By Melissa MacDonald

Seems like a bowl of alphabet soup right? Only these anagrams mean a whole lot more to you and me than most any other legislation being proposed recently. The Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act sound really nice on paper, but they serve a hidden underlying agenda that everyone should be concerned about.

SOPA/PIPA, as basically as I can put it, gives the ability for copyright holders to sue and take down websites for hosting copyrighted material, or even linking to copyrighted material. But what defines copyrighted material? This legislation is so broad that a copyright holder could take down a site for hosting a link to someone playing a copyrighted song on piano, or discussing a movie and showing clips to illustrate their points.

Sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Wikipedia, and Google could be in deep trouble because SOPA shifts responsibility to the Domain Hosters (the people who run the servers that hold all of a website’s data) and the website owners to regulate their user-generated content. If just one infringing link is posted, all theses sites could be shut down and sued by the MPAA and RIAA, the so-called “patent mafia” who holds the vast majority of these copyrights.

The damage would be irrecoverable in terms of legal fees for websites to go up against the powerhouses of the entertainment industry. What’s even better is that these websites can’t countersue if found to be totally clean, because the sue-ers did not “knowingly materially misrepresent,” in other words, “Oh! I didn’t know you guys were completely legitimate, my bad.” By then the sites would be dead for good.

In all practicality, this legislation hands the internet on a silver platter to the entertainment industry, something they’ve been trying to control for years. The internet would become a one-way street for Hollywood to shovel their products down our throats, and give no if any room for new startups to compete with.

My sincere thought is that our congress is full of techno-illiterate 70 something’s that don’t understand how the internet works on a fundamental basis. Vinton Cerf (“father of the internet”) and dozens of other network engineers have appealed to congress to say that these bills will undermine the very foundation the internet was built on: freedom of expression, creativity, and exchange of ideas.

Let’s face it: the business model of the MPAA/RIAA is outdated and failing, and they’re trying to hang onto whatever scraps are left. This whole “the sky-is-falling” mentality has been around since the creation of the gramophone and vinyl. They thought cassettes would ruin the business, then VCRs, CDs, DVDs and even MP3’s and MP3 players (which they tried to sue the manufacturer of the first-ever) and now the internet. If the MPAA/RIAA wants to survive, they need to start thinking that online pirates are simply competitors instead of felons and try to beat them at their own game. Want to know why people aren’t going to the movies anymore? Maybe if it wasn’t so expensive to go in the first place, or Hollywood would start making halfway decent films instead to mindless trash to appease the masses and turn a quick and hollow profit, yeah… that ought to do it.

Gabe Newell, CEO of Valve games (portal series, Team Fortress 2, Half-life) put it this way:

“…piracy is a result of bad service on the part of [gaming] companies. Pirates in Russia were actually doing a better job than the [game] Companies themselves in localizing the product and making it available…People are happy to pay money for what they perceive is a great product delivered on their terms.”

But what does one of the most successful game CEOs know about anything anyway, right ESA?

Everyone out there in internet-land be vigilant. Even though the wave of protest is gone, if we don’t keep on top of this and educate ourselves, the internet could be stolen from us, possibly forever. Do your civic duty: call your congress people, write to them, email, twitter, and get the word out, sign petitions and protest! Here are some links to helpful videos that further explain the legalese of SOPA/PIPA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLC_zZ5fqFk –Gabe Newell’s interview (skip to 1:05 for piracy bits)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzqMoOk9NWc – Khan Academy’s visual explanation of the law, with original language of the bill.

http://americancensorship.org/infographic.html -An info-graphic from one of the leading opposition groups.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/78582041/Chris-Dodd-Statement-on-blackout – The MPAA CEO decries the protests and Blackouts of concerned websites everywhere.

http://projects.propublica.org/sopa/ – the list off all senators/ congress people who support or oppose SOPA/PIPA, with states and party info

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