SOPA/PIPA

With the SOPA Markup delayed until early 2012, many who are opposed to it breathe a sigh of relief, it will give many people a chance to build up more opposition to this draconian piece of legislation that our southern neighbours are introducing.

Draconian? Well, SOPA was created with the best of intentions (we all know what the road to Hell is purportedly paved in), but it unfortunately does a poor job of it. See, SOPA won't actually stop online piracy. Heck, I am betting it will barely slow it down, but the MIAA, MPAA, MAFIAA, and many other media and pharmaceutical companies are hoping to pass this piece of legislation, falsely believing that it will protect their incomes.

I suppose they forget that people can choose to vote with their wallets, but that is besides the point. SOPA will criminalize intermediaries that have no intention of comitting crimes, forcing sights such as Blogger, Facebook and YouTube to monitor their content, or be forced to shut down, loosing  revenue. See this is how it works, a copyright holder, lets call it YNF, discovers that user Bob12345 has posted a music video by the rapper Whatshisname on Watchthispiratedstuff.com. They then get to file a complaint. All credit card companies and banks are now forced to stop all funds going to Watchthispiratedstuff.con, shutting the site down because it is harbouring pirated content. Now, this seems like a good idea at first glance, but lets take a closer look.

Now let's plug in some real names into this blog. For the user, I will choose myself (I have not uploaded any videos to any sites, but I want to give an example here).

Now lets say it is UMG (That's Universal Music Group) discovers that user Gothenem has posted a music video by the rapper Mack 10 on YouTube.

Yep, that means that UMG can SHUT DOWN YouTube. That means that YouTube needs to stop me before UMG does - So it needs to monitor it's users uploads to make sure the infringing content is not put up there. But then, HOW does YouTube know what's infringing content, and what content I have rights to put up there? What if it was an independant project that Mack 10 did with me? We have full rights to it, and UMG has none.

Now, to continue picking in UMG, they have shown that they are willing to block videos that they have NO rights to. Possibly because they think it will harm their business. This was the case with the whole MegaUpload video. This was all done under the DMCA, which is itself not that bad a piece of legislation. Yes it has issues, but it isn't that bad, as only infringers are really harmed by it, not innocent second parties.

Now if this happened under SOPA, not only would Megauploads loose all access to funds from American banks and credit card companies, but so would YouTube!!! Then, both Megaupload and YouTube would have to fight to get their funding restored, all the while, UMG had no copyright claims to the video, and Megaupload held ALL the rights. Meaning NO CRIME was committed. UMG just didn't like the video (probably saw it as a threat), and shut it down.

So, if companies like this are allowed to shut down sites without Due Process, take away revenue, all becuase someone FILED a COMPLAINT, without the need to prove them guilty of wrongdoing, the potential for abuse is, well, too massive to comprehend.

SOPA will actually have little impact on actual piracy, it will still continue, It will punish innocent second-hand parties who may not be able to properly police their own users, and has a HUGE potential to be abused by corporations that do not have a strong ethical guide.

This is why SOPA will not work. But don't take my word for it, look around on the web. A quick search on SOPA will give you all the facts, for and against SOPA.

Now, don't take this as a Pro-Piracy rant. It isn't. There can be meaningful and proper legislations put in place to help combat Piracy, but SOPA isn't it. SOPA is a badly written piece of legislation that threatens to set back civil liberties almost 200 years as it infringes on the First Amendment.

Anti-piracy legislation WILL happen, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool, but Americans can choose which piece of legislation it is. Now OPEN (a piece of legislation introduced by Darrell Issa) has more possibilities than SOPA. It has its issues to, but it is a MUCH better piece of legislation than SOPA ever will be.

So why the push for SOPA? Well to put it bluntly, the Media Moguls want SOPA because it not only lets them target infringers, but it also lets them target COMPETITORS. By being able to attack and shut down sites like YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and even Google, media corporations are eliminating their competitors. They believe that it will increase their revenues. Of course, they are loosing sight that they could USE these sites themselves to increase their own revenues, possibly tenfold, because they have a narrow vision of what they want their business to look like.