Today is official “shutdown SOPA and PIPA” day on the Web. You’ve probably heard that Wikipedia is down for the day, and even LOLcats has a protest popup.
The White House told Congress it’s the bills that need to be taken offline, so to speak, and to take another approach to curtail online piracy. Politico reports the bills are on “life support” and even some former sponsors are changing their minds.
I personally think dealing with online piracy is going to take big-time international cooperation among nations. I question whether there is anything the U.S. Congress can do unilaterally that will have any impact. Blocking sites? Hah. Hackers will always find a way.
That said, I really do wish someone would find a way to deal with jerks who steal other people’s intellectual property. I’m not making any money from this site any more, but people who steal and re-publish entire articles from my Buddhism site are depriving me of page views for my work, which really is money out of my pocket. But the worst offenders are in Asia, where even the mighty New York Times Company’s lawyers can’t get to them.
Anyway, if you want to weigh in, Tim F. suggests how.
I’ve already signed the petition.
And how stupid is the fact that after it’s recess, our Congress first decides to take on PIPA and SOPA?
How about PEOPLE AND JOBS, ASSHOLES?
And they wonder why their popularity rating is south of genital herpes?
I sent an e-mail to my senator, referring to a fact-based article recommended by a knowledgable, long-time blogger here in NC. I’d encourage everyone who reads this to do the same. We are Internet users, we are voters, and we know how to use what John McCain called “the Google” well enough to send useful stuff to legislators. It may seem pro forma only, but the numbers do matter in terms of constituent communications. The legislator may see only the total number of letters on each side, but that may be the deciding factor. We are not dealing with rocket scientists in the Senate and House, but believe me, we are dealing with moneyed rocket scientists in the lobbyist area.
Bill, as a fellow resident of North Carolina, I would appreciate any tips on “knowledgeable, long time bloggers” here. I can be lazy in the googling department.
Some of the more draconian elements are unenforceable without the sort of scrutiny that China has over its Internet. That last thing we need is more laws that will be costly to enforce uniformly and fairly or which can be leveraged selectively based upon ulterior motives…a political opponent or even someone who does not like your political views.
As it is now US copyright laws are 99 years or more, far longer than in most nations, even the UK and Australia. For example, seeking an e-book by Erich Fromm titled Fear of Freedom I found it for free on UK sites but my location was detected and I could not download it. So some of that cooperation is in place.