What, you may ask, do all these things
have in common? All of these entities
are in opposition of a new bill, SOPA(Stop Online Piracy Act). The head of the push to approve the bill
comes from Lamar Smith, who introduced the bill. This effort, having been heavily lobbied by
proponents such as the MPAA and RIAA, pitted tech-era silicon valley giants
such as Wikipedia and Twitter against Hollywood content owners who want to
create a draconian system of censorship, in an attempt to stop piracy. The bill was not introduced alone however,
SOPA’s mate, if you will, is PIPA(Protect Intellectual Property Act).
Both are intended to help manage the use and
proliferation of online content when it isn’t used or distributed in accordance
with the terms given by its owners.
However, foreign nations, which frequently have different laws regarding
copyright(such as Sweden) cannot be held to United States laws regarding
internet piracy. SOPA and PIPA both aim
to target foreign nations and third party content hosting sites, such as
Facebook and Twitter, by creating a way to punish websites which have
presumably illegal content on them.
Upon
the claim being made on a third party website, the site in question is
immediately shut down, whereupon they have to appeal to the Justice Department
to have the claim revoked. This presumption
of guilt not only flies in the face of the inherent presumption of innocence in
the American legal system, but would also slow down the dynamic creativity that
is arguably the most important byproduct of the internet. Ergo, the Stop Online Piracy Act and
Protect Online Intellectual Property Act both aim to criminalize technology
companies, rather than the people who have committed infringement on
intellectual property.
This
proposed network of blocking Internet Protocol addresses is a dramatic step
towards state sponsored censorship. It
is reminiscent of the systems in place in Iran and China, where the government
blocks websites involving political ideas and news agencies that aren’t
approved by government censors. The
internet has been one of the most powerful tools in human history for spurring
literacy, intellectual debate, and independent knowledge. Almost any person in the developed world can
access the whole human cannon of knowledge, and legislators are oblivious to
the need to keep this medium unregulated and free.
Not
too long ago, the same media lobbying firms were railing against the ability to
record a TV show, or the ability to record a song on a Walkman. These irrational phobias of change are equally
irrational as they are overblown.
Neither ended their near monopoly on musical and visual media content:
both are extant today. Rather than seek to end content on the
internet, they should work to expand the viewing of their work
I sent an email to my congresswoman back in November, and it seemed like she was for SOPA/PIPA. But since the blackout happened, she backed off!
ReplyDeleteI heard this was shelved, but the war is not over yet. ACTA is the next battle.
ReplyDelete