Anti-SOPA is not Pro-piracy
Opposition of the SOPA legislation has become a lot more vocal over the past week or so… largely owing to the upcoming SOPA Blackout Day on January 18. At the same time, I’ve noticed a trend. People who oppose SOPA are being accused of wanting to protect piracy. (Google, in particular, has been singled out in this regard).
You’ll get no argument from me that piracy is a problem (albeit one that has been grossly exaggerated by certain industries)… but SOPA is not the way to go about fixing it.
SOPA is the equivalent of trying to swat a fly with a rocket launcher. Yeah, you might kill the fly, but god only knows what else you’re going to blow up in the process.
For people who oppose SOPA, out biggest concern is not that it may hamper piracy and people’s ability to watch movies like Mission Impossible 3 for free, but rather that the overwhelmingly broad power of the legislation can (and almost certainly will) be abused by those who wield it.
On top of that, to say that SOPA will actually do anything to curtail online piracy is a big assumption… if piracy were really that easy to stop, it would have been done a long time ago. If someone wants something for free, odds are they’ll find a way to get it one way or another. Tools to circumvent the effects of SOPA have already been developed, which just goes to show that, if you don’t understand the internet to begin with, you shouldn’t try to “fix” the internet.
People who oppose SOPA don’t blatantly support piracy. We simply see the damage SOPA will do to the online ecosystem.
