Friday, January 20, 2012

PIPA and SOPA

http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/design/how-sopa-pipa-can-affect-you/

No, this is not Pippa Middleton that will be discussed on this web page posted above. PIPA stands for Protect Intellectual Property Act and SOPA stands for Stop Online Piracy Act. I believe there are many moral issues with these two proposed bills not only on one side but on both sides of the bill. If you click on the link above you can do a little reading on how this will affect normal people as well as professionals in this work environment

I will present the moral issues as well as intellectual issues regarding the people on all sides of these bills:

 As far as I understand I believe that those people are people in the music and movie industry. I do believe Piracy is bad and you do need to have your intellectual property be yours but do music and movie industries really need an extra few million on top of those almost billions they make each year. I read in a different article that these bills should be put into place to save Americas new ideas and inventions!?! really what ideas and great inventions. Of course I know we have good ideas and inventions in America but it's been a while since we have been sliding down that list as other countries go up, and it is not because of them steeling ideas it is because America has a lack of ideas. We should be putting money towards education where we could be have more Engineers and Scientists, and Doctors.

First of all I believe if the problem of piracy is technology then work on other technology that will make it harder for those people steeling ideas or intellectual property. For example soon there will be no CD's and now days there is not one person that doesn't know itunes. I believe that since itunes started running there has been less piracy on the web of music. Why? because it is that much more accessible to the public and cheaper then buying a whole CD when you only want one song. buying music, movies, books, whatever it is, is so much easier then it used to be that a lot more artists are getting their money via itunes. This kind of technology is good for America and its industries to succeed and to have piracy go down less and less. Piracy will never go away. I will attempt to compare it to the Mexican drug cartels, if you put one in jail, or kill one five more pop up and take that persons place. Mexico has laws, but it doesn't mean that anyone has to follow them.

Second, people who steal intellectual property will always steal intellectual property. They will always find a way. It doesn't matter that the thing you are stealing has no actual weight or can't be seen, it is still bad. America or owners of intellectual property have to be that much smarter so they have less piracy issues.

Third, I do know that many countries make copies of movies or music and sell them for profit even before it comes out to the general public, but really how much of these bills can actually hurt those countries legally? I say not much, but in the contrary it hurts us worse. Constitutionally speaking this can hurt all of us by taking away our first amendment Freedom of Speech. An example given in this website is the most common one. Your child is singing, you want to record it, and YouTube it to the whole world and then you get censured off of the Internet cause you did not pay to sing that song that someone else wrote! That is just a simple example. I'm sure they will not go off on every three year old that sings a song but you can see how just the most simplest thing can come into conflict.

To conclude before giving up your first amendment right at least think about it a little. This web page as well as other web pages are probably biased but so are the people for these two bills. Outweigh the good and the bad! Do something that will help America grow and succeed. Not the opposite as piracy grows and grows. invest in education because as you can see I am not a good writer, and need more of it as well as other students trying to finish a career with crazy amounts of student loans.

1 comment:

  1. PIPA and SOPA do raise some serious concerns about free speech and censorship. In my opinion we would be crazy to let them become law.

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