While the issue hasn’t come up in the presidential debates, and many ordinary citizens don’t know about it, there is broad online opposition to the odious SOPA/PIPA legislation pending before both houses of Congress. I’m glad to see Google’s logo blacked out in protest, and even more delighted to see the Wikipedia shutdown.
I have long worried about the misuse of copyright laws to undermine free speech, and these people — a greedy coalition of entertainment industry busybody types, big pharma, and power-crazed bureaucrats and law enforcement agencies — couldn’t care less about the First Amendment.
Fortunately, bloggers across the spectrum care, because the passage of SOPA would mean the end of the blogosphere as we know it.
Erick Erickson puts it this way:
Letting the Attorney General of the United States shut down the internet as he wants, whether it be Eric Holder or a future John Ashcroft, should scare the mess out of every American.
Congress has proven it does not understand the internet. Perhaps they will understand brute strength against them at the ballot box.
If members of Congress do not pull their name from co-sponsorship of SOPA, the left and right should pledge to defeat each and every one of them.
And here’s Vin Cerf:
Computer scientist Vint Cerf, one of the founders of the Internet, now Google vice president, wrote to Smith, saying “Requiring search engines to delete a domain name begins a worldwide arms race of unprecedented ‘censorship’ of the Web,” in a letter published on CNet.[119][120]
And naturally, Glenn Reynolds is a leading opponent of SOPA/PIPA and has been from the start.
Start by signing this petition. Then call your Congressman about SOPA. Mine is John Dingell (whose colleague John Conyers is a SOPA supporter). And after that call your senators about PIPA. (Mine are Debbie Stabenow and Carl Levin, whose positions are not clear.)
So I signed the petition, then I called and gave all three of them a piece of my mind, and now I am posting this.
I have a lot of other things to do, and frankly, such politicking is neither spontaneous nor creative and not a whole lot of fun. But this is extremely important, and it doesn’t take that much time to sign a petition or make a few calls.
No, I will not black out Classical Values. That would seem a self-importantly silly exercise, as this blog doesn’t have the kind of influence where that would make much difference. But there are my dear readers, and while I never ask you to do anything (and I never ask for money), I am asking you to please contact your representatives if you haven’t done so already.
It doesn’t take long.
Wiki has simplified the process, and you can just click here.
(If you’re in the mood for fun, feel free to leave a comment about your reps’ call screeners.)
UPDATE: From Sarah Hoyt, an important warning SOPA/WIPA will shut down “all ebook publishing that doesn’t go through a publishing house.”
Her post on the subject is here.
(Nice to know who’s writing our laws. )
Comments
8 responses to “A rare request to my readers”
And we agree on this one. Power to the people right on
I had a very few words on SOPA with a link a few days ago:
http://classicalvalues.com/2012/01/the-public-domain/
Eric,
I don’t want to overshadow your excellent post on the subject, so I decided not to echo here, but the thing people who write or read indy fiction must consider is that it also WILL shut down all ebook publishing that doesn’t go through a publishing house. So, I wrote about it, from that perspective: http://accordingtohoyt.com/2012/01/18/the-pushback-has-come/
Thanks for raising awareness! Support for these bills has been weakening. I just learned that my Senator Blunt is withdrawing his co-sponsorship. The Senate bill originally had 41 co-sponsors, which would almost have been enough for passage already. I look forward to tomorrow’s casualty report. Also the Republicans seem to be back pedaling faster than Democrats.
I signed.
I find it interesting that the money people in Hollywood are re-thinking their donations to Obama over this issue. (Via Drudge).
My question is: exactly who are the rubes in that scenario?
(hope the html goes thru . . )
Whoever answered the phone in Senator Vitter’s D.C. office (R-LA) couldn’t wait to tell me that Senator Vitter would not be voting for PIPA. Vitter’s local office wasn’t answering the phone and his voice mailbox was full.
The person in Senator Landrieu’s local office had to check to see what her position was and he was obviously reading a prepared statement when he came back on the line that she is “standing with her colleagues in support of intellectual property rights”.
Gonna call her D.C. office next, then my congressman.
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