SOPA and PIPA
Dear Senator and Representative,
If no site can link to any other site which is suspected of anywhere containing any copyright-violating link or link to a copyright-violating site, search engines and social networks would shut down. Blogs and forums would go dark. None of the outlets by which I access and participate in the Internet would be legal anymore.
And because of the ease of suspecting copyright violation, discussion and response to popular culture--including the creation of noncommercial derivative works now commonly believed to be protected under Fair Use, such as parody, fanart, fanfiction, and music remixes and covers--would be entirely silenced. Hollywood and other large content producers are going to find it lonely when theirs are the only voices allowed to express love for their works.
In their current form, SOPA and PIPA would use DNS blocking and ISP blacklists to prevent users inside the USA from seeing any foreign site suspected of copyright violation. This means, taken to its logical conclusion, that the United States would secede from the Internet. Even the attempt to do so does not place the USA in good company amid the nations of the world.
The Internet is my culture. If the United States secedes from the Internet, I will find another place to live.
As a voter in your district, I urge you, my Senator, to vote "no" on cloture for S. 968, the PROTECT IP Act, on Jan. 24th. And I urge you, my Representative, to vote "no" on SOPA, the corresponding House bill.
Sincerely,
me
If no site can link to any other site which is suspected of anywhere containing any copyright-violating link or link to a copyright-violating site, search engines and social networks would shut down. Blogs and forums would go dark. None of the outlets by which I access and participate in the Internet would be legal anymore.
And because of the ease of suspecting copyright violation, discussion and response to popular culture--including the creation of noncommercial derivative works now commonly believed to be protected under Fair Use, such as parody, fanart, fanfiction, and music remixes and covers--would be entirely silenced. Hollywood and other large content producers are going to find it lonely when theirs are the only voices allowed to express love for their works.
In their current form, SOPA and PIPA would use DNS blocking and ISP blacklists to prevent users inside the USA from seeing any foreign site suspected of copyright violation. This means, taken to its logical conclusion, that the United States would secede from the Internet. Even the attempt to do so does not place the USA in good company amid the nations of the world.
The Internet is my culture. If the United States secedes from the Internet, I will find another place to live.
As a voter in your district, I urge you, my Senator, to vote "no" on cloture for S. 968, the PROTECT IP Act, on Jan. 24th. And I urge you, my Representative, to vote "no" on SOPA, the corresponding House bill.
Sincerely,
me