There is a battle going on for your mind. Or rather, the collective mind known as the internet. Forces are positioning themselves to fundamentally change the internet landscape, the most recent of which is SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act). If you think this only affects pirates, you are gravely mistaken. The blogosphere has been atwitter with the dangers of SOPA, so I will spare you some of the details. Basically, the law would allow copyright holders to block domain names (not IP addresses) they suspect of infringing. This would also extend to users of the websites, meaning the website can be held responsible for the content posted by users. Realistically, this would spell the end of the internet as we know it. To provide an extreme example, Youtube could be blocked because someone posted a video of themselves singing a popular song. However, obvious infringers such as The Pirate Bay would have there domain names blocked, but could still be accessed by typing in the ip address (194.71.xxx.xx). Clearly, this law fails to solve the problem and hurts everybody, including the companies and industry groups pushing it. They should focus more of their energy catching up with the 21st century and less time trying to pass archaic laws to push everyone back 10 or 20 years.
Call or e-mail your representatives and encourage them to vote against SOPA. Here's a link to more ways to fight this legislation and other attempts to limit free speech: http://www.americancensorship.org
0 comments:
Post a Comment