“No” to SOPA & PIPA
(Sent to Senators Gillibrand & Schumer, and Rep. Hayworth.)
I am taking this opportunity to urge you to vote against SOPA and PIPA, as well as any similar initiatives. I think we agree that protecting copyright is important, but laws like these are not the way to go about it. Punishing sites like Google, Wikipedia, WordPress, and other content hosts is a blunt instrument that will hurt businesses and individuals innocent of any copyright violations. That is quite simply unjust. Furthermore, such policy will destroy the innovation and robust exchange of ideas that the Internet makes possible.
Technology is not the problem. Individual violators are. For years I worked in public schools. Sadly, I saw copyright violations occur every single day. If Congress were to address the problem in schools with something along the lines of SOPA-style laws, the solution would be to shut down Xerox. Does that make any sense?
It makes no more sense regarding the Internet.
