.
