Why I Supported the SOPA/PIPA Strike

This is a small website. The number of pageviews a month can be counted in the low tens-to-hundreds. The amount of traffic this page receives or would not receive today isn't even a concern. To that end, I don't know there was any impact to this website's traffic by using the script that redirected browsers to SOPAStrike.

Today was about showing support for and trying to educate about the need for sensible copyright laws in the US.

SOPA and PIPA, in the current forms, risk the crushing of a number of forms expression via the Internet. Yes, some of these forms of expression are questionable in their adherence to US copyright law. Some forms of expression utterly disregard copyright as well as concepts of fairness and fair use.

Yet the amount of content and conversation on the Internet that IS covered by fair use and in compliance with US copyright law that would be at risk is significantly larger body of work. And this is free speach. And the way parts of SOPA and PIPA seem to eliminate the need for Due Process, going from (possibly empty or even illigetimate) claim of violation to compelling action to remove invites too much mischif on the parts of our economy that have a vested interest in returning America to a primarily broadcast-data consumer market (they make it, package it and deliver is; we just listen and watch).

There isn't enough education about US copyright law in the US. And this lack of understanding exists on both sides of the debate. We teach what plagarism is in elementary school (my kids both get that lesson every year), but not copyright. And I don't think teachers are given enough guidance about what is or isn't allowed.

And to think that a school website could be taken down merely becasue a teacher didn't know that a page that they provided a link, in addition to the content they were looking for also hosted something that infringed on someone's copyright is frightening.

Please, educate yourself about what laws are going through Congress.

• AmericanCensorship.org
• SOPAStrike
• Wikipedia on SOPA