Because apparently it can’t do anything else well. Today, Wikipedia and other sites and web personalities are closing their windows for a while in protest of The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA), misguided efforts by our congressmen to hod taxpayers over a barrel. I’m sorry. That’s what they are doing with federal spending and raising the U.S. debt ceiling. What they are going here is an effort to stop the scams and piracy we all enjoy online. Just the other day, I laughed myself into a seizure because my folks sent their savings to a Nigerian who needed to get out of a hotel bill he mistakenly run up while a working on his uncle’s million-dollar estate. Now, they’ll be living with us. Too funny.
Congress has some bills up to deal with this touchy bit of humor, but Paul Rosenzweig of The Heritage Foundation says that while they are asking the right questions, their answers “would make the Internet generally less secure for everyone.” As he describes the proposed legislation, Congress would be censoring select parts of the Internet and undermine any future freedom of speech arguments which could arise while making real Internet security efforts more difficult to implement.
SOPA and PIPA also give a ridiculous amount of power to accusers with little or no oversight from any judicial body, and little or no penalty for bad faith.
The bills represent a preposterous affront to American values, backed by big media conglomerates who see their business model drying up.
Here’s the open letter I wrote (and also actually mailed) to congress about it.
So, if I had a business mind, I might see this as a huge opportunity to pioneer new copyright policies. And make a ton of money. And free Bieber. Hmm. The trade-offs…