I wanted today to pass along some disturbing information I’ve been reading about two pieces of legislation that stand to threaten our church and thousands of other churches around the country – as well as millions of people around the world. The two pieces of legislation are known as the U.S. House’s SOPA and the U.S. Senate’s PIPA. They stand for Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect Intellectual Property Act.
Much of what I’m passing along here is from the website www.Readthespirit.com. (I don’t want to
be accused of piracy myself!) I hope you’ll go there for more information.
The two acts before the Congress intend to protect copyrights and properly
credit the work of other artists and professionals. Claims that websites are
violating the act would lead to the websites being shut down until the issue is
resolved. SOPA and PIPA target entire regions of the world where copyright
infringement and piracy occur regularly.
We could agree that this is a good goal.
The danger, however, is that simply a claim
of piracy or infringement is enough to black out the sites under accusation.
This could affect us directly – and the world overall.
Imagine if an online search program reviewing our website spotted a
photograph or a bit of text or music that wasn’t properly copyrighted. Say a member of our youth group posts a
YouTube video with some unknown music on a generic background. This search
program identifies the music and the photograph and determines we don’t have
permission to use that clip. BANG! Down goes our website.
This could happen to thousands of churches daily, in addition to millions
of other sites. It’s overkill.
Even if we think that copyright infringement deserves a tough response,
this legislation poses global problems of major concern. More critically, it
gives dictators tremendous power to shut down internet communication by
accusing freedom movements of “piracy” and “infringement.”
For example, in the waning days of Egypt’s dictatorship, unsuccessful
attempts were made to black out the Internet. What if our Congress gave every
dictator threatened by the “Arab Spring” movement a legal way to shut down
internet communications among freedom fighters?
What if this legislation gave China or Iran the right to block religious
freedom sites for their people? Or Afghanistan the power to keep certain sites
dark that they believed brought comfort to our soldiers? I don’t want to make it one bit easier for brutal
dictators to repress grassroots movements for freedom by claiming simply to be “getting
tough” on copyright laws.
We have the Bill of Rights in our DNA – especially freedom of speech,
freedom of religion and freedom of the press. I believe that freedoms such as
these derive from our being created in the image of God, human beings made
worthy of dignity and freedom. We live in an increasingly democratic world,
where information is shared instantaneously. I support the right of creators to
own their intellectual property. But the SOPA and PIPA bills are dangerous in
the license they provide.
What should we do? First, familiarize yourself with these
bills. Check out the www.ReadTheSpirit.com
website; read legal expert Laurence Tribe’s opposition to SOPA and PIPA. (Here is a story covering Tribe’s decision to
oppose these bills.)
Note that Senator Mark Warner says, "… both SOPA
& PIPA go too far. Online piracy is a real and serious problem, but there
has to be a better way to go after rogue sites without fundamentally changing
the way the Internet works." (from his website)
I encourage you to express your opinions directly
to our members
in Congress:
God bless you.
Pastor
Larry
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