Friday, November 25, 2011

Authoritarian Assholes' latest excuse to Censor the Internet

Via ballgame of feminist critics: Stop SOPA! AKA PROTECT IP Act Breaks The Internet To summarize SOPA/The Protect IP Act are basically excuses to use intellectual property rights to intimidate and shut down anyone posting content on the internet that the powers-that-be don't like.

As the video on vimeo.com shows there are already laws in place to protect intellectual property. While these are imperfect, it is not as if the entertainment industry is in imminent danger of bankruptcy. There are issues in the digital age that still needed to be sorted out with regards to the rights of owners of intellectual property and the rights of purchasers of content to share that content with others. But, there is no hardship so great being imposed on the creators of intellectual property that the government and Hollywood lawyers need to monitor everyone's personal website to penalize anyone who might have made an offhand reference to a copyrighted work.

For anyone interested in fighting this there are, in addition to the link provided by vimeo - fightforthefuture.org/pipa, there are also the following links to petitions and form letters to congresspeople: http://act.demandprogress.org/sign/protectip_docs, https://wfc2.wiredforchange.com/o/9042/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=8173
I am sure all bloggers and blog contributors can understand the importance of this.