Once again congress seeks to fix a problem by creating a much greater one. Namely the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) which is currently being considered by the House.
As any information product creator knows, piracy is an irritating fact of life — if you make it, someone will take it. Unlike the Entertainment and Software industries, information products are often viewed from the “Glass Half Full” Viral marketing perspective. Once your content gets out there, your chances of selling bigger ticket items increases. Whether you choose to view piracy as “Glass half Full” (Viral Marketing) or “Glass Half Empty” (Money taken From Your Pocket) all sides can agree that it’s wrong.
It’s no surprise that Congress would finally get their act together and address the growing issue of digital piracy. With copyright and piracy laws written decades before the advent of the digital revolution, protecting content is often difficult and costs big bucks.
Excerpt from SOPA must die! by HostGator Web Hosting Blog.
SOPA, aka H.R. 3261 is a bill right now in the House sponsored by R-TX Lamar Smith. It’s not just any bill though, it’s a bill that would allow the USDOJ, RIAA, MPAA and anyone else who lobbies for the entertainment industry to effectively censor the internet to suit their needs.
James Allworth recently wrote “Is this really what we want to do to the internet? Shut it down every time it doesn’t fit someone’s business model?” and I couldn’t agree more. Censorship is a slippery slope. Not only that but it also creates an absurd amount of bureaucratic busy work. Here at HostGator we already spend a HUGE amount of time answering DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) requests. If we allow our representatives to begin deciding what is and what isn’t ok for you to view on the internet then where will it end?
The bill itself is absurdly broad, creates a ton of liability for small to mid size e-commerce based businesses and will serve to stifle the tech industry in order to cater to lobbying groups paid by companies who refuse to adapt to a world in which free information is king (and almost as unstoppable as a force of nature).
A couple months back Godaddy CEO Bob Parsons decided to head to africa to help out the good african citizens by murdering elephants (pesky elephants!). They received so much hate in response to that you’d think they would take a more neutral tact in their views going forward. NOPE! Today Godaddy came out in support of SOPA (which is mind blowing to us as we’re both in the same sector) and they’re receiving a good amount of (well deserved) lashback:
http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/nmnie/
godaddy_supports_sopa_im_transferring_51_domains/We here at HostGator support a free internet. An Internet in which free information and unhindered distribution of said information is an unalienable human right. Do the same, contact your representative and tell them to vote NO on SOPA.
