On Friday, January 21, 2012 Senator Harry Reid postponed a vote on two online anti-piracy bills, one called the Protect I.P. Act (PIPA), and the other called the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Both bills, drafted with bi-partisan support, would have given the federal government power to distinguish any website from the domain name system (DNS) considered to be infringing on copyright. For now, these bills are dead in the water, but the lobbying and legislative forces behind these bills will in no way let up, and the call-to-action around stopping this kind of legislation is now in full-force.
Made up of Hollywood heavyweights, book publishing giants, and the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), the industries leveraging these bills, and no doubt any future versions like them, are set on protecting their large pockets while crushing the free speech, collaboration, and creative expression of artists.
Dubspot’s own creative community, immediate and extended, is particularly positioned to suffer from internet censorship of this kind. If these bills were passed, it would make for a field day in policing sites (large and small) that host music content of ANY kind. Dubspot’s teachers, students, and favorite artists are in a category of people whose access to information, sounds, and visuals are tantamount to the groundbreaking music we are a part of. Not only could the work be affected, self-promotion and the power to share one’s music from the ground up would be suffocated by unsafe hosting. Sites like Soundcloud, Mixcloud, Dropbox, and even YouTube and Facebook would be at risk of the policing power granted to the federal government in these bills.
A none too soon example emerged earlier this week, as our favorite file-hosting site Megaupload was shut-down by the FBI. A major player in our ability to share our work, find sample material, and unique sounds Megaupload is just one casualty of what will likely be an ongoing struggle to keep our creative freedoms intact.
It’s important re-emphasize that these lobbying and legislation efforts have merely been slowed down. The entertainment industry will stop at nothing to ensure their profits keep rising, and Internet freedoms keep tightening. As Internet educator, activist, and public speaker Clay Shirky tweeted yesterday, “Even if #SOPA/#PIPA are stopped this year, they’ll be back under new names next year.” Watch Clay Shirky’s phenomenal TED talk on SOPA/PIPA below, and join Dubspot in staying informed and active about protecting our rights to create, collaborate, and share our chosen art form with the world.
