VENICE – Shutting down VeniceFlorida.com Wednesday might not have made the statement that Wikipedia going dark for the day did, but its owner says the message was the same.
“The laws don't solve anything,” says John Patten. “They're not going to resolve piracy.”
That sentiment seems to be slowing the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) working its way through the U.S. House of Representatives. The Senate's version is called the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA).
Major Hollywood studios and recording companies supported the bills as they try to combat illegal downloading of copyrighted films and music. “This is like a sledgehammer going after a fly,” Patten says.
Patten's site includes community news and a message board. Under the proposed laws, Patten says, websites that link to illegal sites can be shut down, even if the links come in comments posted by site users rather than its owner. “Under SOPA and PIPA, I'm responsible for that and I could lose my website simply because I wasn't paying attention for an hour-and-a-half,” Patten says.
This is a change from current law, which grants site owners safe haven from liability if their users illegally post copyrighted material, provided that the site removes such content when notified of it.
That's why Patten re-directed traffic from his homepage to Wikipedia's blacked out home page. The online encyclopedia led the protests, with a message on its homepage explaining that it took its action to raise awareness about the “legislation that could fatally damage the free and open Internet.”
USF Sarasota Manatee information technology instructor Sunita Lodwig, Ph.D. agrees. “Today information is available very freely and it's comprehensive information,” she says. That could change if site operators fear getting shut down, though she understands the law's intent, and the problem it aims to solve.
“The people who work on this content – all their research, all their efforts – they're being just stolen from under their feet,” Lodwig says.
John Patten says he also produces original content, that he doesn't want stolen. But the way to protect it that the movie and recording industries favor, he says, would cripple the internet as we know it. “They're still operating on an outmoded business model and, unable to come to grips with commerce in the internet age, it's easier to shut down the internet.”
The protests seem to be working. House speaker John Boener (R-Ohio) said Wednesday that there seems to be no consensus on the bill there. And in the Senate, Roy Blount (R-Missouri) has withdrawn his support for the bill, which he had co-sponsored.
