I’ve been reading a lot about SOPA lately, and not much of it has been reasonable on either side of the debate. On one hand you have the media companies who want the ability to take down pretty much any site they feel is infringing their IP that they can’t already sue (ie. ones outside of the United States). That’s not necessarily a goal I’m opposed to, but the lack of any sort of checks on their power as SOPA currently stands is clearly ludicrous. Some lobbyists earned their paychecks on that one.
On the other hand, you have everyone who runs a website, who is claiming this is the end of the internet as we know it, while simultaneously claiming that it’s toothless because you’ll be able to get around it by simply adding one line to your hosts file. I’m not sure how anything could possibly be the death of the internet and so easily circumvented at the same time, but that’s certainly the argument.
Neither is true tough. Sure, technology will exist to route around some DNS blocking, but it might at least add enough of a barrier to entry to piracy to drive more people to legal services. The fact that most people don’t know how to use bittorrent is the only reason iTunes exists. (If you say selection and/or ease of use I’ll punch you, then show you what.cd.) I feel like I could sooner explain to someone how to pirate a CD right now than to route around a DNS blacklist. SOPA won’t end piracy, certainly, but it will reduce it a bit and increase media industry revenues.
And unless I’m mistaken, SOPA only applies to foreign websites. Reddit these days is full of nothing but self-posts about how Reddit will no longer exist if SOPA passes, and links to animated gifs on imgur.com, both of which are located in the US.
Even if SOPA passes as is, Reddit will be fine. You’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. We’ll all be fine. Besides it would almost have to get struck down by the courts.
Don’t get me wrong, SOPA is a bad thing. In some ways it’s mind-bogglingly ludicrous. A good example is that there’s no requirement of proof, either that the targeted site is actually doing anything illegal, or that the complainant actually owns the IP that’s supposedly being infringed.
But it isn’t worth the ire it’s drawn. I think what we’re seeing is the same anti-government extremists that inhabit social media sites latching onto a hot button issue to further their cause. SOPA sucks and needs to die, but that isn’t where the outrage is coming from. It’s disproportionate and slanted in the usual direction.
This isn’t just anti-lobbyist or anti-media sentiment fueling the fire, it’s good old fashioned anarchy. And we all need to just take a breath and go about getting rid of this atrocity calmly and rationally and without the anti-capitalist ideology. If we can all accept that media companies have a right to exist and charge for and protect the products that they invest billions into making, then perhaps we can work with them to find a framework in which they can still profit in the digital era that doesn’t involve granting them authoritarian powers.
