A Letter to My Representatives About SOPA & PROTECT IP

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An Open Letter to My Representatives Concerning SOPA and PROTECT IP

Internet experts agree that SOPA and PROTECT IP are both extremely destructive for the internet and our economy.

So why are lawmakers ignoring the experts and listening to the entertainment industry about the Internet? The entertainment industry tried to block two important inventions that boosted the world economy – the VHS player and the MP3 player. They tried to block two inventions that generate millions of dollars of revenue for their own industry and they are trying to do it again.

The Internet generates millions of dollars for the entertainment industry and billions of dollars for the American economy and world economy. SOPA and PROTECT IP will cripple the internet’s potential for job creation, revenue, and innovation.

Millions of people have voiced their opinion against SOPA and PROTECT IP – what’s more, Google’s petition opposing SOPA and PROTECT IP received over seven million signatures in under thirty six hours – never in history has a petition received that much support. We are all in favor of stopping online piracy, but believe SOPA and PROTECT IP are not the way to do so.

SOPA and PROTECT IP claim to target foreign websites but will do nothing to stop online piracy; instead they will cripple American websites putting tens of thousands of people, myself included, out of a job. Through the use of Proxies, IP addresses, and other techniques piracy will still continue. This cataclysmic snowball effect on the Internet will stifle free speech and enable large companies to shut down their legitimate and law abiding competitors. I fully understand that Hollywood is losing money to online piracy and I wish to help them in their battle against piracy – but SOPA and PROTECT IP will do absolutely nothing to prevent access foreign piracy focused websites. Instead of stopping piracy, these bills will shut down legitimate and law abiding websites despite the bills’ intentions.

The Internet is leading the way in innovation in all areas of our culture through the free sharing nature it provides. Be it job creation, advances in medicine, entertainment, or technology advances, the Internet leads the way. SOPA and PROTECT IP stifle the free speech component of the internet that is so important to the intellectual, innovative, and economic power that the Internet provides. Sacrificing all that so people might buy more DVDs is not worth it. And don’t forget that if the entertainment industry had their way when the VHS player came about, DVDs may not even exist.

I suggest that we scrap both SOPA and PROTECT IP and start from the beginning. Let us write a new bill together to help fight online piracy, but this time let’s bring in Internet experts and have them help us write the bill rather than hurriedly try and use lobbyists to slip this bill through as quickly as possible over the holiday season.

SOPA and PROTECT IP will cripple the world economy. They must be stopped.

If you vote for SOPA or PROTECT IP, I will NOT vote for you and will exert my best efforts to make sure you do not get re-elected.