PIPA and SOPA, destroying the Internet in OUR/YOUR name.

No, not Pippa Middleton, stick with me for a second, it’s P.I.P.A. Which stands for “Protect Intellectual Property Act”, short for the “Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011” (read it here). And by S.O.P.A., i do not mean soup in Spanish, we are talking about the “Stop Online Piracy Act” , also known as the E-P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. (Enforcing and Protecting American Rights Against Sites Intent on Theft and Exploitation) Act (read it here). Two terrifyingly similar bills introduced to the House (SOPA = HR 3261) and Senate (PIPA = Bill #968) about three and a half weeks ago (October 26th 2011). If their names reek of 1984 and doublespeak, (like “The Patriot Act”)  it’s because these trojan horse bills are full of Orwellian turd nuggets that should make the “intellectual property owner” in all of you, dry heave in Congress’ general direction.

The reason why you and everyone on the internet should be flipping shit over these two bills is the way in which both propose punishment for copyright infringing activity. It is proposed that if your site is caught sharing content illegally, not only must the content be taken down (standard procedure now) but Internet Service Providers will be ordered to cease service to infringing sites (as well as financial institutions and ad agency service) AND ISP’s will be ordered to block the infringing website’s Domain Name (read: HOLY SHIT THAT IS INTERENT CENSORSHIP!!!) aaannnndddd in SOPA, the penalties will be levied on sites that stream content as well! What about the United State’s strong commitment to net neutrality?

Excuse my typing, this video sums it up better than I can, (via Fight For the Future)

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/31100268[/vimeo]

Seriously watch that video.

What enrages me even more than the absurdity of these bill’s contents and the implications of abuse in the future, is HOW congresspeople were convinced to author and introduce these bills. The MPAA and RIAA (the legal groups that claim to represent the movie and music industry, pay attention to the word “claim”) lobbied our congress along with several other massive companies like NBC , the NBA (?), and Ford and to write these bills in order to protect “innocent American copyright holders”… like me… which means they paid them a fuckload of cash so these same huge corporations can rape the peach fuzz off the internet. In turn, taking away the one revenue stream independent copyright holders (by this i mean creators, appropriated as “copyright holders” by lobbyists) still have outside of the standard licensed use and physical production model (the model that has been failing for over a decade).

SO, what can you do??? GO HERE . The Electronic Frontier Foundation has made it extremely simple and easy for you to directly email you local Representatives and Senators along with the option of including a pre-written statement in opposition of SOPA and PIPA. IT TAKES ~36 SECONDS, DO IT.