2 min read
Ron Conway speaking at protest against SOPA & PIPA in San Francisco on January 18, 2012
At UpCounsel, we are obsessed with lowering legal barriers to help entrepreneurs, businesses and attorneys succeed. We wanted to take a second to talk about two pieces of law we think will construct crippling barriers to our economic eco-system: SOPA and PIPA.
SOPA and PIPA are the last ditch efforts of the decaying content publishers to protect their power by attacking the technological innovations which undermine their control over content creators. Now that people can publish their own videos from home, share news events on Twitter and purchase music directly from artists, content publishers are trying to find a way to protect their pockets. SOPA and PIPA are the vessels in which they aim to do so.
Without a doubt, our country must take action against content piracy. Such change should and will be driven by market innovation demanded by content creators – not through lobbied legislation. To claim that SOPA and PIPA are directed toward correcting illegal piracy is a complete “farce” says Intellectual Property and Digital Privacy attorney Jessica Hubley. SOPA & PIPA are nothing more than actions which empower government bureaucrats with unchecked censorship privileges and open the doors for a new generation of plaintiff attorneys to destroy innovative businesses that are leading job creation in America. “SOPA is a classic example of the machinations used to ‘fight piracy’ when the real solution is for content owners to design and price their content so that they themselves are the best channel for end users to access quality copies of their content,” says Hubley.
SOPA & PIPA would put a stark halt to the flourishing collaborative communities that are fueled by the Internet. As such, many new and existing businesses which leverage these collaborative communities, and that make up one of the few growing sectors of the American economy, would suffer greatly.
If you have a technology startup, know someone in a technology startup, or care about the economic stability of this country then take a few minutes this week and take action.
For your convenience:
Dianne Feinstein – U.S. Senator for California and Co-Sponsor for PIPA
Phone: (202) 224-3841
Barbara Boxer – U.S. Senator for California and Co-Sponsor for PIPA
Phone: (202) 224-3553
Sign the petition online: https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/
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