The danger of SOPA
What is SOPA?
SOPA, known as the Stop Online Piracy Act is a act, similar to the sister legislation “Protect-IP Act”. Both sounds good on paper, per say. The idea is to have the ability given to either shutdown those websites allowing copyright infringment, or the search engines to de-link their sites from their systems. By doing so, you will either stop the sites, but shutting it down, or being unable to do a search for said sites, thus reducing the traffic to them.
So if it’s for a good cause, whats the problem?
The problem is how the legislation is handling the issue of piracy, and copyright infringement. In the past of downloading music illegally, the RICA (Recording Industry Association of America) took the initial approach in attempting to sue individuals by laying claim of lost revenue. Normally, these individuals would have 1000 plus songs downloaded. But they hit a snag in our antiquated court systems. How do you really prove little Johnny downloaded it off the neighbors open WIFI? Then RICA began to pursue the colleges, other larger targets to shutdown the means for little Johnny to download the 1.3 meg song. This only gave RICA a bad look to most by appearing to be a bully.
Incidentally, “38% of Swedish artists supports file downloading and claim that it can be helpful during early stages of the career. A Swedish band that has profited from filesharing is the rock group “Lamont.”
It appears Congress is taking the similar approach as RICA once did. Rather than stop the bleeding, cut off the arm/leg.
What does this amount to then?
The way these two legislation pieces are attempting to handle this, is the concern. In the name of copyright, this attempt is about control, and infringement of free speech (to a degree).
Venture capitalist Fred Wilson notes:
Big companies . . . can afford to defend themselves from litigious content companies. But three person startups cannot. And Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube were three person startups not so long ago. If they had not had the protection of the safe harbors of the DMCA, they could have been litigated out of business before they even had a chance to grow and develop into the powerhouses they have become. And venture capitalists will think more than twice about putting $3mm of early stage capital into startups if they know that the vast majority of the funds will go to pay lawyers to defend the companies instead of to hire engineers to create and build product.
This is said well. Now the larger companies are positioned to speak with those in Congress, and have the money to support their own sites, and avenues, they care little for another possible company to start-up and grow. It’s similar to playing a Monopoly game. Once your on top, you don’t what the other guy/girl to start buying houses, increasing their revenue. Yet, unlike a Monopoly game, this is the real world, where food is required to be put on the table.
I would urge all to look into these two legislation and similar ones, contact your Congressional Representive and ask all of them to look at other means, rather than stifling the economy even further.
Sources retrieved from
http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-12-17/tech/30404716_1_sopa-internet-freedom-innovators
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_download
Original Source:
The Danger of SOPA and what is this all about?
http://mcole.us/?p=760
Post a Comment