It seems almost mandatory on this, the day that Wikipedia and Rock, Paper, Shotgun among many other sites have gone dark in protest about SOPA/PIPA, to discuss the matter. I just don't know what else there is to say about it that hasn't been said by people much more in the know and passionate about it. Certainly the odds are that less than a dozen people will even read this post, and in all likelihood you've already been bombarded with a ton of SOPA/PIPA data, so my throwing around numbers and figures isn't going to convince you of anything.
I guess the only left for me is to examine what would happen around here if the bills pass as is. Granted, the Obama Administration has already said they oppose the bills as they are, but that doesn't mean that the President wouldn't sign a version that addressed the specific 'net security concerns that the White House objected to. Or, for that matter, that there even will be an Obama Administration by this time next year*. What are the chances that Big Money Mitt's going to be willing to veto a bill that has so much corporate cash behind it? Not too good, in my estimation.
So let's say that SOPA passes. What happens next? Will Blogger even still exist? If you can shut down an entire webpage because of a single copyright complaint, wouldn't that mean Blogger would get smacked down almost instantly? I know I've seen plenty of blogs that use copyrighted pictures in them. Heck, I've got pics of movie posters in my various movie reviews. Would that be enough to get Blogger shut down? I don't know. Even if they ignored the relatively benign poster pics that I've got up, what about the character portraits I've taken for my Old Republic characters? Would EA try to pull the plug because of those?
What's worse, I've seen blogs on Blogger that are much more egregious vis a vis copyright infringement than my own feeble efforts. I've seen blogs, for instance, that are nothing but links to downloads of anime and manga and Japanese video games. So even if nothing I do is at all site-killing worthy, those blogs probably are. So then Blogger has a choice. They can either try to police what is purported millions of blogs, or they can just shut their doors. I'm guessing it'll be the latter. Same for LiveJournal or Facebook or Google+, or anywhere a person can get free and easy access to post whatever they want. It's hard to imagine how those sites could possibly hire enough people to go through their content page by page day by day to ensure that there isn't a copyright violation that could get them IP Blocked until they remove it. Especially since the law as written doesn't even require a court order. Any big old corporation can just say "Hey, they're stealing my stuff" and BAM, your site is down until after you prove that isn't so. Guilty until proven innocent, with corporate lawyers being the ones with their twitchy fingers on the trigger.
Now maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the scenario I describe is overly pessimistic. Maybe it will be intelligently applied and narrowly focused. But given Congress' track record of late, are you willing to risk everything the internet is on the hope that they won't fuck it up?
Me neither.
* = Yes, I know, the new President gets inaugurated on January 20th, so even if Obama loses there will still be an Obama Administration on January 18th, 2013. But you know what I mean. Stop being so pedantic.
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