Your Thoughts On Pipa And Sopa - Stock Photography Blog

Your Thoughts on PIPA and SOPA?

posted on 20th of january, 2012

For those of you Dreamstimers living in the United States, you've most certainly heard of PIPA and SOPA by now, either through the news or through the blackout of your favorite website this past week. Perhaps you've even pondered how it could potentially impact your sales of stock photography. Then again, perhaps you haven't.

In a war seemingly between the web industry and Hollywood, true internet freedom is potentially at stake as these two laws would be far too vague to protect intellectual property, while at the same time allowing the internet to survive and prosper as it does in its current form.

Read More about PIPA and SOPA here.

So, Dreamstimers, what are your thoughts on PIPA and SOPA? Sound off below!

Tags: freedom internet pipa piracy sopa

Comments (8)

	Posted by Alvera on January 25, 2012 I put a link on my blog: http://alveraphoto.blogspot.com/2012/01/why-is-wikipedia-blacked-out.html
	Posted by Peanutroaster on January 22, 2012 Hollywood seems to be the one pushing and maybe the solution wasn't the best but at least awareness of copyright violation as a crime has been raised. We have a new generation who believes everything should be free.
	Posted by Egomezta on January 21, 2012 Some things shoud be done to control and stop piracy but PIPA and SOPA are not the way to solve the problem.
	Posted by Karenfoleyphotography on January 21, 2012 I think the haunting images of a blank Wikipedia page got their attention - I know it got mine! Looks like that has killed the legislation in it's tracks. I will add that as a former creator of IP (software), piracy is a big problem that needs addressing - by governments around the globe.
	Posted by Birksphotography on January 21, 2012 The government has been behind the times with updating copyright law with the Internet coming into the picture. Now suddenly, they wish to make everything good by using broad under defined legislation that when websites shut down and get sued by corporations, they'll hide and say, "It's not perfect but it's a start. Something had to be done."rnrnSOPA and PIPA are bipartisan poorly conceived bills that only favor the industries that paid the largest amount of lobby money to our elected representitives and harms the freedom that we all enjoy now. This is not the answer to what the problem is, it's not even a start. Both bills need to burn in the dead bill furnace and never be brought to the floor again.
	Posted by Quakingaspen on January 20, 2012 @Bradcalkins Yeah, that sounds like it would hurt the piracy industry! But would the reduced price be worth it to Hollywood? For how much they're selling the movies for now, they might be profiting more even though there is such a problem with piracy.
	Posted by Bradcalkins on January 20, 2012 I think they need to do what iTunes did for music - make it cheap enough that buying it makes sense for anyone. As long as a DVD costs $25 people will be selling copies for $5 on the street somewhere.
	Posted by Elimitchell on January 20, 2012 The way these bills are written is too broad and controlling. Having the government censor copyright-infringing websites would be disastrous. Google indexed its trillionth URL recently. The Internet is enormous! You would need to hire hundreds of thousands of people to check each page that was reported as containing copyright-infringing content. Inevitably, the government would create an automated spider to review each page and blacklist or whitelist it. Programs and computers are far from perfect which would result in numerous websites being shutdown that never deserved to be blocked. rnrnGiving the government such control over the Internet would be disastrous in many other ways. Whatever political party is in power at the time could potentially shoot down their political rivals by visiting their rival's website(s), finding content that supposedly was an infringement on copyright law, and use that as a reason to take down their site. rnrnThere are many other reasons SOPA is a bad idea....(More)