What would you do if…

• you couldn’t access information about products, trends, people or news on the internet?
• you couldn’t direct others to interesting information you found on the internet?
• you were liable for legal penalties if you direct someone to a site that had pirated content — even if you didn’t know it was pirated?
• your work, created with another’s permission to use and make derivative works, suddenly became retroactively illegal?

This is the a short list of some of my concerns with the SOPA legislation that is being discussed in Washington, D.C. – it is based in part on complaints that there are many websites that are illegally posting and streaming content that is copyrighted. Which may be true. However, the legislation that is being discussed would also catch people who are inadvertently including materials that may be copyrighted.

For example, I took a short video this morning showing the walls of my son’s bedroom, including the many movie and book posters he has collected through the years. As written, this legislation might make this small, innocent video illegal. Even things that are wholly my own work could, potentially, find their way to being charged as not legal, or disallowed from some websites even with my permission to use!

Search engines might be reluctant to link to any but the most well-researched, and most well-connected websites, rendering small operations like my own tiny business (currently on hiatus) all-but invisible online.

I urge people who value freedom of expression, freedom of information, freedom of communication, to think carefully about two things:

1. Contact your legislators to express concern over the potential to erode the average person’s online freedoms in the name of protecting personal and corporate copyrights. When law-abiding, honest people find their rights restricted in an attempt to stop piracy, it is shameful. Laws should be written to punish and deter criminals, not regular people!
2. Don’t knowingly use, promote or provide pirated content. This includes music, movies, books and other materials that clearly have a creator/owner who expects payment for use. If people paid for legitimately sourced content, legislation like this would not be sought after!

Remember, laws should be written to protect and support people. People should not be afraid of, nor un-necessarily restricted by, laws. Let’s keep the balance in favor of people, and avoid legislation that will increase lawsuits against innocent folks.