So are you hearing a lot about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA) today?
Flair's hosting partner, Siteground (which is against these pieces of legislation), has a great video that explains why they're opposed to this controversial legislation:
http://blog.siteground.com/stop-censorship/
As a content manager and author, I have mixed feelings about SOPA, which is the U.S. House bill, and PIPA, which is the U.S. Senate bill. Both of these bills are mainly aimed at overseas companies, but U.S.-based companies and individuals would also feel the impact.
If I have to choose one side, I oppose these pieces of legislation due to the proposed ability to shut down or block sites and domains (by actually accessing domain registry records), the proposed ability for the government to force advertisers and others to cut off funding to companies in question, and some other penalties and proposed solutions.
HOWEVER, as an author and content manager, I am also VERY FIRMLY opposed to unauthorized piracy of any kind of content (articles, music, videos or any other content) without the explicit written content from the copyright holder. Still, I think sending an individual user who has sung one of their favorite artists' songs in a FB post or YouTube video to jail for five years is a little ridiculous.
PCWorld also has a more objective article about this:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/248298/sopa_and_pipa_just_the_facts.html
Seems like we could have avoided all of this if the government noticed the rampant unauthorized use of content about 10 years ago. There has to be another way...
I don't think that these bills will pass in their current state, but I also don't think that this debate is over (nor should it be). Unfortunately, I suspect that artists (the people whose creative genius inspired them to create such works of art) will end up being the ones who suffer either way--not music companies, corporations, newspapers, magazines, hosting providers, search engines and directories, or Internet companies.
What do you think of SOPA and PIPA? Let us know!
Lisa Kirschner
Managing Editor, Content 911
Managing Director, Flair Interactive Services Inc.