Why SOPA and Net Neutrality Must Be Stopped

NS ^ | December 19th | Nephew Sam

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

I think this excerpt from a comment on the Hot Air article summarizes Congress’ latest attempt to control the internet very well:

“Politicians cannot stand watching the internet go unregulated and untaxed. It drives them insane.”

And that’s exactly correct. The internet is one of the most free places on Earth, as an interchange of ideas, open source media, news, and educational content. It became that way not as a result of any single government’s efforts, but as a collaboration between the world’s brightest minds seeking profit. In other words, it was birthed as the purest form of a free market.

And that, quite frankly, drives politicians crazy. With the FCC’s moves to enforce ‘Net Neutrality’, and the most recent SOPA bill, we see a trend: The established rulers of this world are refusing to give way to the freedom of the internet. (and its 1.97 billion users) From large copyright and patent holding companies, such as Warner Brothers, to politicians and bureaucrats who are no longer needed to keep us informed or safe, the internet is the greatest threat to old power and big money.

You see, YouTube, Wikipedia, Facebook, and their user submitted content pose a big threat to such companies and politicians. For middle man media companies because user generated, open source or ‘some rights reserved’ content is a big threat to their bottom line. (who needs to purchase a theater ticket or DVD when you can view free content, directly over the internet, the same day it was filmed?) And for politicians, like the cosponsors of SOPA, internet videos pose a threat, because it exposes their thuggish ways to the public eye.

[Will88]

I don’t know how many here have read this entire bill. I haven’t, but what I’ve read indicates that it is primarily aimed at foreign sites that make copyrighted material available in the US.

But the desires of copyright holders concerning the internet are probably very different. Most copyright holders for written material desire that traffic be directed to their sites. The fondest dream of many is a link from Drudge because he drives so much traffic. FR has its posting guidelines based on what use copyright holders have indicated can be made of their copyrighted material. Most writing on the net seeks to attract ads and/or donations to earn money, and the more traffic they have the more they should earn.

It’s very different for the owners of movies and music, to a lesser extent TV networks, whose copyrighted work is offered illegally on the net with no compensation going back to the copyright owners. When people download music and movies illegally that’s just simple theft. When people watch illegally rebroadcast TV they aren’t breaking the law, but those who rebroadcast TV are breaking the law.

Then there are the aggregators of the rebroadcasts where the internet user actually goes to watch a TV rebroadcast. The loss to the TV networks is mostly whatever cable and dish subscriptions they might not receive because of the illegal rebroadcasts on the net. Of course the cable and dish folks object to the internet rebroadcasts that cut them out.

It seems people are lumping all these uses of copyrighted material on the net together when things actually seem very different for copyrighted writing, movies, music and TV rebroadcasts. And the written part seems the least affected by this particular law since most owners of copyrights for written material want traffic and readers.

(Of course, ebooks of novels and book length non-fiction is more like music or movies than newspaper and magazine writing.)

[emax]

Thanks for that. I would have to read all of it and understand the meaning behind the various phrases and clauses before i could truly form an opinion. There is so much fear that SOPA, in conjunction with NDAA, could lead to closing down of all discussion forums and massive imprisonment of people for simply posting something online. There is that fear that we are becoming a Maoist nation where over half of freepers could suddenly disappear and never be heard from again. Which makes it more interesting that there are liberals and genuine conservatives, for instance, that support NDAA. But I would have to understand it first, remembering how easy it is to whip up hysteria over what you dont understand. Many of those who think NDAA and SOPA are designed to make us a police state also probably think sb 1070 would be used to arrest anyone for simply looking Hispanic.