As opposition to the SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act/H.R. 3261) and PIPA (Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011) continue to mount, pressure is beginning to grow. Still supporters of these legislations believe that they are needed and necessary to stop online Piracy.
Let me step back for a second. I am going to call a spade a spade now. Online Piracy is a fancy word for theft. It is theft of Intellectual Property (IP). From this point onwards, I am going to call it what it is - theft.
Now, in order to stop theft, you need three things: You need to catch a thief, you need to prove he has stolen the item(s) in question, and you need give that thief due process.
Yeah, crazy. So lets say John Doe goes out and steals a car. A cop catches him. He gets thrown in handcuffs and led to a holding cell. He is informed he is being charged with Grand Theft Auto. He is allowed legal representation (a lawyer), and he is allowed to defend himself against the charges. The courts take the position that John Doe is innocent, until the evidence provided by the police find him guilty. Note that John Doe still has a Driver's Licence, and can still drive. He is allowed to go free on bail or a promise to appear in court, and he is allowed time to prepare a defense in court. He can still go to work, and earn money, and he still gets to keep his own car (after all, it's his).
So, why does online theft get a COMPLETELY different look. Now let's assume that SOPA Passes, and here is our scenario:
John Doe is running a website that discusses the new popular MMO Ultimate Fantasy Warfare Online (UFWO) (I just made this up, it doesn't to my knowledge and a quick Google search exist). Now John Doe had a very active forum, a well-read blog about his character's exploits in the game, and even an area with videos of his character in action.
On his front page, he even has several of the MMO's trailers posted there, and links to the MMO's website to encourage people to sign up and play this awesome MMO. Oh, and in a back part of the site, he also has his family vacation photo's and some pictures from his last birthday party.
Now, the company that creats UFWO, SopaBuy (again, made-up name), discovers that John Doe has posted trailers and videos of their game without their permission. They go to the Attorney General. The Attorney General agrees that John Doe has infringed on SopaBuy's Intellectual Property and declares his website as a rogue site.
Now the ICE come in and sieze his domain name. The trailers are now gone. So is the Blog, the Videos of his characters, the forums, and even his birthday and vacation photo's. ALL of them are now gone. John Doe now faces charges of theft of Intellectual Property, and could see up to 5 years in jail. Oh, and since his site is down, he longer gets any advertising revenue from it.
Doesn't sound TOO bad right? That's not all though. Now Joe Blow also plays UFWO. He also has a website, but he's not that good with coding, so he just has a bunch of text and things like that. He does have a link to John Doe's website though. I play with John Doe, and you can find his website here.
Well, according to SOPA, Joe Blow is ALSO at risk here. See, Joe Blow has a hyperlink to infringing material, that means that Joe Blow is also a copyright infringer, and he could see up to 5 years in prison as well.
WHAT???
Think that's bad? How about this one - Meet Jane Doe. Now Jane Doe loves her grass elf in UFWO and has a bucket-load of screen captures of her character on her own website. In addition to that, she has links to Joe Blow and John Doe's websites. She also runs an online business from a different part of that site. She sells custom-made T-Shirts, Mugs, and Bumper Stickers. She also as a political blog where she discusses the politics of her local municipal, state, and federal governments, and their representatives. From her Political blog, you can tell she is a Lefty.
Now, Jane is also infringing on the owner's IP, so what SOPA does is - Shuts down her website, cuts off all the money she makes with her website (That's her Business!!!!). Not only that, but her Political Blog is ALSO gone. So her political opinions are, well, censored.
This is how the Freedom of Speech is impacted. Now Jane's political opinions have been suppressed, her business shut down, her funding cut off, and chances are, she hasn't even been told why yet. Heck, if she was still having her morning coffee, she may not even know that her very livlyhood has been taken away yet.
That's right. She hasn't been charged, she hasn't had her Miranda Warning, or even been told she is being charged with infringement. Since she has no job anymore, she probably can't afford a lawyer.
So in the end, we have three people, all who love a game and wanted to show that to the world, facing up to five years in prison, and one of them just lost their entire livlyhood. They don't get their websites back either, not unless they PROVE THEY ARE INNOCENT. They are not assumed innocent until proven guilty, they are GUILTY and must PROVE THEIR INNOCENCE in order to get their sites back.
Yeah, sound's like a great piece of legislation there. Things are even worse for foreign websites.
Now I understand the purpose of these laws is to stop online theft. However it approaches this is a very draconian manner, and the potential for abuse is far to great. Now the lawmakers have the best of intentions (remember what the road to Hell is paved in), but can Americans really trust that the law will not be abused?
Do me a favor, and Google the following stories: "Megaupload Mega Song" and "Dajaz1.com".
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