SOPA isn't one of them.

First, I'm not going to go on a huge rant, many many other people have already done that, and better than I could. Instead, I will link you to the blog belonging to Wil Wheaton (Star Trek TNG) who seems to make some decent points.

[link]

I do want to say a few things though (this is longer that I expected, sorry).

First, I don't like piracy or copyright infringement. I feel like, because we are artists and we exist on a website like this, we understand copyright in ways that a lot of people on the internet don't. Many of us have probably been on the other side of this fight, trying to deal with people who've taken our copyrighted work, taken money out of our pockets. The problem is, using SOPA to fight piracy is like cutting down a forest to spite a splinter. The proposed legislation is so vague, the entire internet would, essentially, be under control of the US governments (and whichever corporations can pull the Governments strings hard enough), the only websites that would survive the purge would be corporate owned ones. And even those would be in trouble; say goodbye to deviantArt as we know it.

And yes, despite being one of the few websites that publishes user created content and yet still comes down hard on copyrighted material, deviantArt will go down one of two avenues, either it'll shut down entirely because of one or two submissions that contain copyrighted material that weren't caught yet... or they'll have to start moderating the submissions before they're published... which, with the volume of submissions they deal with means your work will likely spend months in moderation before being allowed on due to backlogs... but we won't get into logistics here, the main point is, SOPA will change deviantArt for the worst in extreme ways.

And this is just one website.

Now remember, this problem has come directly from the music and film industry, two industries that simply refuse to move with the times in order to combat piracy. Do you know how Microsoft and Adobe fight piracy? They don't.

Something they likely don't want you to know, but think real hard about the last time you heard a story of the RIAA suing the pants off of a teenager or his parents because he downloaded a song or twelve. I'm guessing some time in the last year. Kid downloads a song that costs 99c on iTunes and gets sued for thousands of dollars.

Now think, when was the last time you heard a story about some kid getting the pants sued off of him for downloading a copy of Microsoft Office, or Adobe Photoshop?

They haven't. This is for a couple of reasons and both fall under the heading of "Bigger fish to fry".

First of all, hands up. Who here has a copy of Adobe Photoshop on their system (any version)? Now keep those hands up if you paid upwards of $800 for a license? Thought so.

Microsoft and Adobe will happily sue large companies that do wrong by their intellectual copyright. Why? Because they're easier to catch and they have more money. But they won't target the hobbyist or general bootlegger who simply wants to use their stuff for personal use. Not really worth it for them. And hey look, they're still raking in the dough. Piracy is huge for them, Microsoft Office gets downloaded illegally all the time and yet Microsoft is still one of the richest corporations in the world.

This may be due to the fact that they build piracy into the price of the product. Notice how I said Photoshop costs upwards of $800 (this is my best recollection, though I have a feeling it's much more). Hobbyists won't pay that. But companies will. They have to, there's more risk of getting caught and more to lose if they get sued. So they pay, they pay everything, multiple licenses and all, and Adobe makes huge profits.

I've focussed here on Adobe and Microsoft, but really, most big software companies have adopted this approach. The law office I work at uses a software package to manage appointments and cases. We're a non-profit organisation and even with the discount that affords us, we still pay £1000 per license for this software. And in return software companies turn a blind eye to 12 year old Johnny who downloaded a copy of Photoshop CS5 from Limewire; they've made their profits elsewhere (for those of you who feel this equates to businesses getting screwed by having to pay through the nose for software, first think about what they're paying for and second remember that they'll make that money back in spades and usually in very little time).

Now obviously, this approach won't work with the music or film industry, They start charging $50 for an mp3 or $200 for a movie ticket and watch the profits drop. The point I'm trying to make is, the software industry saw a problem with piracy and instead of pointing the finger at the end user, they tackled the problem at the source, suing distributors of illegal goods, or even just adjusted to live with it. They adapted, and now they've not only survived, they've thrived.

The Music and Film industry needs to do the same. SOPA won't do that, SOPA is a kick in the face to every single internet user.  And the only reason the MPAA paid $94 million for this act to go through was because they knew they'd make it back. This is a money play, they control the internet, they control the content, they make the money. They're "protecting" their intellectual property by hurting everyone else.

It's a case of them forcing you to buy their goods instead of convincing you to.