“This is an industry that demands payment from summer camps if the kids sing Happy Birthday or God Bless America, an industry that issues takedown notices for a 29 second home movie of a toddler dancing to Prince. Traditional American media firms are implacably opposed to any increase in citizens’ ability to create, copy, save, alter, or share media on our own. They fought against cassette audio tapes, and photocopiers. They swore the VCR would destroy Hollywood. They tried to kill Tivo. They tried to kill MiniDisc. They tried to kill player pianos. They do this whenever a technology increases user freedom over media. Every time. Every single time.”
From a piece by Clay Shirky.
As Shirky says, there is a reasonable discussion to be had here. The problem with SOPA/PIPA isn’t that the bills attempt to limit the unauthorized use of copyrighted material. The problem is that they are entertainment industry written and sponsored legislation ($100 million in lobbying) that give the industry vigilante rights.
The industry was already suffering theft on a moderate scale, when this same industry elected to abandon film and go digital.
After the internet existed.
Putting all of their creative effort at high risk.
And now demanding we submit the their rules.
They are not as powerful or as rich as they think.
And getting less powerful daily.