Don't Let Them Take Our TubesToday's song of the day is "The Day The LOLcats Died" by Chris Parker. This is 100% worth your time to listen to. Today, January 18, 2012, is an auspicious day. Websites like Reddit, Wikipedia, Wordpress, and The Oatmeal have all gone dark, restricting their content, to raise awareness of a potentially devastating issue. The United States of America, and Hollywood, want to kill the internet.
Despite the picture above, President Obama has actually spoken out against SOPA/PIPA Lately, you may have heard the term SOPA being kicked around. It's not a Greek body wash, it's a bill designed to stop people from pirating movies and music. Which is fine. I won't sit here and say I'm above those things, but if the internet says no more, then I'll survive. But what SOPA will really do is shut down every part of the internet that's worth using. Or, at the very least, cripple them. Let's explain what SOPA is. SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, is a bill that is before the House of Representatives in the US. Basically, the bill allows the United States to go after websites that promote piracy, even if they are located outside US jurisdiction. It does this by forcing service providers to ban web addresses, sites like Google to block websites from showing up in search results, or sites like PayPal to cancel any accounts an offending website may use to make money. Basically, the government can't take the site off the internet, but it can make it so that part of the web is inaccessible for most US users. If a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound? If users can't see a website, does it exist?
The future of the internet... The reason that this goes past being a decent way to stop piracy, and in to a full barrel of nightmare fuel, is in the wording of the law. Think about YouTube. One of the most popular things to post on YouTube are videos of people doing covers of popular music. Under this new legislation, that would be illegal. Seriously. You film your buddy throwing down a little Baby Got Back at karaoke, and you post it on the internet, you become public enemy number 1.
Damn, now we're all going to jail... Seriously, that video, taken on a cell phone camera, at a bar, would become an illegal act of copyright infringement. This very blog, with all the pictures I post, and topics I discuss, would probably have to be taken down, because SOPA would make me a criminal. Ever post a video or song on Facebook? Twitter? That's going to have to stop. Unless you think up to 5 years in jail is worth making sure everyone has heard the new song by whatever your favorite band is. Spoiler alert: It's not. And for us? All the way over here in Canada? First off, we fall in to their jurisdiction, because they hand out the IP addresses for our websites. So that sucks. Second, don't think for a second that if the US get away with this, governments around the world won't start working on something similar. Why wouldn't they? It's a whole new form of power over the people. The internet is an amazing creation because it is an open platform, where people from around the world can share ideas, and organize protests, and come together to create amazing things. If we start chipping away at the foundation of that, by letting governments, and special interest groups like the music and movie industries start telling us what parts of the web we can use, eventually it's going to crumble.
This used to be kijiji... We can't wait around and hope they come to their senses. The people who wrote this bill are clearly out of touch with how the internet actually works, and what it contains. And to top it all off, the law would force sites like YouTube, Google, and even Wikipedia to tattle on other sites. See, a website can get immunity from SOPA, but only if they help find other sites breaking the rules. It should really show you how legit a law is when they resort to flipping snitches to make it work. What is this, NYPD Blue? By the way, in a SOPA world, that last line could get me in trouble. Most of what is written above is my opinion. And while I write these blogs to share my opinions with you, this really is a situation you should educate yourself on. If you agree with me, feel free to say so in the comments below. If you disagree with me, by ALL means, say that too! That's what this is about, that we are all entitled to an opinion, and to share that opinion on a free and open internet. But at the very least, check out the information below, or search out your own, and find out what SOPA is all about, before you don't have the option... Wikipedia's only available article today, on what SOPA is. 5 well laid out examples of what SOPA can do. President Obama's stance on SOPA, and why Rupert Murdoch hates him for it. And finally, if you don't want to read any of that, watch this.
Now, what do you think? -DLB blog comments powered by Disqus |
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