SOPA, for anyone that isn’t familiar with it, is a bill soon to be voted on by Congress. It stands for Stop Online Piracy Act. I’m not an advocate for or against online piracy but I thought I would weigh in on this SOPA bill.
Online piracy is a Pandora’s box, no matter what the MPAA or RIAA try to do, they can’t stop it. The more they try to establish litigation and laws to prevent piracy, the harder it will be to stop. I have to side with those that are saying the SOPA law is flawed. Today I got a chuckle from all of the people out there posting ways you can get around what SOPA would attempt to suppress. I love that people are already developing browser addons that would automate those processes. In fact one of the guys developing an addon is from MIT. What makes these lawmakers think they can outsmart someone from MIT? Its kinda ludicrous when you think about it.
In my opinion there are two things that the MPAA and RIAA can do to fight this piracy thing. First, stop trying to prevent piracy with silly bills like SOPA, that just pisses off the pirates and increases their motivation. Instead I would find ways to track them down to prosecute them. I’m sorry but copyright infringement and piracy is still a crime so I’m going to side with other guys there.
Second, and this is the big one, Lower Your Prices!!! RIAA is already trying to play this game a little bit. One dollar for a song, or ten dollars for an album, from iTunes is a pretty good deal in my opinion. However, nine bucks a person to see a movie, that is ridiculous!! It’s bad enough that the quality of the movies these days is in the tank and the 3D gimmick isn’t improving the quality. In my opinion, anyone that is downloading a movie is missing out on the video and sound quality you could get if you watched it on blu-ray. I scoff at anyone that claims the movie they download is actually “HD quality” or comparable to watching the actual blu-ray.
So I agree, SOPA is a waste of time and taxpayer money. It won’t work; no matter what lame brain plan they come up with, there are hundreds of smarter people that already know a way around it, and they are ready to share their idea with everyone on the Internet.
Oh, and one final note, SOPA will NOT kill, maim, break or disembowel the Internet; that’s just a little too mellow dramatic folks.
Cheers!