When industries get heavy handed with national policy, the outcome can’t be good. This is exactly what’s happening in the US right now. Giant music and entertainment companies are fighting to protect their old business models, and it could change the architecture of the web itself.
If you use the internet, this affects you.
What is SOPA?
SOPA is the Stop Online Piracy Act, written with the intent of more vigorously protecting copyright around the web. The entertainment industry wants to come down harder on file sharing and the theft of copyrighted material, so it lobbied for a draconian law to add to the many anti-piracy laws that are already on the books.
from copyblogger.com — I encourage you to click through and read the rest of their article
What’s wrong with SOPA?
The problem with SOPA is that it gives the US government and corporate interests the power to mess with the architecture of the web. Worse, it’s ineffective against real pirates. As a friend of a friend recently commented on Facebook, “It’s like using a chainsaw for open heart surgery.”
I saw this video months ago, but thought to myself, “there’s no way this will ever get anywhere… it’s crazy!” I was wrong. Next week the American government will be voting on this. The bill already has a lot of support in Congress, thanks to numerous lobbies.
vimeo → PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet
UPDATE: Here’s another great video explaining the issues of SOPA and PIPA in more detail.
What’s the solution to stopping piracy?
I thought Tim O’Reilly had a good take on this:
The solution to piracy must be a market solution, not a government intervention, especially not one as ill-targeted as SOPA and PIPA. We already have laws that prohibit unauthorized resale of copyrighted material, and forward-looking content providers are developing products, business models, pricing, and channels that can and will eventually drive pirates out of business by making content readily available at a price consumers want to pay, and that ends up growing the market.
Please visit americancensorship.org for more information on how you can get involved. There’s even a place non-US citizens can sign a petition to the US State Department regarding SOPA.
This is important. Get involved!
