Three hours from now, this blog will blackout for 12 hours to protest against the SOPA/PIPA bills. The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) bills are aimed to preventing the online piracy of commercially-produced movies and music. However, the bills empower authorities to shut down any site suspected of any kind of piracy without due process. I can't have that. We can't have that.
The internet is a wonderful place. We use it for a variety of activities, and we learn a lot from it everyday. We have xkcd, p*rn and Wikipedia. We have hundreds of thousands of blogs that give us candid and brazen opinions on all sorts of things. What makes the internet truly beautiful is that it's open and it's free. It belongs to nobody but serves everybody.
If the bills are passed, we will lose all those things. People like me will lose their purpose in life: the creation of knowledge. The internet will become a dank place filled with manufactured opinions and lecture-style advertisements. Fiction will die, creativity will become leashed, and most importantly, information-sharing will become regulated. You'd think I'm exaggerating, but can you prove to me that things will be fine?
They won't.
I am against the piracy of commercial products, too, but I need something more focused. I don't want this spray-and-pray attitude. The Senators and the Congressmen must come up with something better instead of trying to tame lions by flaming kittens. Find out more about these bills. Show your disagreement with them - spread the word, join the blackout, call your Senators, or do all three. But remember: the United States pioneers innovation on the web and in information communication. That means these two acts in 1 country will hit all 256 other countries.
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