On Censoring the Internet and Why it is Fail

Darling readers, if you have an internet and regularly use it, this post matters to you. If you do not have an internet, nor use it often, how exactly are you reading this post?

I like YouTube. I use it for a lot of my news, to waste time, and because, honestly, I find a lot of the content more interesting than cable television. So I, like a lot of the YouTube community (both viewers and content creators) got a bit riled up about S.978 (or SOPA), which would change the bounds of Fair Use and could potentially get a lot of my favorite YouTubers in trouble for having copyrighted material in their videos, by criminalizing even the smallest use of a copyrighted work (if even 2 viewers within a 180-day period view it). MY YouTube uploads (of which there are three) would violate that standard. For once, I was sympathetic to Justin Bieber. ...Let's not let that happen again.

But recently, the internet community as a whole has gotten really worked up about another act before Congress, PROTECT-IP. These bills present a very serious threat to the internet as we know it. Both bills aim to reduce the prevalence of online piracy. Protect IP aims at disabling domain names, particularly those registered overseas or with overseas proxy servers, that contain pirated material. Let it be known, this is not simply for sites like SideReel that exist for the purposes of hosting pirated copyrighted material for public consumption. If a user on a forum or a commenter on a blog includes an upload or link to a pirated work, the site could be shut down, without question and with no option to appeal. A search engine which contains a link to one of these sites? Capable of being disabled. Not by the demand of the U.S. Government, but by the corporation that holds the copyright.

First of all, while I obviously don't know anyone who has ever pirated music, movies, television shows, or any other copyrighted material...

*insert deadpan face here*

...the fact that the sites can be punished and disabled for the actions of their users is reason enough to be concerned about this bill. But the fact that control of what is and is not censored is at the control of a company? Horrifies me. Particularly because a website can be disabled without question and without possibility of appeal. What's to stop a company from flagging a site simply because they don't like the content? Who's to stop them?

There are petitions opposing both acts of legislation. I urge you to sign them.
Oppose PROTECT-IP: http://act.demandprogress.org/sign/protectip_docs
Free Bieber (the original Anti-S.978 Petition): http://freebieber.org/

One final thought. Vlogbrother, Nerdfighter, author, and generally awesome person John Green made a comment about one of SOPA's real flaws. At the end of the embedded video (behind all the discussion of audiobooks and his adorable son), he comments that SOPA will do little to actually reduce online piracy because it's ALREADY illegal. Instead, it will punish people who have done little to nothing wrong, as opposed to wholesale, large-scale piracy.



Politically, Nerdfightastically, and (Still) Freely Yours,
Rachel Leigh