Wikipedia, and a growing list of other websites have gone black to protest two bills that are currently making the rounds in U.S. Congress. The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House, and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate. In an effort to stop online distribution of copyrighted materials, the bills would require website owners to police user contributed materials and block sites that are infringing copyrights. So service providers and search engines would have to inspect all traffic searching for copyrighted material so they can block it [1, 2].
If Congress can back SOPA and PIPA, what's next? Will phone companies have to listen in on all phone calls ensure that people don't commit illegal transactions over their phone lines? Will UPS and FedEx have to inspect every package to ensure that they don't deliver stolen goods? Will cities have to make sure that contraband is not transported over their streets? How can something so absurd in other contexts have a chance of becoming law in the Internet context?
And why does this keep coming up on the Internet and technology? Are people so obtuse that once the discussion becomes about the technology, they can no longer follow it? We had movie theaters changing the aspect ratio of their films so they wouldn't fit well on TVs. Then we had Disney & Universal suing Sony in 1976 when they introduced the VCR to the U.S. It wasn't settled until 1984, when the Supreme Court concluded that people could tape broadcasts [3]. And in the 1980s, we have the music labels getting a kickback for each blank cassette tape sold (the same holds for blank CDs) [4]. Then it was the RIAA suing people left and right, claiming they were sharing music over the internet. And don't forget copyright periods that keep getting lengthened. Everything to protect the industry and nothing for the consumer.
This makes the members of Congress look like corporate shills for Hollywood and the recording industry. How is it that the book industry is able to change and adapt to the internet era (sort of), but the recording industry and Hollywood can't? Are the recording industry and Hollywood now too big to fail too? If not, why is Congress trying to enact SOPA & PIPA? Of course, the recording industry shouldn't be happy with piracy, but why don't they fight their own battles? I guess when you're friends with Congress, it's more profitable to try to force someone else to fight for you.
References:
1. https://blacklist.eff.org/
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Learn_more
3. http://www.ce.org/Press/CEA_Pubs/941.asp
4. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/music/inside/cron.html
