SOPA

           So, the SOPA summary and Public Knowledge SOPA article were a little confusing for me. It just feels like they're trying to push too many big words together and go into too much detail. But what we discussed in class and Professor Herman's article were a lot more understandable for me.
          I understand that SOPA's main point is stopping online piracy. Everyone is terrified of being taken advantage of, and the government thinks internet users are pulling one over on them because people are constantly illegally downloading music, movies, etc. I understand that intellectual property is important, but there are too many loopholes in what SOPA is proposing. They're trying to crack down on too much at once. One thing that irritates me specifically is eliminating videos of live musical performances. I like being able to watch bands/artists I haven't seen in concert yet in videos. I want to see if they're good or not live! I'll pay for a ticket eventually when they come to my city. LET ME HAVE THAT LIBERTY. The internet is a place for creativity and expansion. It isn't meant to be constantly regulated by the government. We have all grown very accustomed to posting whatever we want on our tumblrs and googling anything our heart desires. Just let us have it. Were paying for it anyway. This freedom of expression is important. People can find a lot of inspiring, motivating, and entertaining things on the internet that make them very happy. Like it said in the Techdirt article, about %2 of adults have large collections of unauthorized music, and then %1 have large collections of unauthorized films; those don't seem like detrimental numbers for the music and movie industries to me.
          One thing that I like about the whole SOPA thing is the outrage that it brought out. I'm glad that sites that are so big, like Wikipedia and Reddit, took a stand and closed their sites down for entire days to prove a point and get people's attention. I didn't know much about SOPA beforehand, but that sure got my attention and made me want to look into it more. It's crazy how the largest online protest in history occurred because of this. I didn't know the exact statistics, how 10 million people signed the petition against SOPA and PIPA, 4 million people sent e-mails to congress, and 8 million people attempted to call congress. It's just so cool to see our generation and everyone who uses the internet show that they care, and that they can be a force that makes a difference. In just a day, the bill went from having 31 opponents to 122 opponents, and that is amazing. I enjoy this quote from Herman's article,"As a second legacy, policymakers are now terrified of the political backlash that comes when they go against the wishes of the technology crowd." because I'm glad that this protest made a difference, and that they're freaked out because of the backlash that occurred. I hope we don't have to deal with this again for awhile, but I think the internet community has shown that they can handle it.

Allison Volpe