PIPA and SOPA Need a New Name
There is a lot of talking, linking and letter writing to senators as the tech industry works frantically to stop a bill moving quickly through congress that will have a devastating effect on out industry. PIPA and SOPA, as some say:
This is the worst piece of Internet legislation in history. (It’s) a bill that would break the very fabric of the Internet, create an Internet blacklist, kill jobs and great startup companies, huge blogs, and social networks.
I’m not being dramatic – these are horrifyingly bad bills being introduced at a time when our country should be focused on exactly the opposite of what these bills represent.
We should not jeopardize a foundational structure that has worked for content owners and Internet companies alike information lawfully online
Foundational communication structures in jeopardy? Jobs destroyed? Startups squashed? Why is there a direct target on the back of an industry that has been the only net job creator in the past decade? And why is such a destructive bill moving so swiftly through the halls of our Congress that is seems a foregone conclusion to pass with no input other than from those of it’s creators?
The answer lies somewhere in the parties throwing their lobbying power and financial muscle behind this piece of legislation. The list reads as a who’s who disrupted incumbents:
The National Cable and Television Association, the record and movie industry (RIAA and MPAA), Screen Actors Guild, Viacom, Ford Motor Company, the AFL-CIO and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
The attacks this bill is aiming to thwart have nothing to do with national security. This legislation is protection against attacks on incumbents business models, plain and simple.
David Pakman, a VC and longtime music industry veteran, sums up is up the incumbents problem well:
The copyright industry, still not comfortable with navigating the transition from analog to digital, is aggressively attempting to force new changes to copyright law that would unquestionably cause lots of collateral damage to the internet and to internet companies with digital native business models (which are, coincidentally, a threat to traditional media companies). The Stop Online Piracy Act (H.R. 3261), introduced in the House in late October (which includes the most controversial parts of the Senate’s PROTECT IP Act (S. 968)), would be bad for internet companies, for internet expression, and for the future of copyright law. Right now, the digital innovation community is the likely engine of economic growth. This is not the time to hand out business model protection to traditional media companies.
So why don’t we just call this what it really is: The Business Model Protection Act.
The Business Model Protection Act…that is what is really what we are seeing right now. First, the vested interests ignore the threat because it is small and figure it will quickly die out. The threat gathers momentum though, so they try to sue it out of existence. Then they try to co-opt the threat through seemingly innocuous efforts as acquisitions and assimilation. When that does not work, they pull out the big cannons and go into full court press lobbying mode and get their way through extorting Congress.
If we are not vigorous about exercising our freedoms and making our collective voices heard, the vested interests and incumbents will win. Always.
(via brycedotvc)
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I wonder what sort of crazy protests/backlash will happen if this thing passes.
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The Business Model Protection Act…that is what is really what we are seeing right now. First, the vested interests...
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