Along with everyone else who knows anything about the internet, we at NSWATM are firmly opposed to the Stop Online Piracy Act, which effectively turns control of the internet over to the entities who have demonstrated they can least be trusted: the legal departments of large corporations. Some people might call that an exaggeration. Some people are wrong.
This despicable excuse for legislation is contrary to the fundamental principles of the United States, insofar as it is profoundly undemocratic. It allows for the deliberate stifling of discourse by the powerful, giving the richest in society the legal right to silence the voices of ordinary people. First they got money defined as speech, now they’re trying to take actual speech away so there’s nothing left but money.
Furthermore, any legislation that is designed to allow large companies to crush small companies or individuals has to be considered contrary to the principles of free-market capitalism. Let us remember that a free market is not actually in the interests of big business: a non-competitive oligopoly is. A free market means that competition is fair and open, and when a major corporation can shut down a small one at will, on no grounds stronger than “We think maybe they were planning to touch our stuff” (a rough rephrasing of what’s actually in the bill) then it’d take a Mitt Romney to call that fair and open competition.
NSWATM stands with those who oppose this bill, and we’d be joining the blackout except it’d look self-aggrandizing. Nobody would be impressed by a 24-hour blackout on a moderately popular gender blog, even if it would give Ozy and me a break.
I’m sort of crossing my fingers for long distance quantum entanglement to become a practical reality… http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110526204955.htm
When the day comes that something the size of an iPod can hold the entire library of congress and communicate with other devices via quantum entanglement, the faulty premise of Intellectual Property will become moot. It’s not because “piracy” is right or wrong, but because the law will become completely unenforceable.
http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/01/19/sopa-activism-moves-republicans-more-than-democrats/
Maybe Romney isn’t who you should be focusing on.
Un-American and Anti-Capitalist? Where can I sign up?
At least none of my state’s politicians have established themselves as being behind it. I originally started a rant about my state’s bizarre political views, but decided against it (suffice it to say we’d love us a pro-gun, anti-union, pro-labor Democrat in this state, and that’s less of a contradiction than it sounds — it just involves some nuance).
You can find sponsors and cosponsors for SOPA here. (16 Democrats, 16 Republicans)
You can find sponsors and cosponsors for PIPA, the Senate version, here. (24 Democrats, 16 Republicans) (all counts done without caffiene, you may want to recheck)
You can find Mitt Romney vaguely responding to a question on SOPA here. He sounds opposed but I think it’s clear he doesn’t really know what it is.
I heartily second the post and agree that the US is going in a bad direction with giving more rights and power to corporations than to citizens. Living outside of the US in various places has been very instructive for seeing how other countries and other governments balance these and other matters (and no one has the perfect solution, that’s for sure, but I think we can learn from each other and share lessons learned). I also would like to add my voice for a blackout in solidarity. I used to feel the same sort of ambivalence about joining protests,… Read more »
“Liberate the INTERNET from HUMANS and their stupid laws!”
http://romanticallyapocalyptic.com/66
@ Xakudo, Funnily enough, when I was growing up that is exactly what kept me away from protests.
I petitioned the state department after I saw the blackout at mspaintadventures.com.
I don’t think that’s the right way to look at it, but it’s your call. I tend to think of it as collective action. Any individual website blacking out isn’t a big deal. But a whole crap load of them together? That has more impact. The more websites–even if only tiny–that join in, the better.
Do you refrain from going to public protests as well, because you think it would look self-aggrandizing?
If you think it’s a shoo-in for being declared unconstitutional, why are you worried about similar legislation being passed?
Do you really want to take that chance? Even if it were to pass and then be declared unconstitutional, it would take a long time for that to happen. meanwhile, the entertainment industry would essentially be in charge of the internet in the US. Better that it dies now.
I want sopa to pass. If sopa passes it will get ruled unconstitutional by the supreme court and will likely not even be attempted for another fifty years, MINIMUM. It’ll also make it much more difficult for anything like it to get passed.
Geez… does this mean I’m going to have to actually go and read a book or something? Damnit.
A free market means that competition is fair and open, and when a major corporation can shut down a small one at will, on no grounds stronger than “We think maybe they were planning to touch our stuff” (a rough rephrasing of what’s actually in the bill) then it’d take a Mitt Romney to call that fair and open competition. Now, that’s just not fair… Mitt Romney seems to be opposed to SOPA. You know, I almost seem to think that this is worse than even noahbrand makes it sound. Quashing free speech is bad, but destroying infrastructure is even… Read more »
Hey, my even less popular gender/sex/BDSM blog is doing it! 😛
I urge you to reconsider and join the blackout! I suspect the only people who would see your participation as self-aggrandizing are the same ones who call the whole thing an exaggeration. Your participation doesn’t have to be impressive to be useful; remember the point is to encourage your readership to contact their representatives, and if every page on your site is blacked out, the message will reach more people.