Stop Internet Censorship, This is America, Not Soviet Russia

Imagine if the US Gov't tried to shut me up. Or you. Or any blogger.

The "Stop Online Piracy Act" also known as SOPA is basically a rewrite of the Protect-IP Act. The embedded video gives a pretty good description of what it will do.

If you're at all like me, you have probably read at least a little about Google's struggles with China. You may even be familiar with the "Great Firewall of China". I'm seeing far too many parallels between this law and the very thing that the president himself is fighting against in his recent speech about the US military presence in Australia. We are trying to protect commercial interests here, which is a fine pursuit. The problem is that I fail to see just what makes it ok to tear down China's Firewall and replace it with our own, more comprehensive firewall that gives American corporations the power to shut down an American business on grounds of "inadequate copyright protection". Yes, China is making it difficult for it's citizens to access American websites, but it's not really able to stop them. There are always ways around that haven't been plugged up yet. The Chinese firewall is doing quite well as a training device for hackers and for (presumably) slowing internet service. We've already got plenty of hackers doing very simple work-arounds to get their hands on a few hours of media for free. What will happen if it becomes more difficult? It's not going to stop.

This is a very interesting situation. If we focus on the run of the mill consumer who may have a few bootlegs and other illegal downloads, I can set up an example that shows just how bad this can get. Currently, the set-up is simple. Very little work is required for a good payoff. Just download a p2p file sharing service and start searching for host sites with links to the content you want. It's not even as complicated as that description sounds. Just type in the name of whatever it is you're searching for (whether it's a song title, a band name, an entire genre, a movie, and actor, anything) and add the word "torrent" to the end of your search. The reason it's so easy is that some programmers decided that the method should be available, so they put it together. It worked, so other programmers improved it until it was readily available to anyone that looked for it. Under SOPA, the same thing happens. For a while, Joe Blow the regular guy might be forced to pay for his music. Chances are, he really doesn't want to and resents the new law that is taking down his favorite websites and services. It's not just the p2p programs and host sites that are in danger, it's YouTube, it's Facebook, it's Google as a whole that may be in danger. So after Joe Blow loses his file sharing capabilities, the hackers that started the whole thing to begin with, and all the others that improved or used the system go back to work. Making something illegal makes it a more appealing challenge than before. Pretty soon, a new system is in place. Joe Blow hears about it through a friend of a friend and he's happily downloading his music for free again, only this time he's getting it straight from the record companies that have hacked databases. Patches are automatically downloaded into his fancy new program every time the company closes a hole and the hackers find a new one. The whole process is more exciting, harder to track, and vastly more complex.

Better yet, if SOPA passes, this blog will be shut down. This blog will be shut down for my description of the p2p process, for hinting that hackers might be able to circumvent the law, and for encouraging civil disobedience. It will be shut down because these paragraphs are a threat to copyright holders of America. I will be forced to stop writing, maybe even arrested because I told you how to beat the man. I may go to JAIL because I told you that the man can't win this one, even if the law passes. I, and hundreds of other bloggers, thousands of websites, millions of people are in danger of losing our First Amendment Rights over a little money that we probably wouldn't spend anyway.

Censorship is un-fucking-american. Stop this bill NOW. If you didn't sign the petition that popped up when you loaded this page, please refresh the page and sign it now. There are also numerous other petitions going around the web which I may post here if it seems the bill is in danger of passing.