China created its “Great Firewall” (a censorship tool for the internet) exactly in this way. They created all sorts of legal liabilities for companies that fail to find ways to disappear things that the government doesn’t like.
This bill– SOPA, also called E-PARASITE– goes even further than China. It would create a private right of action for “rightsholders” that have a reasonable good faith belief that some website is infringing on its rights. Basically it would let a record label shut down YouTube’s payment processing and ad revenue without even having to go in front of a judge. Seeing as how Viacom has already sued YouTube for $1 billion under existing law it does not take a genius to imagine how SOPA will be abused by incumbent players at the expense of actual innovation. The industry that wrote this bill for Lamar Smith is the same industry that has labeled the player piano, the radio, the cassette tape, the VCR, the CD, the MP3 player, and now the internet all as technologies “dedicated to infringing activities” that threatened to destroy their industry. We know how wrong they were then, and we know how wrong they are now.
I urge every one of you to contact your House & Senate reps by telephone, mail and e-mail to voice your opposition to the SOPA/E-PARASITE (House) and PROTECT-IP (Senate) bills.
Censorship has no place in America. You don’t shoot at a mosquito with a shotgun especially when the engine of our future economy is standing behind it.
China created its “Great Firewall” (a censorship tool for the internet) exactly in this way. They created all sorts of legal liabilities for companies that fail to find ways to disappear things that the government doesn’t like.
This bill– SOPA, also called E-PARASITE– goes even further than China. It would create a private right of action for “rightsholders” that have a reasonable good faith belief that some website is infringing on its rights. Basically it would let a record label shut down YouTube’s payment processing and ad revenue without even having to go in front of a judge. Seeing as how Viacom has already sued YouTube for $1 billion under existing law it does not take a genius to imagine how SOPA will be abused by incumbent players at the expense of actual innovation. The industry that wrote this bill for Lamar Smith is the same industry that has labeled the player piano, the radio, the cassette tape, the VCR, the CD, the MP3 player, and now the internet all as technologies “dedicated to infringing activities” that threatened to destroy their industry. We know how wrong they were then, and we know how wrong they are now.
I urge every one of you to contact your House & Senate reps by telephone, mail and e-mail to voice your opposition to the SOPA/E-PARASITE (House) and PROTECT-IP (Senate) bills.
Censorship has no place in America. You don’t shoot at a mosquito with a shotgun especially when the engine of our future economy is standing behind it.