By Thomas Lynn
For a brief period, America seemed to resemble China, with Wikipedia, Google and many other websites going black in protest to the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act. But, could they be over reacting?
SOPA and PIPA claim, at least in title, the most honorable of intentions. Piracy is bad, and who wouldn’t want IP addresses to be under government protection? Other than the obvious, “going dark,” protesters — you should.
There can be no argument that piracy is prospering. Websites such as The Pirate Bay and Mega Upload are completely devoted to the use of infringement, and they provide cracks for millions of dollars to drain away from the media companies.
It can’t be denied that these sites exist. They are, however, foreign domains and without the government intervention these media companies are helpless.
Illegal downloading cases have been in the news for years now. Back in 2009, Jammie Thomas-Rasset, a Minnesota women, downloaded 24 songs illegally and was fined $80,000 each — $1.9 million. The mother of four was quoted as saying, “good luck . . . you can’t squeeze blood from a turnip.”
As evident as piracy is, it is also a highly accepted issue. This, of course, makes it no less illegal. But, with SOPA and PIPA, congress is putting technologically illiterate people in charge of a far too complex issue. They are stamping a broad penalty on a few sites without taking into effect greater risk factors.
Both acts attack the same problem from two different perspectives. SOPA, the more extreme of the two, is exceedingly vague on defining what is determined as, “committing and facilitating,” copyright infringement, where PIPA is limited to the cancellation of sites devoted entirely to infringement, such as Mega Upload.
These acts could no doubtable help people such as Jammie Thomas-Rasset by taking away websites to allow her to — if unknowingly — become a criminal. Though, the punishment of Rasset is an example in and of itself of how these rules can begin losing control.
With all the talk in the news of helping new, aspiring job innovators become successful, is this really how congress plans on helping, by protecting huge conglomerates from losing money from mothers of four like Rasset (How Startling!)?
It is a misunderstanding that these bills aren’t long for this world. PIPA is scheduled to be voted on Jan. 24th, and SOPA has been stalled and is under revision by lawmakers.
Perhaps the biggest misgiving is that the people who are in charge of following through with the law know very little of what they are about to sign into action.
As Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R Utah) put it, “maybe we should ask some Nerds about what this thing really does.”
Maybe . . .