Question of the week: Do you support the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) introduced by representative Lamar Smith (R-Texas)?
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Karen Anderson: “The bill needs a lot of work before it is acceptable. If Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren’s source is correct, it would be ineffective given that new web sites pop up quickly to take the place of ones squelched. We then would be left with yet another layer of useless and costly bureaucracy.”
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Dave Appling: “Not in its current form: Wikipedia, Google, and many others have raised grave concerns. But fix SOPA (and its companion bill PIPA), don’t kill them. Piracy has to be stopped (or, more realistically, at least inhibited), and Congress must step up to its responsibility to work out a (gasp!) compromise bill.”
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Bert Berson: “No. Nor do many of the original supporters. In his withdrawal of support Orin Hatch said that ‘it was not ready for prime time.’ Hopefully it will never be.”
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Chris Bryant: “No. Once again a well intentioned sentiment results in a totally unworkable bill that goes way beyond common sense and will result in granting too much power to a government entity to empower arbitrary online censorship and punish the innocent instead of the perpetrators.”
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David Cohen: “No. It is too much by people who know too little. People are too much at risk from identity theft and other Internet maladies and while the idea behind this legislation is admirable, the bill itself will be more harmful than helpful.”
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Henry Miller: “As written, no. But some sort of regulation with the best parts of both the House SOPA Act and the Senate’s Protect IP Act are essential to protest intellectual property.”
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Jeff Nunes: “No. While I think online piracy is a problem, and I also think a lot of the arguments against this bill are slippery slope nonsense, on balance the law is poorly drafted, overly broad and largely unnecessary given the multitude of laws already on the books that provide remedies for this issue. Additionally, because of the way it is drafted it is unlikely that the U.S. Supreme Court would find it to be constitutional.”
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Lisa Pampuch: “No. SOPA (and its sister in the Senate, the Protect Intellectual Property Act, or PIPA) is dangerous to the economy, to the digital revolution, and most importantly, to freedom. It’s one-sided, does not protect the rights of the accused, and puts information and liberty at risk. PIPA copies methods of blocking Internet access from the Chinese. We’re better and smarter and freer than that.”
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Jeff Smith: “Yes. Stealing someone’s intellectual property and profiting by it is illegal and we should do something about it. I know opponents are crying Internet censorship and violation of first amendment rights but I disagree. Since when is it someone’s first amendment right to steal my property? Should we just sit here and do nothing while criminals break the law? I don’t think so.”
