Quick, close your eyes.
Now open them. You know, cause you can’t read the blog with your eyes closed. But remember how it looked. It was dark, right? Unfortunately, due to technical issues, I can’t actually make the site go dark for SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act). But I want you to get the idea.
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), also known as H.R. 3261 (downloads as a pdf), is a bill that was introduced “To promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation by combating the theft of U.S. property, and for other purposes.” That sounds like a good thing, right?
But not so much. The way the bill is written, the judicial process is basically circumvented, allowing websites to be shut down based on accusations of theft of intellectual property alone without so much as ever stepping foot inside a courtroom. And as an attorney at a firm that represents both websites and ISPs, that’s a scary prospect. Protection of property and private enterprise is important but it should be thoughtful and settled, not reactionary and overbroad.
I get it. We don’t want people stealing stuff. As a writer, I don’t want people stealing my stuff. And they do it all of the time (trust me, my content is reprinted all over the internet without attribution or permission). And I want it to stop. But I don’t want it to stop at the cost of thwarting the judicial process. We have courts and laws to protect our rights, not to circumvent them.
Its companion piece, PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act), also known as S. 968 (downloads as pdf), isn’t much better.
SOPA and PIPA have the potential to criminalize behavior that might not be criminal. The bills, taken together, are an overreaching attempt to govern. The result is the potential for government censorship of the internet. And that isn’t okay.
So close your eyes again and for the rest of the day, remember what that looks like.
