SOPA is a bill working its way through congress that would grant corporations enourmous rights to take down web sites over any accusation of copyright infringement. Let me explain this in terms that people who don’t understand the internet will understand. Let’s pretend that SOPA applies to books. (It does not apply to books. That’s why I said “let’s pretend.”)
A few years back John Green wrote a book called Looking For Alaska. In that book, he had a quote from a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay. Edna’s family still owns the copyright to her poems, and John’s publisher told him the quote was too long to count as “fair use” so he either had to shorten the quote or pay Edna’s family. He shortened the quote because he didn’t have money.
In real life, that was the end of it. But let’s say that John Green published his book, and several years later Edna St. Vincent Millay’s family got mad and wanted money for the quote, even though he had shortened it. As copyright law works now, John would go to court and argue that his quote was fair use. Edna’s family would argue that they wanted money and the judge would decide whether John owed them money or not.
Here’s how it would go under SOPA: Edna’s family says that John Green violated their copyright. (Or anyone else on earth could claim that John Green violated Millay’s copyright: you don’t even have to prove that you own the copyright to the material in question to demand a takedown.) Because of that accusation, they track down every copy of Looking For Alaska, and every copy of An Abundance of Katherines and every copy of Paper Towns and they halt the printing of The Fault In Our Stars and every copy of every book that John Green ever wrote is piled up and burned. And after that, John can take Edna’s family to court, if he has the money for a lawyer now that his livelihood has been destroyed.
Notice how they didn’t go to court until after John’s life was destroyed? Notice how John Green was presumed guilty and punished without trial? Also notice how everything he ever wrote was destroyed, not just the one thing with potential copyright infringement? This is what congress wants to do to the internet. This is why you should be calling and emailing your congressperson and telling the president that if it goes through congress, he needs to Veto it. SOPA is unconstitutional and wrong.
(Source: girlalive.com)
