Today is a good day for internet freedom. It's hard to celebrate when a "guilt upon accusation" law (where an individual can be prosecuted without a court appearance if they are merely suspected of downloading copyrighted material) passed here in New Zealand last year.
I'm against SOPA and similar legislation because it threatens my livelihood. It gives corporations vigilante power to strangle websites I rely on. It could stop me from linking-to content freely. It serves corporate interests not my interests.
It has been frustrating to watch two mega-industries Hollywood and Silicon Valley pitted against each other (over SOPA) when each is vitally important to the others survival. I love Hollywood. I love Silicon Valley. This is like two parents fighting.
Hollywood has an industry-wide attitude problem that's creating a love/hate tension between us. "I'm as mad as hell, Hollywood. I'm not gonna take it anymore!"
Hollywood doesn't understand that the cost of piracy is outweighed by the freedom of the internet. Their lobbying effort, by the MPAA especially, smells of an industry that prefers a world where the internet doesn't exist.(This is naive on my part, Hollywood doesn't need to feel all warm and fuzzy about the internet, they're not idealists, they're a big, behemoth business.)- Hollywood doesn't understand that convenience is an addiction. If only they created a legal way of downloading movies that was convenient and fairly priced, it wouldn't just protect internet freedom but the vast majority of pirates would stop using sites that SOPA tried to destroy.
- It pains me. It pains me that Hollywood are trying to fix a business model with legislation without fully understanding the technology industry which that legislation would affect and radically alter for the worst.
0 comments:
Post a Comment