I’m sure you’ve noticed the many website around the internet today that have blacked out in protest of something called SOPA. From giants like Wikipedia and Reddit down to individual blogs and webcomics, users all around the world are sitting up and taking notice.

I am joining my blog to that voice. This website is going dark in protest. Read on.

What are SOPA/PIPA?

SOPA stands for “Stop Online Piracy Act“. PIPA stands for “Protect-IP Act”. The two are pieces of legislation currently being pushed through the US Senate by content-holder like the RIAA (The Recording Industry Association of America) and the MPAA (The Motion Picture Association of America). If they passed, they would give content-holders unprecedented power to control and direct the flow of information on the internet.

Why are they so bad?

Remember this little thing called the DMCA? It stands for “Digital Millennium Copyright Act”, and it was passed in 1996 in an effort to combat piracy. If you’ve ever seen a YouTube video that has been blocked because it used a particular piece of music, or if you’ve clicked on a link only to come up against notice that the content has been removed due to copyright violations, well, chances are those videos were served with a DMCA takedown notice.

But the DMCA doesn’t just affect kids singing covers of their favourite songs on YouTube. The Church of Scientology, for example, has tried to abuse this piece of legislation in the past to suppress information about their practices. That’s not very beneficial to freedom of speech.

Now, the DMCA was bad, but SOPA/PIPA will be much worse, because they have much more far-reaching consequences. For example, under the “user-content” provision, a website can be shut down if any of its users upload something that might be in infringement of copyright. That means blogging platforms like Blogger, WordPress, and Tumblr, but it also means major content-hosts like YouTube, Vimeo, Wikipedia. Even Google could be at risk, unless it actively filtered and censored its search results.

Even more problematically, there is no recourse. There is no due process. Anyone can file a complaint, and your site might just disappear from the internet. You won’t even be able to have a placeholder saying that you’ve been served a legal notice. Your website will just be gone.

The internet has been a source and a driver of huge amounts of innovation in the past, but one of the main reasons why the internet is such a breeding ground for creativity is because it has an open architecture. Anyone can see what anyone else has done. Anyone can take the work of someone else and build on top of it.

That’s not going to happen if everyone’s terrified of being bisappeared if they stepped out of line.

Why are they doing this?

Well, the content-holders are terrified of the internet. They see their traditional means of distribution (like CDs and DVDs) losing ground in favour of digital media that’s much less easy to safeguard. Rather than learn lessons from more innovative content creators who have managed to make the internet work for them, they’ve decided to clamp down even further, and use large amounts of campaign donations to buy out politicians who are willing to do their dirty work for them.

Copyright reform is a whole separate issue I won’t get into right now, but needless to say, the content-holders aren’t so much interested in seeing innovation and encouraging creativity as they are interested in profiting off of their existing assets.

I’m not in the US, why should I care?

SOPA has widereaching implications for the role of free speech in society. Even if you don’t necessarily care about the innovative potential of a free and open internet, you should care about free speech, because it’s the basic principle that allows you to speak dissent against those in power without fear of retribution. A proper functioning democracy needs to be able to criticize its rulers. How long do you think it would take for people to begin being shut down for criticizing, say, Michelle Bachmann?

Furthermore, the US often sets legislative precedent for other jurisdictions. The EU is currently in the process of passing ACTA, their version of the DMCA.

Those in Canada should take note that for the purposes of this piece of legislation, Canadian domains are considered to be “domestic”. Yep, no more national sovereignty. As far as the internet is concerned, we’re American now.

And finally, many of the largest enterprises on the internet are hosted in the US. Websites like Google have their servers in the US, and they must obey US laws. This means that even if you’re surfing from a socialist utopia somewhere else, your access to information will be severely hampered by SOPA.

Okay, you’ve convinced me. What can I do?

If you’re in the US, write to your congressman. Call them, if you can, because that’ll be more effective. If you’re in Canada, talk to Open Media. Otherwise, sign the petition contacting the US State Department.

Here’s some more information about this:

How SOPA/PIPA Violate White House Principiles Supporting Free Speech and Innovation
Electronic Freedom Frontier

Stop Piracy, Not Liberty
Google

Stopped They Must Be, On This All Depends
Reddit

Learn to be a Better Activist During SOPA Blackouts
Information Diet

Stop SOPA
O’Reilly Media

Today The US Legislation Is Considering Legislation That Would Destroy The Free and Open Internet
Wil Wheaton

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Feel free to email me if you have any more questions.

Protect your freedom of speech. If you don’t, no one will.