Stop SOPA!

I normally don’t blog about things like the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) here.  I figure the few readers I have want to hear about RPGs, comics, or other nerdy pursuits.  Today, I felt I had to make an exception.

I am not pro-piracy.  In fact, I believe strongly in voting with my dollars when it comes to the things I like.  I want the people who make these things to get paid so that they will continue making them.

I can even understand the frustration of the people who watch their intellectual property get pirated over and over.  While I disagree with him strongly on SOPA, comic book writer and novelist Peter David sums up this frustration over at his blog.

None of this justifies a bad law like SOPA though.  SOPA assumes guilt without proof.  I don’t want an Internet where the mere accusation of piracy can get a website removed from DNS servers, effectively erased from the web.  Under the current Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) companies like Warner Brothers have issued takedown notices for files they have never looked at based solely on the filename.  Do we really want to make it easier for this sort of thing to happen?

So I urge you you to contact your congressman and tell them you are opposed to SOPA.  Sites like Stop American Censorship make it easy to get this contact information.  Congress is supposed to represent the will of the people, not that of corporate lobbyists, but it is up to us to let them know what our will is.

Stop SOPA!