The popular subject today seems to be SOPA and PIPA. For those of you who do not know SOPA stands for Stop Online Piracy Act and PIPA stands for Protect IP Act.
This is why I say that in any form SOPA will fail in any form. First lets do a quick overview of these bills.
SOPA – (to see full bill click the link) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204555904577167040770940440.html
SOPA has a noble aim, to stop online piracy. Now I know the majority of us are guilty of this. But it is wrong. How would you like it if you invested millions of dollars in someone hoping that you would at least make your money back, and all the work this person did was stolen downloaded and you didn’t get a dime back. It wouldn’t feel to good would it. But that’s not the whole story but I’ll get to that later. What the RIAA wants you to believe is this bill will stop on-line piracy. Now the impact of this bill. These are direct quotes from the bill
(B) INTERNET SEARCH ENGINES. A provider of an Internet search engine shall take technically feasible and commercially reasonable measures, as expeditiously as possible, designed to prevent the serving, in response to a query, of a direct hypertext link to the foreign infringing site that is subject to the order, or the portion of such site specified in the order.
This in my opinion is akin to Nazi Germany burning book that they don’t agree with. This is actually telling sites like Google, Yahoo, and MSN not to allow you to information the government deems illegal. Now I will say I have some of these so called “pirate” sites because I wanted ROMs for my phone. This is why we have the safe harbor laws. If I post something on lets say wordpress.com they cannot be held liable for my post. I could go on a racist hate filled rant using every slur in the book and guess what wordpress will not be held liable for this nor should they. I could say hey go to this site you can get copies of Win7, Photoshop, music….etc They still cannot and should not be held liable for my actions. What this will do is force the search provider to change the way they direct traffic and spend lots of money doing it. Yes I know in other spots it says if it is reasonable, but who determines that.
Another scary part of SOPA:
INTERNET SITE THAT ENDANGERS THE PUBLIC HEALTH. The term “Internet site that endangers the public health means an Internet site that is primarily designed or operated for the purpose of, has only limited purpose or use other than, or is marketed by its operator or another acting in concert with that operator primarily for use in- offering, selling, dispensing, or distributing any prescription medication, and does so regularly without a valid prescription; or offering, selling, dispensing, or distributing any prescription medication that is adulterated or misbranded.
Now yes I know this seems noble, but when was the last time any of you had to buy a reoccurring prescription? I have not but I do have family that does. We are talking about hundreds dollars here every month to three months. How many of you can afford that. Oh insurance you say. Well most elderly people have insurance that will only cover some of that price. They are plenty of American citizens that buy real valid prescription drugs (that they have a prescription for) from other countries such as Canada and Europe. These can be many times cheaper than their American counterparts. SOPA can easily put an end to that. We all know that the pharmaceutical companies would instantly jump on saying that these valid sites would no longer be able to be viewed in America. So SOPA will cause your Grandma to go broke or die because she cant get her meds.
How many of you out there have posted videos or Pics on Youtube, Facebook, MySpace, Flicker….etc This could all come to an end. Does your shirt have a logo? Is there a song playing in the background? Are you making fun of a product? Is there a product any product shown? These are all forms of infringement. Do you really think sites like Google and Facebook are going to spend millions to fight on your behalf. No they are going to cave and remove your post.
This is why I say SOPA will fail in any form. Lets look at some other things that the government has done for our “safety” Does the war on drugs ring a bell. Take a look at this article.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/05/13/ap-impact-years-trillion-war-drugs-failed-meet-goals/
Some excerpts:
After 40 years, the United States war on drugs has cost $1 trillion and hundreds of thousands of lives, and for what? Drug use is rampant and violence even more brutal and widespread. Even U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske concedes the strategy hasn’t worked.”In the grand scheme, it has not been successful” Kerlikowske told The Associated Press. “Forty years later, the concern about drugs and drug problems is, if anything, magnified, intensified.
You read that right 1 Trillion dollars to find out it did not work. This will be SOPA. A useless law that will cause the taxpayers billions, not to mention the shredding of a bit more of the constitution. All this will accomplish is to drive the piracy farther underground and harm the actual law abiding citizens of this country. If this passes maybe we should all just learn Chinese because we you be one more step to being a communist country.
Just the facts as I see it 