SOPA PIPA

There's been a lot of dialog on social networks today about SOPA and PIPA.  Wikipedia, reddit, xkcd, and The Oatmeal shut down, and Google posted a petition to "End Piracy, Not Liberty."

I think the overall point I agree with is that yes, piracy should be regulated/stopped, but putting all of the responsibility on the website for user-contributed material is not the solution.  To me, that's taking away the freedom of speech that we Americans are entitled to and that the internet has come to allow us to enjoy.  That's right, I think SOPA and PIPA are unconstitutional.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think every little detail of every minute needs to be posted to a blog or social network, and I definitely don't think the same opinion needs to be endlessly reposted on message boards and other community-oriented websites, but I do think that we should retain our right to do so.

In this situation, I feel like a pretty normal American.  I feel overcharged for movies and cable.  I like to have things I can play from my hard drive rather than stream because buffering can be annoying, so I understand that sites that exist for the sole purpose of allowing peer to peer or direct downloading of things we want to watch like movies and tv shows.  And I understand that the companies that make those commodities have the right to protect their creations.  But that's not really what this legislation is about.  This is about user-contributed material being the responsibility of the website.  See the links above for more specifics on this legislation.

Another way I feel like a normal American is that I usually feel like my little voice, my one vote, isn't significant in the grand scheme of things.  I don't directly impact the outcome of an election or whether certain legislation is passed.  Today, however, I am happy to feel like a part of something bigger than me; I feel like by adding my voice to the crowd, I'm helping to stop something bad.

I appreciate that intellectual property is difficult to define and quantify, and that a photo that someone took, or an image that someone assembled in photoshop should be protected.  But I also think that one of the greatest things about the social networking we have available to us right now allows free publicity by sharing images and video across the internet.  I think we should try to ensure that credit is given where credit is due.  On the About page on XKCD, he writes, "Note: You are welcome to reprint occasional comics pretty much anywhere (presentations, papers, blogs with ads, etc). If you're not outright merchandizing, you're probably fine. Just be sure to attribute the comic to xkcd.com."  This isn't something he put up today; this has been there since I started reading xkcd.com.  There seems to be an overwhelming percentage of websites that are against SOPA and PIPA.  In fact, I haven't heard of any that are for it.  I am not a part of that industry and I don't know what the eventual solution to stop online piracy should be, but it seems like the people (and the websites) are certain that SOPA is not it.

So I did my part: I sent messages to my congressmen.  I signed the Google petition.  I shared the information on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and here on this blog to try to get the word out to more constituents and therefore to more congressmen.  I hope that some good comes from the actions that have been taken today.