Defend our freedom to share (or why SOPA is a bad idea)

The content on the net does not come from Hollywood studios or from the music business. It comes from you and I, we like to create, we like to share with others. It is part of story telling, of being creative.

I do not watch TV, I do not even possess a TV. I do not watch TV because it is complete and total crap.

I find it very depressing passing down the street as it is getting dark, passing by people’s houses, and seeing all those people sat like zombies watching the same moronic rubbish.

That is what Big Business wants, moronic consumers who do not question, do not think.

As a poor student, I used to go to a photocopy repair workshop and copy off whole books, though more often articles and academic papers. I was not depriving anyone of an income, as I could not afford to buy, but I was helping in the dissemination of information.

I often make use of other people’s work. It is called fair use. But I do not pass it off as my own or claim the credit. The originator is always credited, with a link back to their work.

Sopa and Pipa will end all that. Greedy Hollywood and the music industry wish to end all that. They wish to control what we watch, how we think, as they were able to do in the 1950s when there was only a couple of TV channels, no internet (though there has always been books and the radio).

The US policy-makers who were pushing Sopa and Pipa have accepted millions from Hollywood and the music industry.

What Hollywood does not seem to understand is we do not have to buy their rubbish, we do not have to go to the cinema.

I am suggesting we now go on the offensive. A world-wide boycott of Hollywood. Let’s see what they think of us then as so far we have been treated with contempt.

The Megaupload closure and seizure of assets and equipment, US Imperial Storm troopers trampling on the world in their jackboots, is a taste of what is to come. Many people used Megaupload to store valuable documents, all now lost, or maybe recoverable after years of litigation. If nothing else, a warning not to store valuable documents in the cloud. How can we be sure they are safe, accessible? The Megaupload closure demonstrates we cannot.

– Thoughts of Paulo Coelho on Sopa
– Stop SOPA
– The Megaupload Mega-Mess: When Innocents Are Crushed‏

Tags: Big Business, corruption, films, greed, Hollywood, movies, music, PIPA, Sopa, StopPIPA