Stop Online Piracy Act

Other people have written about SOPA in more detail than I can. Suffice it to say, it is a terrible bill – its authors are either technically inept, astonishingly ignorant, or simply corrupt. (Or, knowing the average character of a US Congressman, a combination of all three is the most likely.)

To put it in perspective, the bill is a bit like ordering a major city to shut down all its freeways and roads to all traffic because someone might have driven on those roads with a bootleg Chinese DVD in the trunk. In addition, SOPA’s provisions are ripe for abuse – one can easily see a politician using it to take down a site critical of his voting record under nebulous claims of “copyright infringement” (perhaps that is the real reason Congress likes the idea so much).

SOPA does not benefit the public in any way, and is a textbook example of a small, moneyed group using its money to enact ill-considered laws to protect its economic position.

-JM