Time is Running Out Fast to Speak Out Against SOPA

We haven’t talked about SOPA in our news section before, and that fault is to be corrected here. As a Canadian who inherently doesn’t care about politics, I ignored SOPA and its repercussions for the most part until recently. I didn’t expect it to have a chance of passing, but as time nears closer to a House vote, the reality of it being passed is all-too-real. Fact is, at this rate, it will be passed.

SOPA is short for “Stop Online Piracy Act”, a bill that was submitted to the US House of Representatives this past October that would make it possible for the government to block websites from being seen from within the US, or be shut down entirely. Sound familiar? It should, because this sort of ultimate firewall is what China has become known for.

To give an extreme example, the popular video-sharing website YouTube could risk being shut down (or blocked) if Google didn’t put more of an effort in to stop copy-written videos or videos relating to piracy to be uploaded to the site. Even Google’s own search engine could suffer. How many times did you search for a product on Google and see results for piracy? That’s exactly the sort of thing this bill targets.

Sites like Techgage are at less risk than sites like YouTube, but it’s hardly non-existent. If someone came to our forums and posted a link to a pirate site, that could harm us, if detected. If that sounds like an extreme example, it’s really not.

Over the past couple of days, I’ve seen more and more companies come forward stating their opposition or at least lack of support for SOPA. NVIDIA on its official blog stated, “Our position is this: we oppose piracy, as it hurts our game-developer partners. However, we do not support SOPA. We don’t believe it is the right solution to the problem.“

GOG.com is even diving into the problem, also touting its disgust with PIPA (Protect IP Act, a Senate counterpart to SOPA). It states, “Will SOPA/PIPA stop piracy? No. SOPA works in a fashion similar to DRM, if you ask us: it only will have an effect on people who are, by and large, honest consumers. Pirates who torrent via P2P methods will not be inconvenienced in the least by SOPA and PIPA; people who post “let’s play” walkthroughs of video games on YouTube, though, may be.“

Good words, GOG. But the ultimate cake belongs to Razer, with this pic (language warning).

It’s clear that neither SOPA or PIPA is going to stop piracy; it’s only going to affect those sites that might end up linking to piracy, even inadvertently. If passed, both will cause more harm than good, and by that time it will be too late. Are you in the US and want to do something about SOPA and PIPA? Here are a couple of links I’d recommend looking into:

• AmericanCensorship – Site that explains SOPA in clear terms, and provides tips on fighting it.
• OpenCongress – SOPA Bill Information
• OpenCongress – PIPA Bill Information
• Wikipedia – In-depth information on SOPA
• EFF – Lots of information and opinions on SOPA.