I come from a position that once used to be a web for all to share. Copyright content was non talked about, until a resent tragedy that left us all nervous and wallowing in fear. This was the start of an evil opponent to the internet. Many of us take it in some views, and others in another perspective, but I believe this bill should be put to rest. The uprising of many protesters has not been pretty, and more may come if this demon of a bill breaks through this coming Tuesday.
What Is SOPA?
SOPA is a bill that stands for “Stop Online Piracy Act”. Now, you must be thinking, “This will be amazing!”. Though, let it’s somewhat ironic name not be to deceive you. This bill does more than stop censorship, and from what I’m seeing, it promotes it. The bill also does the following:
- Cuts off ads from foreign sites, losing site money
- All copyrighted infringing sites may be down, including:
- Youtube.
- Reddit.
- Wikipedia.
- And many others.
More Discussion and Reasoning
This bill, proposed to pass, may, in fact, not be all that it says. It holds truth, also, to cutting off sites IMMEDIATELY. So, say you have a song, maybe on your site. It could be anything infringing. You may not know it, but Comcast could immediately take your site off their IPS. That is incredibly bad in a way that they can actually take you to court. This is an immediate threat that many of us on here have never come to. Having to pay to use pictures, video, or music? That’s insane. Many of you, i’m sure, have heard of Blogger. They’re huge Google company, but SOPA could force them out of business. Blogs currently hosted on there have copyrighted content. So, Google and ISPs would block that. But, I know what you’re thinking. What about my site? If it’s on a domain name, you may be lucky to get the IP address in the box and head to the site while in affect.
The Global Catastrophe
Global perspective could bring down the internet usage worldwide. And you may be wondering why? This is because foreign targets are suspected as copyright violators. While you may be able to view your site from that country, if you live there, and it contains copyrighted material, you won’t see it here in the U.S. The bill also puts pressure on ads. Many companies rely on ads, Google being one of them. When ads are taken away, so is that company. And the fact that SOPA is doing this is not going to help anyone in this situation. The ads from the infringing site, global sites included, are found on Google now, they will no longer be found later. This is a big regime to keep the money coming to the media companies. Hey, my blog is awesome, let’s put up an ad. Oh, wait. You have a photo, maybe from Engadget or Huffington Post, on your site. Now, your site is shut down, and no ad for you. This may infuriate users, but I see a globally hacking spree coming. Anonymous, the world-famous group, hacked a few sites recently in opposition of MegaUpload shutting down. FBI arrests of MegaUpload’s founders were made, and not much good will come out. And censored search results will come into play. Money is lost and money is gained, and this will not be an easy task to tackle through.
Startups With SOPA
SOPA will also make building a startup harder. New regulations put into place will most likely bring less innovation. And less innovation almost falls to a monopoly, or oligarchy of the internet. These rules will weaken the internet indescribably. Say goodbye to Grooveshark and many other free services you use, as building another one will be made even more complicated than the first. Going through domain names is another subject. You may want to go foreign on domains, if SOPA passes, seeing as you may not have copyright issues there.
Conclusion, But Still To Worry
Much has gone through the past 4 months now. Fear and nervousness wretch through your bodies as you anxiously await the gruesome fate of the internet as it lies towards it’s bed of disease. This never-ending virus will push you off from where you started. Anger and rage will soon flourish after this passes (hopefully not). Anonymous has helped by taking sites down today, and many others may be able to bypass SOPA. Other’s will find it difficult and may give up. Vote No at AmericanCensorShip.org, and write to him today. Before the fate of the internet’s hands is left beside the devil himself.
About
I love coding and re-visioning the web. Designing it and redesigning it. Pixel by pixel. And technology and news rule my life. Check out my stories here and you shall truly see what I mean.
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