Our lawmakers are considering a bill to create a new and unnecessary law, called "stop online piracy act", or SOPA. There is a similar bill floating around in the Senate, called "protect ip act", or PIPA. At first, this did not sound like a big deal. No one likes their work, copyrighted or not, plagerized. But these bills, when examined more closely, go far beyond protection of any artist or writer. These bills give anyone, particularly anyone will a high profile lawyer and a lot of money, the right to call any internet provider, server, or host of any blog and cry and complain that their own copyrights have been violated by someone, and get the blog or website shut down. No notice, warning, or due process. Not even any actual proof that a copyright violation actually occured.
The folks who would benefit from the passage of SOPA are Hollywood and Warner Brothers. They want to go back to the days of player pianos and phonographs, and record stores, which not only sold records, but bongs and hookahs. That would be okay, because record stores were cool. And if SOPA passes, record stores will be back, inspiring rebellion to this law, as the pendulum swings both ways. Most Americans are too young to remember alcohol prohibition, but when Wikipedia puts it's site back up, information about alcohol probition can be gotton there. Prohibition did not work. People drank anyway, and brewed and distilled their own booze. Since there was no way to control and regulate the booze, some of it was actually dangerous to drink. Also, the Mafia got it's feet planted firmly in the ground, here in the United States, during alcohol prohibition, and is still here today, along with other organized crime cartels that have made a lot of money, thanks to prohibition laws.
The entertainment industry is a lot of fun. Everyone enjoys movies and TV. But does the entertainment industry really need to bite into any American's first amendment and fourth amendment rights to freedom of experssion and the right to due process in order to make a profit? Does the population at large owe it's constitutional rights to Hollywood? Somehow, it seems the answer should be "no".
Wikipedia, Google, and lots of other sites have altered their online appearances in protest of SOPA. The White House is taking this debate very seriously. The next steps, if this bill were to pass and become law, would be a massive recall of many of Americans' personal freedoms. Here is a link to the petition that you may sign online to make your voice heard about SOPA. Please sign it.
Galileo and Copernicus were not allowed free expression, despite the fact that they were not doing any harm to anyone, and were right in their suspicions! The Catholic Church was the master of all it surveyed at the time, and it's censorship made a serious attempt to keep everyone as uninformed and uneducated as possible. Nostrodamus wrote his grimoirs in French and couched all of his ideas in rhyming quatrains to thwart church and government censorship. Do we want to go back to that? Just who benefits from an uneducated populace, anyway?
The folks who would benefit from the passage of SOPA are Hollywood and Warner Brothers. They want to go back to the days of player pianos and phonographs, and record stores, which not only sold records, but bongs and hookahs. That would be okay, because record stores were cool. And if SOPA passes, record stores will be back, inspiring rebellion to this law, as the pendulum swings both ways. Most Americans are too young to remember alcohol prohibition, but when Wikipedia puts it's site back up, information about alcohol probition can be gotton there. Prohibition did not work. People drank anyway, and brewed and distilled their own booze. Since there was no way to control and regulate the booze, some of it was actually dangerous to drink. Also, the Mafia got it's feet planted firmly in the ground, here in the United States, during alcohol prohibition, and is still here today, along with other organized crime cartels that have made a lot of money, thanks to prohibition laws.
The entertainment industry is a lot of fun. Everyone enjoys movies and TV. But does the entertainment industry really need to bite into any American's first amendment and fourth amendment rights to freedom of experssion and the right to due process in order to make a profit? Does the population at large owe it's constitutional rights to Hollywood? Somehow, it seems the answer should be "no".
Wikipedia, Google, and lots of other sites have altered their online appearances in protest of SOPA. The White House is taking this debate very seriously. The next steps, if this bill were to pass and become law, would be a massive recall of many of Americans' personal freedoms. Here is a link to the petition that you may sign online to make your voice heard about SOPA. Please sign it.
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