kanikkers:

Stop PROTECT IP (S. 968)/SOPA (HR. 3261)

whatifitdoes:

To my followers: EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU NEEDS TO READ THIS ARTICLE. Then you should call/email/send carrier pigeon to your congress person. This is serious stuff. If this passes the Internet would become significantly worse.

p.s. I would expect Tumblr to die near instantaneously if it passed. So if for no other reason than your love/use of Tumblr contact your congress persons ASAP.

p.p.s. Spread the word.

i’ve honestly been trying to figure out EXACTLY what this bill entails consequences-wise, and it’s likely because i’m not politically savvy enough, but i can’t quite figure it out.

opencongress, a site that tracks congressional ongoings for the masses, summarizes it as such: “Makes unauthorized web streaming of copyrighted content a felony with a possible penalty of up to 5 years in prison. Illegal streaming of copyrighted content is defined in the bill as an offense that “consists of 10 or more public performances by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copyrighted works” and has a total economic value, either to the copyright holder or the infringer, of at least $2,500”

at face value, it just seems as though this is an attempt to stop the illegal streaming of video. most everyone that’s responding to this bill has negative feedback, and i feel as though i’m getting only one side of the story (which i currently agree with; the consequences, as stated by those who oppose the bill, sound awful). if anyone who follows me has more political knowledge than me, if you have time, could you find some information about this for me?

also, i’ll likely be doing more research tomorrow, since i’m going to bed now and don’t have time. this is definitely not the first i’ve heard of sopa.

The EFF has a couple articles that might explain it better (albeit a bit more in legalese but not by much) here and here. One of the problems is that you can get punished if your website “allegedly ‘engage in, enable or facilitate’ infringement or allegedly be taking or have taken steps to ‘avoid confirming a high probability’ of infringement.” Its kind of like when you see a youtube video get flagged and taken down for copyright material (regardless of whether it did or didn’t have copyrighted material) except it could happen to anyone and their whole site could be taken down for not doing enough to stop people from doing hosting something copyrighted. So if you happen to have a website (like Tumblr) that has a copyrighted image on it (like almost every meme) then your site could be taken down and you could end up in jail.