The video above discusses the U.S. Senate version of the PROTECT IP Act, but the House bill, the Stop Online Piracy Act, is worse.
If passed by Congress, the government will receive new powers to block Americans’ access to websites that corporations don’t like. Think about the number of videos you record and upload to Facebook and Youtube. The next time music plays in the background of your video, you could be criminalized and sent to jail. The next time you record a video of your kid playing a video game, you could be arrested. The next time you videotape someone performing a karaoke song, you could get in serious legal trouble.
When the Electronic Frontier Foundation strongly urges you to take action, you owe it to yourself to listen and follow suit. The EFF opposes these bills and they explain their passion here.
In case you need a refresher, SOPA could allow the U.S. government and private corporations to create a blacklist of censored websites, and cut many more off from their ad networks and payment providers. This bill is bad news, and its supporters are trying to push it through before ordinary citizens realize just how much damage it can cause.
Commenting on the Politico website (scroll to reply #17), Okpulot Taha argues the importance of opposing this legislation:
Charter Communications serves tens of millions of internet users. A website using Charter is accused of copyright infringement. Same day, domain name servers for Charter are required to remove the domain name, “charter.com”. This disables internet service for millions of Charter customers.
This may seem an extreme example but this is how the Protect IP Act operates. This would have a severe impact on small “mom and pop” servers typically operating in rural areas and small towns. An accusation is made, no due process, no proof needed, and a small internet service provider is taken offline by court injunction.
If you want to protect free speech and innovation, and keep services open with names such as Twitter and Facebook, you need to ask your elected officials in Washington to oppose the PIPA and SOPA bills.
Join me and fight government censorship.
American Censorship Day is November 16, 2011.
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I’m sorry but I don’t agree with this new law. I usually post my artwork on these websites. Don’t we Americans have a right to express our selves and freedom of speech?
This bill is awful and a sign of oppressive tyranny by the government over its citizens. It’s blatant censorship; you can’t pull the wool over the American peoples’ eyes and claim it as something else entirely. Not only is it unfair, but also completely uncalled for. If this bill is passed, America becomes one huge leap away from the land of the free and comes one giant leap backwards towards the era of Soviet Russia. Are we really going to sit back and let them do this? Take action NOW and tell your senators and representatives to OPPOSE this dastardly bill!
This is completly rediculous. not only will it prevent us from calling ourselves the land of the free, it goes against the first amendment of the constitution. This new bill is bullshit.