Okay, maybe that was a bit too tongue-in-cheek for a title related to something so serious. So, perhaps the next sentence of this article should start with the word seriously.
Seriously, go oppose SOPA & PIPA. As you may know, I typically don’t echo what was just written on PhoneNews.com over here. But today’s an important exception, as I chronicled exactly why SOPA and PIPA need to die a loud, voracious death. The tech community must take its stand, right here, and right now.
Please, help everyone out here, and take just a few minutes to call your local Congressperson. Call your Senators. Even if they support SOPA & PIPA. Heck, even if they have lunch with Chris Dodd (ex-Senator magically turned MPAA lobbyist… erm, chairman) on a daily basis.
Writing is nice, but a phone call works best. It’s easy to hit delete, it’s easy to crash inboxes. I’m sure it will happen. But making someone actually jot down what you had to say in the legislative process goes longer. No, you probably won’t reach your local representative (hey, you might, it happens all the time). However, some aide in that office does have to write down notes on what you said. If enough people does it, the aides aggregate. If every voicemail and memo they have to take down today is on SOPA and PIPA, it will help.
The White House will likely veto SOPA and PIPA if it comes to the President’s desk. However, it shouldn’t get that far to begin with. Congress needs to realize that the tech-savvy millions are now the majority. The average joe speaks iPad as fluently as Republican vs Democrat. This is one issue that thankfully crosses party lines. Free speech should not be trumped by corporate interests, and this isn’t a left-corporate or right-corporate issue. It’s about everyone, small businesses and civil rights advocates… not to mention big businesses and organizations standing up to the media conglomerates.
Let’s make stopping SOPA and PIPA one issue where we can actually unite in this country, and who knows? Maybe some day we can keep this movement going to the point that it isn’t illegal anymore to copy a DVD movie that you own, that you purchased, to store on your own devices.
We still have a long way to go, after all, it’s legal to copy a CD-ROM to your hard drive, but not a DVD-ROM. That’s the country we live in today, but SOPA and PIPA would take it to, as they say, a whole ‘nother level.