A Possible New Law To Worry About?

[makeyourmoment]

ETA: I went ahead and made this a public post. Please, pass around the URL. If this is something we need to be worried about, I want people to know.

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So. I sent letters to my Senators and Congressmen about SOPA/PIPA, like I was told to during the whole trying to get rid of it thing. I just got this e-mail from Congressman Darrell Issa:

Comments

[laerkstrein]

[makeyourmoment]

Yeah, see, I don't understand that part either. I kind of am tempted to write back and ask.

[laerkstrein]

[royalbk]

Ho ho - we should be worried.

Why? Because they've been dealing with piracy until now as well so...why do we need another special law for dealing with piracy? Wasn't everyone hunting for sites that stole and misappropriated other people's intellectual propriety until now? What exactly does this one imply underneath the underneath?

What makes OPEN so special? What fundamental right will this one step on? Should I worry that it'll get passed and I'll wake up the next day to find out that Youtube has been shut down or what?

P.s: Also WTF is with all the acronym law names sprouting like daisies everywhere?

[makeyourmoment]

See, that's what worries me. He says the bill targets the problem differently, but...I don't know. I made this post public so if you want to pass it along and see if other people can explain it better that's cool.

PS. Yeah, it's bugging me too.

[aaronlisa]

So does this mean if I post a fic, I would be violating this new act of his?

There has to be a line drawn in the sand of what's permissable and what's not. I mean to be honest, I've started watching a show/movie/etc because of fandom.

[scandalbaby]

I'm hoping it just means actual movies/tv shows/songs and not fanmade content, but I don't know. I'm going to write back and ask. I already posted this on Facebook, so we'll see if any of my friends understand it better.

[aaronlisa]

I am hoping that you're write but I know that a lot of people don't understand about fanmade content.

[nickeldreams]

Just sounds like another way to let America take a step up the ladder, while pushing the rest of the world further into the ground. I understand that artists have a right to protect what they create, but why should, and I'm quoting from the keepthewebopen site, "First, Americans have a right to benefit from what they've created. And second, Americans have a right to an open internet." Maybe I only see issues with that because I'm not American.

I commend him for replying. I know most people wouldn't. But politicians like to spout out a ton of legal terms to simultaneously impress and confuse us. OPEN sounds like the exact same thing as SOPA but with more emphasis on America than the rest of the world.

Reading through the other comments, has anybody else been able to explain it any better yet?