Google’s Response To Censorship: End Piracy, Not Liberty
Millions of Americans oppose SOPA and PIPA because these bills would censor the Internet and slow economic growth in the U.S.
Two bills before Congress, known as the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House, would censor the Web and impose harmful regulations on American business. Millions of Internet users and entrepreneurs already oppose SOPA and PIPA.
The Senate will begin voting on January 24th. Please let them know how you feel. Sign this petition urging Congress to vote NO on PIPA and SOPA before it is too late.
Say No to the Stop Online Piracy Act
by JEFFREY ZELDMAN via Alistapart.com
United States H.R.3261 AKA the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), an ill-conceived lobbyist-driven piece of legislation that is technically impossible to enforce, cripplingly burdensome to support, and would, without hyperbole, destroy the internet as we know it.
We at ALA are not alone in our opposition to SOPA. Other opponents of the bill now before the U.S. House of Representatives include Google, Facebook, Twitter, Mozilla, Yahoo!, AOL, LinkedIn, eBay, Tumblr, Etsy, Reddit, Techdirt, Wikimedia Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights Watch, and the Center for Democracy and Technology.
The bill has its supporters, too, including Hollywood, media firms, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and their lobbyists, who have spent over $91 million to push this new law through.
Reps. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.), John Conyers (D-Mich.), Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), and Howard Berman (D-Calif.) brought SOPA to the U.S. House of Representatives on October 26, 2011. The bill expands the ability of U.S. law enforcement and copyright holders to fight online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit goods.
Behind the law
On its surface, fighting piracy sounds like a good thing, especially if you’ve worked hard on a book, album, font, video, or other product and discovered it being illegally distributed free of charge on a shady website or server beyond the reach of U.S. law.
Speaking personally, every for-sale creative product I’ve helped develop in the past two decades has reached appreciative paying customers through authorized sales channels, from tiny Paypal-powered sites to mighty Amazon and chain stores. But pirated copies have also been readily available on law-flaunting websites, and there are always people who will download free stuff even when they know it’s wrong. I always think people who steal stuff weren’t my customers anyway, but not everyone can take that point of view, and it’s reasonable to wish there was some way to stop the illegal distribution of content.
Wishes are one thing, laws are another. If there is a way to stop piracy (and I think we’d have more luck legislating an end to adultery or overeating), SOPA is not it… Continue reading
