EDITORIAL: SOPA, PIPA could shackle some of mankind's greatest innovations
Piracy is economically costly, but pirates are technologically savvy.
It seems unlikely bills as broadly written and surface-level directed as the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act would actually curb the machinations of those on the razor’s edge of information technology and would instead only get in the way of regular, law-abiding users.
The bill directed at protecting a small percentage of copyright holders’ profits has the potential to effectively destroy the way the most vibrant and productive parts of the Internet operate.
In a bleak economic climate, it makes very little sense to clip the wings of one of the few aspects of U.S. business that shows continued exponential growth.
It may sound melodramatic, but the Internet is the defining hallmark of human engineering and ingenuity. Nothing of this magnitude and scope has happened to human culture ever before, and it is still expanding.
The Internet and its World Wide Web have been technological, commercial and creative marvels since their advent, but the events of the past year, particularly the Arab Spring, have demonstrated the social and political importance of online interaction.
We are, more than ever before, an interconnected species.
Tampering with the rules of the Internet while we are only beginning to get a glimpse of its true potential is a backward and uninformed idea that reeks of corporate influence.
Media corporations have put up serious fights when frightened by new technology before. But the VCR did not destroy the movie industry, cassettes and compact discs came without making radio obsolete, and there’s no reason to think YouTube and Tumblr will spell the end of popular culture.
Rather than imposing short-sighted rules to maintain increasingly irrelevant business models, Congress should celebrate the efforts of those who embrace the new potential for economic success of online interactions.
They need only look to the example of popular comedian Louis C.K., who recently released an exclusive stand-up performance on his website with absolutely no protection against piracy for the price of $5.
By trusting consumers and offering them an easy and affordable way to access his product — completely unlike the convoluted and backwards rights-protection processes big media imposes on its customers to retain a profit margin — he made hundreds of thousands of dollars with absolutely no middleman.
C.K.’s success and many others like it show that in the future, business will be done and money will be made differently in the future, but they will still happen.
Shackling the Internet’s growth in the U.S. to perennially stubborn and selfish groups like the MPAA and RIAA could be one of the worst decisions Congress ever makes.
