Is SOPA and PIPA Bad For the Internet?

Is SOPA and PIPA Bad For the Internet?

You may notice that something is different with some of your favorite sites today;  Wikipedia is down; WordPress is dark; and one of my favorite social media blogs, Social Media Today, is protesting as well and asking you to petition Congress.

What in the name of the black box on Google is going on?

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.
Thomas Jefferson

Right now in Washington D.C., Congress is considering two bills that would both censor the web and impose more burdensome regulations on American businesses. These two bills are known as the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House.

Is SOPA and PIPA Bad For the Internet? | What supporters have to say

The official story line from those who created and support these two bills is that this legislation will put an end to piracy.  Here’s what the BBC, a supporter of the bill, has to say about the legislation:

Some technology business interests are resorting to stunts that punish their users or turn them into their corporate pawns, rather than coming to the table to find solutions to a problem that all now seem to agree is very real and damaging,” said Senator Chris Dodd, the chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America and main reason for the crash of the housing market.  “It is an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely on them for information… A so-called ‘blackout’ is yet another gimmick, albeit a dangerous one, designed to punish elected and administration officials who are working diligently to protect American jobs from foreign criminals.”  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16612628

Is SOPA and PIPA Bad For the Internet? | What detractors have to say

However, most online companies see this as an example of Orwellian wordspeak, where the government creates a bill and sells it as being a good thing only to have the reality and the implementation of the bill take away our freedoms.  Here’s what the Official Google Blog has to say about the cons of the legislation:

  • PIPA & SOPA will censor the web. These bills would grant new powers to law enforcement to filter the Internet and block access to tools to get around those filters. We know from experience that these powers are on the wish list of oppressive regimes throughout the world. SOPA and PIPA also eliminate due process. They provide incentives for American companies to shut down, block access to and stop servicing U.S. and foreign websites that copyright and trademark owners allege are illegal without any due process or ability of a wrongfully targeted website to seek restitution.
  • PIPA & SOPA will risk our industry’s track record of innovation and job creation. These bills would make it easier to sue law-abiding U.S. companies. Law-abiding payment processors and Internet advertising services can be subject to these private rights of action. SOPA and PIPA would also create harmful (and uncertain) technology mandates on U.S. Internet companies, as federal judges second-guess technological measures used by these companies to stop bad actors, and potentially impose inconsistent injunctions on them.
  • PIPA & SOPA will not stop piracy. These bills wouldn’t get rid of pirate sites. Pirate sites would just change their addresses in order to continue their criminal activities. There are better ways to address piracy than to ask U.S. companies to censor the Internet. The foreign rogue sites are in it for the money, and we believe the best way to shut them down is to cut off their sources of funding. As a result, Google supports alternative approaches like the OPEN Act.

Fighting online piracy is extremely important. Black Box Social Media works with many companies who have created digital trainings and have seen others illegally duplicate the material and resell without permission.  This type of action is illegal, immoral, and unethical and should be stopped.  However, this legislation will not succeed in preventing this type of piracy.  Instead it will halt innovation, empower the government more, and reduce our rights and freedoms.  While our product ‘Social Media In 7 Minutes‘ is a digital product that we would like to see protected, we are not willing to forego our liberties in the name of safety or protection.

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Benjamin Franklin

If you believe in personal freedom and liberty more than you believe in safety or protection, then we are asking you to sign a petition and join the millions who have already reached out to Congress through phone calls, letters and petitions asking them to rethink SOPA and PIPA.  If you are interested in blacking out your website, you can follow these simple instructions.