Darkest day of the internet age

A day without wikipedia...

Find out more about SOPA and PIPA on non other than wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Learn_more



Stop Online Piracy Act
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), also known as House Bill 3261 or H.R. 3261, is a bill that was introduced in the United States House of Representatives on October 26, 2011, by House Judiciary Committee Chair Representative Lamar S. Smith (R-TX) and a bipartisan group of 12 initial co-sponsors. The bill, if made law, would expand the ability of U.S. law enforcement and copyright holders to fight online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit goods. Presented to the House Judiciary Committee, it builds on the similar PRO-IP Act of 2008 and the corresponding Senate bill, the PROTECT IP Act.

PROTECT IP Act
The PROTECT IP Act (Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011 or PIPA), also known as Senate Bill 968 or S. 968, is a proposed law with the stated goal of giving the US government and copyright holders additional tools to curb access to "rogue websites dedicated to infringing or counterfeit goods", especially those registered outside the U.S. The bill was introduced on May 12, 2011, by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and 11 bipartisan co-sponsors. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that implementation of the bill would cost the federal government $47 million through 2016, to cover enforcement costs and the hiring and training of 22 new special agents and 26 support staff. The Senate Judiciary Committee passed the bill, but Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) placed a hold on it.

Of course lauyee will always have his own view on this kind of matter but is too busy to put in my input. Stay tune for the lauyeelosophied version!

Update 25/1/2012:
Living in Malaysia, SOPA and PIPA does not directly affect me at all, however, US is one of the largest internet content provider for the time being. At least, they have done a great job in internet content aggregation. YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, FMyLife, 9gag among others bring us massive amount of user generated content which some I find useful or amusing at the very least.

I love music. Frankly, do I buy from the internet? Not at all. Am I a net-pirate? Sure am! I was one of the proud user of Napster, back in the days when I was still using a 56kbps dial up. To be even more despiteful, I'm a leecher,   one who only download but never seed. However as time goes by, then come the broadband age in Malaysia, I find it easier to just stream it from site like LastFM and YouTube. The buffering is annoying for sure, but the pop song that doesn't even last the test of time doesn't deserve a permanent sector in my hard disk.

There is no doubt that intellectual property should be protected. That is if the property is actually showing intellectual value, sadly a lot of the content being sold on the internet simply doesn't bear the value of their price tag. Take music for example, US$1.29 for a song on iTune music store, one which I see one years down the road, I'd most probably forget about. Why should I even pay for that when I can easily get it for free somewhere else? SOPA will proudly say that, that's their whole purpose, so, now even if I couldn't get it for free somewhere else, I wouldn't even bother. I'd just listen to the radio! You can't stop me from using a tape recorder if I really like that song and doesn't want to pay for it.

Let's see, the bill is proposed because there are people who share or distribute intellectual property of other people on the internet, hurting the economic creativity. Why not do some reverse thinking, in economic down time like as is, people are cautious with their money, least they should be. If we found something we really appreciate and we like it so much, that's where our money go, or at the very least, the marketing company is doing a very good job in packaging the product to entice you on buying it. On such a platform, it increase competitiveness and in such an open market, may the best person win. It open up possibility for distribution channel, distributed content and most important of all, to grab the attention and interest of the buyer. This process automatically filter out those contents which the internet community at large doesn't see the commercial value of such so called intellectual property. In a way, it's a test to see how intelligent your property is.

Which is exactly why I don't charge royalties on what I'm writing here. You willing to read to this line is already a great motivation for me, if you leave a comment, that's superb, if you click on any of the related ads, even better. If you want to quote, and not credit me, well maybe what I'm writing is just not that valuable or intelligent. So if I really want to make money as an author, maybe I should put in much more effort and be more creative. This is the platform that a free, un(maybe slightly)censored internet open up for me. Don't take this away.