My Personal Reaction to SOPA/Protect-IP

[valyssia]

This is a reply to a comment that was left on my Dreamwidth journal by next_to_normal. She has a different view on the SOPA/Protect-IP bill which she shares here. I’m retorting in a regular entry because I believe this worth sharing. As a comment, it would most likely be missed.

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So what you’re saying is that you implicitly trust the government to have your best interests at heart?

Honestly, it doesn’t matter how overly-dramatized this video is. I recognized that it was a bit silly when I posted it. The heart of that bill is censorship and you cannot convince me that’s a good thing. Don’t even try. Historically, if you look at the practices of government, you’ll notice a trend. The people give them power and ultimately they abuse it. The world is an unfair place because we make it so.

That this bill is being pushed by the entertainment industry does not bode well. That they stapled ‘protecting consumers’ into the content just tells me that they are being underhanded. They want to sneak the bad idea past on the heels of something that they can present in a positive light. Why else would the two things be mixed? If this just about stopping counterfeit goods, the public reaction would be entirely different.

Were this related to books and not the internet, which section of your local library would you ask that they burn first? There are good things and bad things available in print too. Do you think that they should be able to choose what those things are and limit their availability?

I recognize that this sounds alarmist. You’re welcome to berate me for that, but I honestly worry about resources we have right now that could be affected. You may’ve noticed that I have an interest in BuffyWorld. Under the current laws, Fox could ask us remove content. And of course, we would. It would be regrettable, but we would do the responsible thing.

Under this new law, as I understand it, the entertainment industry could have BuffyWorld taken down. They would simply have to say that it presents copyrighted material. The scary thing for Howard and me is the threat of fines and jail time.

It’s a bloody fan site!

Neither one of us can afford legal council to advise us what the ramifications might be. Neither one of us has a law degree. We are forced to wade through piles of articles in order to glean this information secondhand. And right now from what I’m seeing, the intelligent thing will be for us to take the site down should this law pass.

It’s a bloody fan site that has been around for over a decade in nearly the same form. Our community has come to depend on it and in a way love it. We love it. Why else would we spend so much time trying to improve the content?

Tell me how that’s right? Prove it to me.

I’m not in favor of piracy either, which is of course where the heart of this bill lies, but I can’t help thinking that they are going about this the wrong way.