madamace:
Actually… no. I’m not sorry. This is important. And it goes much deeper than just not being about to watch your pirated movies and no more funny gifs of copyrighted characters. We’re talking about free speech, our most fundamental right as American citizens… and if we take ACTA into the equation, a right that everyone in the world deserves.
“Censorship is always about maintaining the status quo and keeping people ignorant.” -Nick Farrell
Censorship is a bad thing. We can all pretty much agree. And as far as my opinion goes, SOPA/PIPA is a tyrannical proposal to punish innocent people just because big production companies didn’t sell enough of their shitty products. They have enough power as it is to take down videos on Youtube and combat music sharing websites like Napster without SOPA. They don’t need the ability to throw people in jail for 5 years for it too.
Passing SOPA would lead to more restrictions on our rights to free speech and privacy as well. Suppression of important, vital information to the uninformed masses about corrupt politics and politicians could be in the near future if SOPA passes.
I’ve been following this whole SOPA deal for months now and I’m really grateful for the hype. When I started to write my research paper about Internet censorship, many people had no idea what I was talking about. And as my words fell on deaf ears… I’ve realized that this is not something I can do alone.
If there’s anything that my history teacher taught me that was useful… it’s this: Money talks. You as a consumer can support or refuse to support the companies that favor the bill. Boycott their products. Buy from independent publishers. Pirate shit if you can. (Pirating is not bad. People will buy your stuff if they like it. Even Notch, the creator of Minecraft told someone on his Twitter to pirate the game, buy it if they like it, and reminds them to feel bad about later. http://gaminglulz.tumblr.com/post/15782628209/notch-telling-someone-to-pirate-minecraft-and-pay )
Don’t forget to talk to your representatives. Let them know your opinion. Together, we can stop SOPA/PIPA and ACTA, and protect our rights.