In case you haven’t heard about SOPA & PIPA, it’s something you really need to know about. SOPA stands for “Stop Online Piracy Act” and PIPA stands for “Protect IP Act.” It sounds like a good thing. Right? On the surface it does, but when you start thinking about how far this censorship could go, it’s scary. Scary to little people like me who use the internet as a way not only to share their love for art, but also as a way to make a living. Here’s an informative video that helps explain it.
PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.
Many sites on the internet, large sites, are blacked out today in protest of this bill and to help raise awareness of it. I have signed my name to petitions and urge you to do the same. If you enjoy reading my blog, or looking at my work on the internet, or any artist’s work for that matter, or if you enjoy sharing your work on the internet, I urge you to sign also. It only takes a second. Here’s a link for Artists Opposing the Protect-IP / SOPA Act.
There’s another great video on the subject at theoatmeal.com. That site blacked out their front page, but put up a video of how it could affect them (and other artists). It’s done in a humorous way, but it helps you see how this could affect you.
unfortunately i am not signing it as i do not know what I stand for. Over the past 10 years on just about every blog and art group i belong to people, w have rampaged on about copy write and stamped etc their works for fear that some one will use it. Often these artists are using altered materials or in altered traditional patterns. many people even sell patterns and say the item can only be used for personal use; so I for one am befuddled.
It can definitely be confusing, but the fact that you have access on the internet to those groups is something that these bills could stop if they are passed. Watching the videos that I posted & linked to help explain it. There are already bills in place to stop piracy. With these new bills, a few bad eggs on a site like youtube could shut the whole thing down. Or if someone leaves a comment on my blog with a link to their site that has something violating copyright (such as a video they made with copyrighted music playing in the background from a CD), my site could be shut down simply because the link was left on my site. For me, there’s no question that this type of censorship is a very bad thing.
Oh no! Thanks for posting the video Traci. I’ve been hearing about this censorship and it helped explain alot. This is very bad. I don’t have my website up and running yet as I am just beginning my art journey but it will be detrimental to the livlihood of all artists! I am sharing this with others. People need to understand what this really means
Great Michelle! Thanks for sharing it!
This will not just affect the USA. I am an Aussie, and they are already pretty hot on piracy on our side of the globe. Uploading.com (in new Zealand) was closed down today for enabling piracy.
I write and use only my own materials on my site, however my web host is an American company so I would be affected should they be closed down because someone inadvertently linked to something they should not.
Adaptation of ideas and patterns has been going on since before Godet published their magazines. The internet has just made it easier to find out how many people are doing it, and making money out of it. But is it any different from the dressmaker or hatmaker who would be given the magazine and asked to make something from one of the patterns in it?
This law will not help protect any one of us from having our knowledge used by someone else. I have given up chasing people who republish what I have written, and use photos of my hands, to help sell their goods. Copyright law is totally inadequate, and there are things that have been trademarked that should never have been allowed, so adding to this legal mess is not going to improve things for anyone, except make it easier for the already fabulously wealthy who can afford a barrage of lawyers to terrorize and bankrupt their tiny business rivals.
Laws around the world already encourage that sort of legal piracy from the big companies. Giving them more power to censure what we do, and allowing them to hurt third parties who become collateral damage is not the way to sort out this mess.
I cannot offer any solution to preventing anyone from taking your intellectual property and using it for their own financial benefit that does not involve vast amounts of legal fees. I think all we can do is continue to say that making something for personal use is fine, but its not fine for commercial use, and getting after companies like Ebay, Etsy, and Artfire, among others, to recognise that little businesses have intellectual rights that deserve protecting too. Though perhaps if this legislation threatens to put ebay out of business, which it does, that could prevent it ever becoming law.