STOP SOPA and PIPA

It's January the 18th... internet blackout day... people have become so upset over the internet piracy acts that MAJOR websites are down for the day in protest.

Today, your internet will look like this:

This is Craigslist.com today.

And this:

And this is Wikipedia. 

"But, Blue Haired Weirdo! What does it mean?!"

It means that congress is in the pockets of companies like News Corp, RIAA, MPAA, Nike, Sony, Comcast, and VISA.

"Aren't you over reacting Oh, Wizard of Wonder-colored Plumage?"

No. I'm not.

Let's take a look at the two bills.

PIPA.
It's an acronym for the Protect Intellectual Property Act. PIPA is a rewrite of a failed bill (Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act - 2010). PIPA, if passed will give US companies and the US government the right to take legal action against any website that they feel is promoting, engaging in or enabling copyright infringement.

PIPA would do the following.
(the following wording is stolen from directly from Jamal's Blog - stop in and show him some love... and traffic)

• Force U.S. internet providers to block access to websites deemed as enablers of copyright infringement
• Seek legal action by suing search engines, blog sites, directories, or any site in general to have the black listed sites removed from their website
• Will be able to force advertising services on infringing websites, and those supporting of them, to remove them from their advertising accounts
• Companies will also have the power to sue any new websites that get started after this bill is passed, if they believe that they are not doing a good job of preventing infringement on your website

That is pretty far reaching, but it gets worse.

SOPA
The Stop Online Piracy Act. This one is an add on to the PRO-IP act of 2008.

SOPA and PIPA are good friends and will work together if passed. They will frolic along like rabid pit-bulls doing the bidding of the media conglomerates, acting as their own personal black list.

(the following wording is stolen from directly from Jamal's Blog - stop in and show him some love... and traffic)

• The U.S. Attorney General can now seek a court order that would force search engines, advertisers, DNS providers, servers, and payment processors from having any contact with allegedly infringing websites
• It will allow private corporations to create their own personal hit lists composed of websites they feel are breaking their copyright policies, ironically this doesn’t have any odd feelings of a legal mafia at all. These companies will be able to directly contact a website’s payment processors a notice to cut all off payment involvement with the targeted website. This payment processors and website of question will then have five days to act before it is simply taken down.
• Payment processors will have the power to cut off any website they work with, as long as they can provide a strong reason of why they believe this site is violating copyrights

This means youtube, hulu, blogs... A lot of stuff could be considered IP theft... and they might just... disappear.

One of my favorite sites... That Guy With The Glasses has, in the past, received notification of copyright infringement in the past. They fought it and won. Under the SOPA PIPA dynasty, they would have just had to take down the video or the site would be de-listed. De-listed, for those of you who are not tech savvy, means that it would just disappear from the interwebs... Poof... for good.

"But Feral-One! This is all politics! Why should I care!?"

Because it effects you. Go to https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/ sign the petition. Protect free speech and a free web.

So... go there... sign the petition unless Orwell's 1984 sounds like a good place to live.

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