I was saving my 100th post for something special, but the urgency of this matter compels me to post now.
Thanks to the actions of some of the biggest sites yesterday you probably have heard of the bills currently under consideration in Congress (SOPA in the House of Representatives, PIPA in the Senate). Their goal is to stop—or at least curb—online piracy. This is a good thing, but the SOPA/PIPA solution couldn’t be more off-base—and dangerous.
Most of the rest of the content of this article comes from Chris Heald’s opinion article on Mashable. I urge you to read the whole article, but here are the main takeaways after the jump.
- “Implementing censorship protocols and giving the keys to the government is a scary, scary thing, and SOPA should be opposed simply based on this provision alone.”
- “Simply the act of not actively screening every piece of content [on your site] makes you a criminal under SOPA.”
- Payment providers and ad networks “are required, upon receiving a claim against a site by a copyright holder…to cut off all services to the accused site within five days, unless they receive a counter-notification from the operator of the accused site. Note that there is no requirement that the accused be notified of said accusation, and thus, they would have no opportunity to provide a counter-notice….The only way to provide a counter-notice is to agree to submit to U.S. jurisdiction…if you are a foreigner (yikes), and to state under penalty of perjury that your product does not fit the definition of an ‘Internet site…dedicated to theft of U.S. property.’”
- “…[I]t’s nearly impossible to not fit that definition. If you have a comment box, and you state that you aren’t guilty under that definition, you just committed perjury. Enjoy prison.”
- “…[I]f you provide that counter-notification that you aren’t an infringing site, but if you can possibly be painted to fit the definition of an infringing site (and again, you will be), you are now liable for all of the attacking party’s attorney fees. By replying, you give them carte blanche to sue you with no cost to themselves.”
- “SOPA expands “willful infringement” to include those who don’t understand the law, not just those who understand it and choose to ignore it.”
To summarize:
You don’t have to be a big, mean, nasty criminal — common Internet usage is effectively criminalized under this law.” (Emphasis added)
Under SOPA and PIPA I’m sure this blog post would be illegal since I’m quoting an author’s work, even though I’m giving full credit where credit is due. Take action now to help stop these disastrous bills from becoming law! Contact your Representative and your Senators today! (Locate your members of Congress in upper-right of both sites.)
I’ll leave you with some comments from Lance Ulanoff’s opinion article, also on Mashable.
“Yet the language in SOPA is so irrational that I can only assume that the authors and backers wanted nothing more than to fundamentally change the rules of the web: To shut down the open post fields, kill reposting (goodbye, Tumblr), end shared videos (sorry, YouTube), expand the definition of what it means to infringe (sorry, Twitter, no sharing links that aren’t yours).
“When you turn copyright infringement into a felony and say that anyone can accuse a website of providing “infringing” tools (and apply severe penalties whether or not you do something about it), you are essentially making it impossible for anyone to do anything online without fear of retribution.”
Take action today!
