Many of you have noticed that you couldn’t access our site yesterday. This is because I have installed a SOPA Blackout plugin to protest SOPA like the other sites. This was our protest, if you have not done so yet please take the time to sign the petition at Google and tell the congressmen and content holders of Washington, D.C that the bill is against the will of the public and unconstitutional.
What is SOPA?
SOPA is a bill currently making round trips in congress and supported by the major content holders (The ones that censor all those awesome YouTube Videos). Under this bill, Content Holders such as WMG, Sony, etc will have the ability to take down any site with just a simple good faith letter. It allows them to force search engines, Ad Providers and even ISPs from allowing access to the site.
Why is this so bad?
It means that content holders and copyright holders can simply send a C&D styled letter to any site, or any search engine, and get that site removed via DNS Blocking. Any search engine or Ad provider that doesn’t heed this request will have the same done to it.
Example: If a site like Google refuses to take down a site that has been targeted by SOPA (Let’s say The Pirate Bay), then SOPA has the power to block Google as well as TPB.
This can mean the end of Social sites such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Anywhere that Copyright Material can be posted or links to torrents can be posted.
But stopping Piracy is good right?
Not in this way. Torrents ARE used for piracy, but Piracy is not the only thing torrents are used for. Torrents are used as a distribution medium for many Open Sourced products like OpenOffice, LibreOffice, Many Linux distributions, World of Warcraft (WoW uses BitTorrent technology to download it’s patches and content).
This bill gives way to many liberties to the Government and Content holders. Not only that, but you have to file for an appeal within a small amount of time otherwise your site will remained blocked permanently.
Now that I’ve been informed slightly, is there any place that I can get more information about SOPA?
The answer to this question is Yes! You can get more information about SOPA. Don’t attempt to find it on your daily news program on TV, you won’t find it. The media hasn’t been covering this issue at all which is rather distrubing, but here are a few sites that are currently giving information about SOPA and it’s Brother PIPA.
Google – End Piracy, Not Liberty
Google and American Censorship (I believe) both have links to petitions and information about your area’s representatives. Please, do this for the internet, stop SOPA and save the future of the internet.
While the Internet was originally made for Military communications, Since it was released to the public, it has become the world’s largest repository of free information that’s available for all. Please, contact your representative and strike down this demon bill!