January 11, 2012, 11:16 pmOpposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act
Depending on which news channel you watch, you may or may not have heard about a bill law makers are proposing at this moment called the Stop Online Piracy Act.(SOPA for Short) A controversial bill who’s architects claim is designed “to promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation by combating the theft of U.S. property, and for other purposes.” And, who’s opponents say violates the protections afforded under the First Ammendment, and who’s draconian enforcement methods will catastrophically break the open operation of the internet while stifling free speech.
As an Internet Service Provider and corporation built upon it’s own innovation, possession, and eventual resale of intellectual property and patent rights, Theme Park Innovations stands in strong opposition to this bill. Our interpretation of this bill leads us to question it’s true underlying motives, is this bill being created to increase the level of protection for rights holders, or to violate internet users rights of privacy and freedom of speech.
It’s coverage is so broad that it has the potential to open up the flood gates for frivolous litigation for any website owner, for copyright holders to silence individuals expressing their right to free speech when it is convenient for them, and to otherwise force criminal prosecution efforts in an otherwise civil matter. It would seem that this bill also requires extensive (Aka expensive) changes to the existing internet infrastructure to implement, on top of that it would require one to decrease security and police our own networks on behalf of rights holders. The additional cost of such drastic changes could potentiality derail efforts to raise venture capital, hurt small business, stifle innovation, and decrease job growth.
After reading this document, I have to ask; Why on earth would we authorize the expenditure of $50,000 in networking gear so that we can decrease security of our customers systems, and implement intrusive deep packet inspection to police our networks for “infringing traffic” so that another company can enforce their own intellectual property rights and profit off the litigation(or threat there of). The internet was build upon an open standard and is what I believe the final frontier for truly free speech. It must be protected at all cost.
There is a time and place for the enforcement of Intellectual Property rights, it called civil court. It is a place where the burden of proving Intellectual Property theft is the responsibility of the right holders. A burden, responsibility, and expense that falls on the right holders and the right holders alone. Not one that should be bared by all of the service providers and users of the internet. It would seem that those behind this bill have illusions that it’s passing will stop online file sharing and Intellectual Property theft. The passing of this bill is pointless and futile, as the world has shown time and time again, people will find a way around any road blocks put in place by any form of authority. Just look at how long it took the I-Phone to get out of cellular Jail.
In opposition of this act, we will be joining other major service providers in a 12 hour service black out on January 18th 2011.