Combat Online Infringement Now

Our Opinion/ PIPA and SOPA threaten the free flow of information on the web as we know it

By John Strand
HPR Staff Writer

On their face, congressional efforts to protect rights of intellectual property and copyrights seem sensible. Upon closer inspection, all of us who are users of the Internet need to rise up now and shout out loudly against legislative efforts that - - in the end - - could lead to a freedom of information sharing something akin to what they have in China or Iran.

In other words: Not good, not good at all.

Introduced in May 12, 2011, PIPA (the Protect IP Act) by U.S. Senators Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the current debate carries forward previously failed legislative efforts of 2010 called Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA).

That Senate bill would essentially open doors of attack against any website that purportedly supports, allows or enables copyright infringement.

Introduced in October 26, 2011 by U.S. Representative Lamar Smith (R-Texas), SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act), the legislation mirrors the PRO-IP Act of 2008. The bill essentially allows a black listing of suspected infringing web sites.

PIPA and SOPA together or individually entirely threaten the free flow of information implicit in the World Wide Web via the Internet. While guised as protections of intellectual property, the net result would be an end to communication as we’ve come to know it.

If you are a consumer or user of the Internet, that spells death of free digital exchange of information, ideas, and knowledge. If you are part of the 1 percent, you might think otherwise. Most if not all our readers would be 99 percenters, we suspect. It is imperative that we all act now to clearly protect our methods of consuming and or disseminating information. While there appear to be temporary setbacks to PIPA and SOPA in Washington, D.C., don’t be fooled into thinking all is well. Because it’s not. And while postured as protectors of intellectual property and capitalism, the counter argument is that SOPA and PIPA would undermine free speech in ways heretofore never imagined in these United States of America. Say goodbye to WikiLeaks (surprise, surprise), and look to threats that would potentially attack YouTube, Google, Facebook, eBay, Twitter, Wikipedia, or Craigslist, not to mention all of us who use the Internet in ways we’ve become accustomed to, whether as providers or users.

Not good, not good at all.

A cursory look at proponents and or supporters of SOPA and PIPA provides somewhat unnerving insight into both these legislative efforts. Politics makes for strange bedfellows, and clearly many of the supporters make very strange bedfellows. Looking past the surface, however, one quickly realizes the obvious ties some of the supporters have to the industry they are so virtuously attempting to protect: the entertainment and software publishing companies. In other words, follow the money. Big money as we know buys good politicians, and Congress, well, how do we refrain calling some of them whores who sell their votes for political gain? We can’t, yet it’s we the people who stand to lose in this game.

HPR’s cover story this week focuses on SOPA and PIPA. High Plains Reader readers along with ordinary people and users of the Internet cannot afford to sleep at the wheel while our politicians sell our interests down the river.

We need to speak up now and we need to act now. We need to make noise and we need to stand for free, unfettered speech. We need to see clearly the threats coming our way should SOPA and PIPA become laws of the land. We need to oust politicians who do not represent us, and we need to know who is on whose sides, now, not later.

Write your congressmen. Write letters to the editor. Write letters of dissent to companies supporting these outrageous bills; speak with your wallets and do not buy their products or services. (See related HPR cover story for a link to the list of companies in support of SOPA and PIPA.)  Post your concerns on your blogs, Twitter and Facebook every chance you get. Demand protection of your free speech rights and do not fall prey to other ‘noble’ arguments which down the road will literally strip you of fundamental freedoms of information and communication.

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