Mutually Assured Destruction

Rumors have been flying around the various social media sites this week as lawmakers gear up to vote on SOPA and PIPA. The biggest rumor being that the big internet companies that have sent a letter recommending the acts not be passed are threatening to shut themselves down if lawmakers fail to listen.

So my first question was, what exactly is SOPA? The “Stop Online Piracy Act” is a 78 page bill that attempts to eliminate online piracy. It does this through a variety of ambiguous methods including saying that anyone who posts copyrighted material will be prosecuted and can spend three years in jail. The website, if it fails to take down the offending copyrighted material within five days, will be shut down. So, every time a 16 year old girl sings a cover of her favorite new pop song, she could be thrown in jail and YouTube could be shut down. But it gets better. Any offending off-shore websites can be censored. Much akin to how China and Iran censor their countries’ internet.

The companies supporting the bill are those in the music and video industries. Disney and ESA (who represents game companies including Electronic Arts, Microsoft, Nintendo of America, and more…) are just to name a couple supporters. Basically anyone who is feeling the pain of piracy in the checkbook department.

In response to this bill, several large internet companies have banded together in opposition. Among these companies are: Facebook, Amazon, Google, Twitter, Mozilla, Zynga, and LinkedIn. If on January 24^th, the bill is passed, these companies could do the unthinkable and disrupt their own services. I like to think of it as mutually assured destruction. Our country’s economy relies on the internet more than anyone would care to admit. If all the major players decided to fight back, life could get uncomfortable for a lot of people. Or maybe not having Facebook for a day will prove to people they really don’t need it after all. Who knows?

I personally think that this whole SOPA thing is a really bad idea. People should be writing to their congressmen and telling them to get their heads out of the sand! The internet is here to stay and censorship is not the answer! Perhaps it’s time for the video, game, and music companies to come into this century and let THEM change their ways of distribution. The American people are telling these companies how they would like to be able to access their entertainment through their behavior. It’s time to listen and give them what they want instead of inventing new ways to throw them in jail!