Posting pictures of celebrities as a profile picture… linking to a scene from a favorite movie on YouTube… Quoting a movie line… all of these things seem pretty harmless, but without owning the copyright, they’re infringing on someone’s intellectual property. And, if SOPA / PIPA passes, if someone visits your site and does any of those things in a comment, dear webmaster, you can be sued and your site taken down without a trial. Apparently, some people think DMCA doesn’t go far enough, and neither do warnings at the beginning of DVD’s.
For the record, I pay for my ebook and music downloads, I don’t share passwords, and I pay full price for my movie tickets. I think pirating is wrong, and I don’t do it. I don’t support sites that pirate. But, that doesn’t mean there should be a wake of broken websites in the quest to prosecute people who are truly stealing intellectual property with the purpose of profiting and not paying the people and companies who did the work to produce it.
If these bills (SOPA and PIPA) were simply a way to catch the thieves, I would be fine with them. But they’re not. They’re worse, because they have the potential to stifle innovation, put unrealistic expectations on website owners, harm social media channels including blogs, significantly hamper search engines and generally mess up the internet.
Have a look at what top technical websites are saying, do a search of your own for SOPA and/or PIPA, and then make up your own mind:
A programmer’s view of why SOPA is dangerous (Mashable Op-ed) <-- This one is a must-read
Google’s “End Piracy, Not Liberty” Page and Petition
Wikipedia’s Blackout and SOPA Page
Related posts:
