Stop SOPA

Like many sites, I’m drawing attention to SOPA and PIPA, two terrible laws that threaten the web.  You can check out the Electronic Frontier Foundation for a rundown of the bills, but here are some lowlights:

• SOPA creates a guilty until proven innocent standard for copyright. Instead of filing a complaint about specific infringing content, copyright holders can knock the entire website hosting the content off the web.
• The Attorney General could de-list websites from search engines.So not only would websites be shut down on the suspicion of copyright infringement, we might never find them and their 404 pages since the government would have purged them from search results.  The government should not have this power to silence speech.
• SOPA and PIPA set up a Great Firewall of the U.S. The law would block access within the U.S. to possibly-infringing foreign websites and even sites that just have too many links to blacklisted sites.

Here it is in video form:

Please spread the word, sign the petitions, and call your congressperson.

And one more recommendation.  Please consider donating to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which works tirelessly to promote communication and connectedness around the world.