Congress is considering two bills that will dramatically change the internet, the so-called PROTECT-IP Act and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). If passed, they will give the government the power to shut off access to sites that serve copyrighted material. And who gets to determine what sites get shut off? The copyright holders which ultimately means, corporations like your Viacoms and News Corp and the like.

All they have to do is convince a judge that site is serving nothing but copyrighted material and boom, no access for you.

If these bills were law when the internet was a mere babe, there would be no streaming video. YouTube, which has completely revolutionized the way we consume video content, would have been dead on arrival. Which means no Hulu which means cutting off an income stream to the very corporations who support this stupid thing. Idiots.

Copyright and intellectual property should be protected. Of course. But the methods employed by this bill are broken and do much more harm than good.

I've sent emails to my representatives to try to convince them to vote this ruddy thing down. I encourage everyone to do some further reading: Ars Technica, EFF, an open letter, Fred Wilson.

If you feel moved to action, Tumblr has a tool that will connect you to your representatives so you can talk to them on the phone and Fight for the Future has a form you can fill out to email your representatives. We can stop this idiocy before it starts if we all say NO.

Source: Fight for the Future