STOP SOPA AND PIPA


Members of the Congress are trying to put an end to counterfeiters and pirates. In order to do that they are voting on bills called SOPA and PIPA. The problem with these bills are that they could order the blocking of sites that would censor the internet. Search engines could be forced to delete entire websites from their search results. 41 human rights organizations and 110 prominent law professors have petitioned against the bills. Internet companies would have to monitor everything users link to or upload or face the risk of litigation. Internet companies such as AOL, EBay, Facebook, Google, Linkedln, Mozilla, Twitter, Yahoo and Zynga wrote a letter to Congress saying these bills "pose a serious risk to our industry's continued track record of innovation and job-creation". 55 of America's most successful venture capitalists spoke out stating that PIPA "would stifle investment in Internet services, throttle innovation, and hurt American competitiveness. More than 204 entrepreneurs told Congress that PIPA and SOPA would "hurt economic growth and chill innovation". I agree that PIPA and SOPA isn't the right way to stop the counterfeiters and pirates, the censorship regulations wont shut down pirate sites. All they have to do is change their addresses while other companies that obey the law will suffer high penalties for breaches they can't control. Censoring will only take the freedom from the internet. The internet is an important driver of American economic growth and job creation, limiting it will only hurt economic growth. Wikipedia shut its website down for 24 hours in order to protest against SOPA and PIPA. The blackout started at midnight on Wednesday and wont be available till midnight on Thursday. Google is offering a petition against PIPA and SOPA, over 4 million people have signed it including me. I encourage everyone to sign it. The vote on these bills will start January 24th.