Lots of websites and blogs are going to be offline today to protest the PIPA and SOPA that are being considered in the US Congress. I'm not taking the blog down, but I encourage people to protest both of these bills. If you're in the US and you want to sign Google's petition against the bills, you can do so here.
Good evening, Bob. I have to confess to some confusion, engendered by the fact that I can't find an unbiased representation of this issue. The bills purport to be anti-piracy, which put in the most personal terms possible, would prevent unscrupulous weasels from taking posts from your blog, work that you have done, in other words, and representing it as their own, and making money or gaining celebrity from it. Wikipedia, Google, and similar operators portray them as outright censorship. I must confess that following the money to find the villains doesn't lead me to any universal truths in this instance.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, my voice doesn't carry much weight on a petition (do what I want, or I won't vote for you), as I NEVER, EVER vote for an incumbent under any circumstances. The essobee has already spent his first term learning how to rape, screw, and rob me; I'll be damned if I'll vote him in again after he's gotten the hang of it!
I agree that we need to protect copyrighted works, but there are already provisions and statutes for doing so. These bills would do little to prevent copyright violations while stifling innovation and free exchange of information on the Internet. Here's a good summary of some of the more dangerous provisions of these bills: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/01/how-pipa-and-sopa-violate-white-house-principles-supporting-free-speech
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