Forget SOPA: Give away your artistic product and that will stop piracy!
on January 18, 2012 at 2:44 amWho cares about Wikipedia boycotting and blacking out. How about a campaign called “do not donate to Wikipedia.” With all their plea for donations, they should not be the ones to bite the hand that feeds them. The best way to combat piracy is to give good prices and not like overprice their goods. Sometimes when I look at the homes of celebrities, moguls and other big shots, it makes me not feel bad about piracy because their money come from those little people who patronized their stuff.
I just had to copy/paste this from a recent, really biased Reuter’s online article: “Internet blackout against U.S. law fails to enlist big sites”
Personally, I think ravenhearst74’s comment is over-the-top, but it does bring up a point that many artistic venues have been challenged by since the first cave drawings, “art vs. commerce”. As an actor, comic, writer, and career radio broadcaster, I love my crafts, NEED my outlet, but at what cost to my financial well-being? Piracy is wrong because it’s stealing, period. Unfortunately, the internet has numbed us to believe it’s ‘borrowing’ for this one-shot fulfillment only.
SOPA, the bill itself, can not possibly prevent piracy any more than shutting down sex trafficking or drug rings by putting them behind bars. However, it will definitely quite down some very powerful, artistic distributorships for a little while if it passes.
Be real, here: A majority of us believe we are all entitled to what we ‘think we want’ at the click of a button, and at no cost except our “should cover everything” monthly cell phone, or home ISP fees.
I hope you appreciate my tongue and cheek POV here. The need will always be greater than technology can keep up with. This is what makes the internet great and frankly unstoppable by a stupid bill that never should have seen the light of day.
Hi Andy!
Y’know when I first heard about SOPA—I asked my sister (she’s great in History/Politics btw), ‘is this similar to what’s going on in Cuba (communism, government, etc.)’. Knowing what the answer would be—she said, oh no that’s more envolved. BUT, I was close. SOPA/PIPA is scary! [You might not know what I was trying to compare it with by mentioning country where I was born, but I was on the right track.] Besides our economy, this will definitely effect our freedom.
As per what Biz Stone (@biz) said: “The tweets must flow, #SOPA must go—let Congress know! stopthewall.us”
Reference link: http://thenextweb.com/twitter/2012/01/18/twitters-ceo-and-co-founders-speak-out-against-sopa/
**I didn’t think I had anything to say but here it is. ツ Just want SOPA stopped!
Oddly enough, I wanted to comment on this post, and went to get my Gravatar from WordPress.com. Guess what? It’s a black day there, so can’t get my logo. How’s that for a SOPA argument? My very own logo is blocked and can’t be used for a comment to this post. It’s a telling illustration.
I’ve been aware that SOPA was going to come for some time, being filled in by some holier-than-thou IT geeks who thought it was a great idea. I nearly came unglued at the prospect. This damned bill isn’t about protecting Americans; it’s about putting them in Twitter jail indefinitely. Under the auspices of protecting our country from some unknown cyber attack, everything I depend on would be shut down. The economy would shut down. Virtually everything we do on a daily basis would shut down. And who knows if it would or could be restored exactly how they left it? How much damage would it do to the American economy?
We’ve been trained like Pavlov’s dogs to concede to all the limitations the Internet and digital technology has put on the way many of us do business, how it affects our livelihood, and how much it distracts us (to the point of addiction in some cases) so we aren’t paying attention to what’s really happening in the world. SOPA can ultimately thrust us into a world we thought only existed in fictional third world countries.
If they flip the switch it may never come back on…and then what are we supposed to do? Haven’t your Constitutional rights been abused enough for one lifetime? If you don’t realize your rights as an American citizen are being jeopardized by this bill, may God help you.