Although I am sure the last thing you want to read about on a cold winter day is the impending end of fun as we know it, bear with me today as I play the role of Debbie Downer.
Some of you have already heard about the proposed bill attacking Internet rights in the United States — hopefully those of you who are already aware have signed the many circulating petitions and acted out against it.
The bill I am referring to is called the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), and was introduced in Oct. by Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas. Let me tell you first, this oh-so-cleverly-titled bill will not stop piracy at all.
I would like to humbly state that piracy is not a problem. My example is one person — Justin Bieber — the death of music. We are expected to pay more than a dollar for his mediocre music that becomes outdated in a day. This is nonsense because he makes plenty of money for his work by going on tour. His fans should be able to enjoy his music for free — if you can possibly enjoy it.
Now that I am done ranting about the non-existent piracy problem — let me tackle why SOPA is unnecessary. SOPA’s wording is far too vague and takes away consumers rights to express themselves and share music with friends. Under SOPA, the ever-so-popular trend of performing covers of favorite artists’ music could be deemed illegal. For a website like YouTube, owned by Google, to host such a video would also be illegal, and grounds for the government to gradually shut down sites dependent on user generated content. The same could happen to Facebook and other social networking sites — like they expect us to have real life friends.
In all seriousness, this bill cannot be allowed to pass. Many of the companies this bill could hurt do agree with SOPA’s initial goal of ending piracy, but killing creativity and individual expression is not a price they are willing to pay.
In a The New York Times advertisement posted by many leading social networking sites, including but not limited to Facebook, Google and Twitter, the companies stated they agreed with the premise but find problem with its execution, “unfortunately, the bill as drafted would expose law-abiding U.S. Internet and technology companies to new and uncertain liabilities, private rights of action and technology mandates that would require monitoring of websites.”
To sum my point up, I ask all of you to call your local representatives both for Pullman and your hometown. Ask them to stand up against this insanely careless and poorly written bill. If we all do this, we may have the privilege of avoiding the death of the Internet, along with our individuality, creativity and our right to express ourselves.