ANTI-PIRACY LEGISLATION | Watching this video below, it becomes apparent to me that the big, free land of opportunities; the
United States of America, is about to become the new
dictatorship of the Western world. Ruled by corporate interests of the entertainment industry, the
U.S. government has created this
"Protect IP" legislation, which
(when approved) would give them power to force U.S. Internet Service Providers (
ISP) to block access to websites that these companies simply don't
like. They would also have the rights to sue American based
search engines, directories, and even
blogs that
link to content they disapprove, in order to have these links removed. Furthermore, Protect IP will cut off funds from advertisersers on the affected websites, thus undermining them financially. But it doesn't stop there...
How the Protect IP / SOPA act will break down the Internet
Apart from the
Protect IP legislation, the
White House has proposed another, essentially identical act, that goes by the name
SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act). Similar to
Protect IP,
SOPA would grant copyright holders the ability to cut off the funding of disapproved sites by directly contacting their advertisers and financial institutions. Organisations like the
RIAA or
MPAA would essentially have the power to put anyone out of business if they deem their site in violation of copyright.
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| This might be common sight in the future |
The reason behind all this is off course to stop
American users from sharing and accessing pirated, or rather; what the entertainment companies don't approve as being
fair use of their media. A lot of the pirated material is distributed from servers and users that are outside U.S. juristiction, so by putting
blindfolds on their own population, and
isolating the country from the outside world, they think they could stop, or substantially reduce,
copyright infringement. Again,
corporate interests will be the judge here, potentially cutting bloggers and video reviewers off the Internet, for talking over short clips of a movie or video game they're reviewing. Or practically any creative content, such as a
YouTube video, that happens to have a certain song playing on the radio in the background. And besides, the downloaders will still not be stopped, as this video you just saw so clearly stated. Instead, the tampering and fiddling with the very structure and registries the Internet is built upon, it will become less safe and a less reliable service.
If you're an American citizen, you can oppose this crippling and rape of the Internet as we know it, by signing a
petition against the Protect IP legislation on:
Stop this idiocy before it's too late. With different countries with their respective law regulating the Internet, the idea of one, unified network, will soon merely be a memory of the past.
From FightTheFuture.org:
The video above discusses the Senate version of the PROTECT IP Act, but the House bill that was introduced TODAY is much much worse.
It'll give the government new powers to block Americans' access websites that corporations don't like. The bill would criminalize posting all sorts of standard web content -- music playing in the background of videos, footage of people dancing, kids playing video games, and posting video of people playing cover songs.
This legislation will stifle free speech and innovation, and even threaten popular web services like Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook.
The bill was just introduced: We need to act now to let our lawmakers know just how terrible it is. Will you fill out the form above to ask your lawmakers to oppose the legislation?
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