As I’ve watched the discussion about SOPA rage on the news and on social sites I’ve begun to sort through my own thoughts about it and there’s some fundamental issues that have percolated to the top which I wonder if most of the people I know have thought about?
First – under US law it’s legal to make PERSONAL copies of music as long as you don’t distribute them (that’s important) or use them for personal gain. This in many ways is the crux of the issue and has been since the introduction of the ability to make recordings off of the radio and the TV (with the VCR) back before the advent of the computer.
That really is at the heart of this issue and the arguments all have to deal with this reality – but unfortunately people’s personal ideologies and agendas are either ignoring the issue, are ignorant of the issue or simply don’t care. At least those who oppose SOPA anyway. It is illegal to distribute the intellectual property of other people – period.
I remember back in the day when Napster was the rage and people couldn’t understand why they were unable to share songs. When the music companies started protecting their legal rights to those songs they were vilified by those who thought that they had a personal right to share music. I’m not sure where all this started but I suspect that people were so used to making tape copies of songs and TV shows… who was going to regulate it? And people regularly share those with one another or made copies for each other and, for the most part, were doing it with the best of intentions but the fact of the matter it was ILLEGAL!
You can begin to make all sorts of arguments about what the impacts and fallout are of industries and websites and businesses that have arisen out of an unregulated Internet but no matter how you slice it – if you distribute a song illegally it’s… you guessed it… illegal! So am I saying that if I make a video of my daughter dancing outside of my Jeep to a song that was playing on my radio and post it to Facebook that it’s illegal? Are there nuances to what will be enforced and what will not? I don’t know – but rest assured that anyone distributing the intellectual property rights of someone else should expect to face scrutiny at some level eventually – it’s going to happen.
So what does it mean to ‘distribute’? Well – we can use a lot of different words here but I’ll throw out a small lexicon for you to consider. Post, RIP, share, upload… the more I think about this the less complex it gets. I used to lead worship for a small church in Houston, TX. We incorporated a ‘contemporary’ worship style in our service and used songs written recently. One of the things I had to do was secure permission to use these songs and display the words on our projection screen as well as pay fees to use the songs so that the artist could receive royalties.
Second – there is no second. The first issue is the only issue – it’s ILLEGAL to distribute intellectual property of others! Now you may want to side-step the issue to argue for your favorite social networking site (like Youtube or Facebook)… after all any serious execution of these laws would greatly impact a lot of content posted to these sites? No more Call of Duty montages being displayed with the latest music played on top of it. But here’s the funny thing – it’s already illegal. What SOPA is going to do is force the owners of the method of distribution participate and be accountable for facilitating an illegal practice. HEAVEN FORBID they find legal ways to make money and pay their employees.
The problem is that we still have the old radio and VCR mentality – no one paid attention to the fact that I was making copies then and sharing them at will. Why now? Well – the scope of distribution went from a handful of people back then to literally the potential that now you can share a song (illegally) with millions and not pay (which you have a moral obligation to do) for the privilege (not right) to do.
Okay – so what about censorship. Isn’t that bad? Yes and no – in an open and free society your right to swing your fist ends at my nose. The moment you cost me something is the moment that you no longer have the freedom to do what you want. You can say I’m a jerk – but if you say that I cheated or stole from someone and I didn’t I can sue you. If you take my car without my permission I can have you thrown in jail. And if you take artwork I created and do not have permission to share it I can sue you as well and you could potentially face criminal charges.
The fear mongering I see going on about the chilling impact of SOPA on websites and the Internet itself is indeed sobering. But it’s still fear mongering. America, in the 1800s, went through a transition that is very similar to what we’re seeing with the Internet today. In the 1800′s people were used to being able to live life with a level of freedom that we can’t really imagine in our comfortable American homes and communities. Life on the frontier was hard and people had a certain latitude to live that, as more people moved into the west, began to resist efforts at the firm establishment of civilization. And that’s what is happening on the Internet. It has been a wild-west of unregulated behavior and over the course of the past 10 years we’ve seen various attempts at businesses to either protect their rights or secure their ability to make more money. The reality that we all must face is that regulation of the internet is not only coming but it’s inevitable and necessary.
As I’ve read SOPA what I’ve seen is an attempt by businesses to protect their interests. I’m a capitalist and I support this effort. I’m a Christian and I support the moral responsibility of not taking what doesn’t belong to me. Will this impact and shape my online experience? Probably. But when it comes to censorship I refuse to drink the Wiki and Google koolaid that I see being passed around right now. And that leads to my final thought. I took some time to look at the entities that support and those that oppose SOPA and it’s pretty interesting to see. Fundamentally this seems to be more about entitlements where those who oppose SOPA is concerned. Is SOPA perfect? I don’t know – but I know this. It’s illegal to steal and that’s what happens every day on so many sites it’s not funny. Regulation is inevitable and I think it’s necessary.
