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About The Clackamas print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1989-2019 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 25, 2012)
Op mum Wednesday, Jan 25, 2012 newsed&clackam as. edu The Clackamas Internet controversy sparks viral debate .com WWW. Opinion By James Duncan Design Editor Since their introduction to the U.S. House o f Representatives on Oct, 26 by Republican representative o f Texas, Lamar Smith and Sen. Patrick Leahy, Democratic senator of Vermont, the “Stop Online Piracy Act” and its sister legislation, the “Protect IP Act” have sparked controversy and a national debate concerning freedom on the Internet. The two bills, which are being finan cially backed and pushed by the entertain m ent industry and politicians who receive most of their funds from donations from major media corporations, seeks to give the government power over “rogue web sites” that are beyond U.S. jurisdiction by adding them to an “Internet Blacklist.” The proposed blacklist would use the Dom ain Name Systein which translates website names like “www.Google.com” into the IP addresses that computers use to communicate. T he legislation would also allow copyright holders to force pay m ent processors like PayPal, credit card companies and advertisers to sever their ties with a website simply by sending out a notice, which they would have five days to comply with before action would be taken. T he bill would also expand exist ing criminal laws to include streaming o f copyright material, imposing a maximum penalty o f five years in prison. T he goal is obvious; the entertain m ent industry wants more power to deter pirates from sharing their intellectual property and causing them financial loss es. T he legislation in its current form is so broad that nearly anyone and everyone who uses the Internet would be at risk of being shut down or sued. Laws to allow copyright owners to issue take downs o f material from websites already exist in the form o f the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and in 2007, Universal Music G roup abused that wer when they went after Stephanie nz for her 29 second YouTube video o f her baby dancing around her kitchen as Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy” played on the radio. W ith the help o f the non profit digital rights advocacy group, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Lenz was successful in fighting back against Universal in a countersuit, claiming fair use. If SOPA arid PIPA were made law, court cases like Lenzs would have very B different outcomes and fair use might become a thing o f the past. T h e m ost troubling thing about SOPA and PIPA is that copyright hold ers can completely bypass due process, so they don’t even need to have a court trial at all. All they have to do get a site taken down is make an allegation o f infringe m ent, and m any common Internet activi ties would fall under their definition o f infringement. For instance, the popular Internet series “The Nostalgia Critic,” in which the eponymous reviewer, D oug Walker, reviews movies and television series in a comedic m anner would cease to exist, and could land the creator in jail and the website which hosted the content would be blacklisted if it failed to com ply with a takedown notice within the allowed time. Another popular Internet series, in which James Rolfe, known as the “Angry Video Game Nerd,” reviews poorly designed games from aging 8-bit and 16-bit consoles such as the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Super NFS', and Sega Genesis, could be prosecuted and have his videos taken down. Performing a cover of a popular song and uploading that recording to YouTube would become a crime, as would shar ing die lyrics to songs on websites like Songmeanings, LeosLyrics or Sing365. Copying and pasting or quoting lines from movies, television shows or copy righted books would also be criminalized. T he online art community, DeviantArt, is an outlet for many users creative expres sions, its also host to numerous fan-made artworks which involve copyrighted char acters from movies, T V shows, cartoons and video games, which under SOPA and PIPA, would put the user-base and site at risk o f being fined or taken down. Services like Googles “Google Images” search engine, which indexes nearly 10 billion images from websites around the world, could also be subject to the power o f copyright holders who would ulti mately view the website as a haven o f infringement. SOPA and PIPA were barely m en tioned on T V riews, but in the wake o f rolling Internet black outs, more people are becoming aware and taking a stand. O u r generation stands at the edge o f deci sions that could lead to the death o f the Internet as we know it today. N o more arrows to the knee or auto-tuned news and no more Rick Roll! T he beautiful art o f parody and satire that die Internet has let flourish could be lost to us almost overnight. But, worst o f all ... we might have to pay for cable to watch network television and be watching it at the time it airs! So get out there and call your state senator, write a letter, or just talk about it with your friends. Act now before the Internet belongs to SOPA. follow us on buuittcr @ClackamasPrint W e are your mobile tax solution with affordable prices!
