Stop SOPA Silliness

It didn't work with music: The music industry killed Napster and sued 16-year-olds to protect their dying business model of selling "albums" via top 40 radio. Instead of understanding the immense power of social media like YouTube as a marketing tool to sell single songs (iTunes) and streaming subscriptions (Spotify), the music industry honchos preferred to destroy in a ridiculous attempt to save the status-quo. Listened to top 40 radio recently?

It didn't work with email: I get many times more unsolicited (and illegal) email than I did prior to CAN-SPAM. Tons of it from legitimate companies that should know better. How's that email legislation working for you?

It's not going to work for movies: Now the silly politicians who wouldn't know a social network if it bit them in the ass are at it again with SOPA & PIPA that are trying to legislate "protection" for their friends in the movie industry.

SOPA legislates censorship (yes censorship – like in North Korea) in an attempt to get legitimate businesses like mine to stop linking to pirate sites. As written, the regulations suggest that if just one of the nearly 10,000 comments on this blog point to a URL that allows illegal downloads that I could go to jail.

Just like with CAN-SPAM, these bills won't shut down pirate sites. They bad guys will just set up shop at another URL and continue their criminal activities, while law-abiding companies will be on the hook and every information consumer will suffer.

SOPA & PIPA are not about copyright. It is about protecting a dying business model.

I'm a content creator too. I get it. I support my family by being able to sell content and I certainly don't want my books stolen on the Web. I've found hundreds of sites with free pirated copies of The New Rules of Marketing and PR and my other books. But that doesn't mean I want to shut down the search engine that led me to those sites.

This isn't about stealing for the movie industry bigwigs and their high priced lobbyists. It's about desperately trying to maintain the old familiar business model that afforded them a lifestyle of Armani suits, lunch at Nobu and limos. It didn't work for music and its not going to work for movies.

The winners in technology transformations are those who embrace change, not the old-guard that tries to legislate protection for their dying business model.

Today Wikipedia is dark. Google has their logo blacked out. Many other sites are protesting by curtailing service for a day. Here is a link to Wikipedia's SOPA informational site and here's link to Google's SOPA / PIPA microsite.

Image credits:
Wikipedia English homepage from January 18, 2012 which links to here.
Google SOPA site

Comments

[Dragan Mestrovic]

Hoooyaaaa the voices and noises are getting louder... I think even the congress will get it as well.

If not, this will establish censorship and then potential new dictators will happily slap in their hands.

Dictatorship is not only an issue of the others, it can happen everywhere, in the US and Europe as well.

We all take Democracy for granted, but it is not!

We have to stand up and to fight for it every single day. Like the brave soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan do!

Otherwise the dictatorship of corrupt politicians, lobbyist and Wallstreet criminals will overtake the whole 100%.

Today democracy is defended digitally so let’s take out our most powerful weapons, our intellect our power of spoken and written words to stand up and fill the first combat-line to protect it, like our forefathers did who have done it before us to fight suppression and dictatorship!

If we do not come from the sideline we will miss our chance to maintain freedom of speech, freedom of mind and freedom of democracy. Or do you rather want to live in China, Syria, North Korea, Ukraine or Iran, want you?

[Jeniffer]

I was surprised to see Wikipedia down today. Stop SOPA is gathering speed!

[David Meerman Scott]

Thanks for your passionate comment, Dragan.

[Sonia Simone]

This is great, David. It's appalling that things have come this far.

[TheEverNovice]

"The winners in technology transformations are those who embrace change, not the old-guard that tries to legislate protection for their dying business model."

Well put David. The failure to adapt leads to destruction or non-existence - as Darwin so intensely studied. Instead of trying to slow progress,our elected officials need to learn to become a part of it and use it to the country's benefit.

[Louis Gudema]

Like so much of the legislation coming out of Congress now, it's about protecting moneyed interests. Copyright law now provides ownership for 70 YEARS after the death of the author. That's ridiculous.

And it's equally ridiculous that these laws are being written by members of Congress, many of whom have no idea how the Internet works or the impact of the laws that they are creating. They need to all go off together for a 3 day retreat to learn what this Internet thing and what it really means. (I recommend you as one of the speakers, David.)

Louis Gudema
Vice President of Business Development
Overdrive Interactive

[David Meerman Scott]

Thanks for all these great comments. I think with the passion shown by so many that we will defeat this nonsense.

(Sounds like a fun conference, Louis)!

[Tiana Feng]

All 4 Major Labels are for SOPA too, and it isn't going to save them. If anything, it will hurt the blogs that post about their artists and buzzed them into stardom.

As a music blogger, SOPA puts my site at risk.

[Kelly Monaghan]

For the amount of money the movie industry et. al. are spending on lobbyists and wining and dining pols, they could hire a small army of Russian hackers to take down the offending sites. In fact, they could probably do it for a lot less.

[AdoptedMomToChazz]

OK, but if you are supporting the protest, why are you choosing to put up new posts today? Or did I not read deep enough into your post?

[David Meerman Scott]

Mom - I chose to blog about it instead.

[Erica]

This is a great article, and a great topic to explore. Thanks for sharing.

[Tina Cook]

Thank you for expressing what so many of us knew instinctively to be very wrong but you have explained what is really going on with great clarity.

[John White]

>politicians who wouldn't know a social network if it bit them in the ass

Sorry, but this remark sounds suspiciously close to a line uttered by Richard Dreyfus in "Jaws."

We're going to have to shut you down. Thank you for choosing SOPA/PIPA.

[Dave Zan]

This just in: SOPA's sponsor himself, Rep. Lamar Smith, has halted the bill:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-57362783-17/sopa-halted-in-house/?part=rss&subj=latest-news&tag=title

[cheap article writing service]

I guess you are the first person to project SOPA and Pipa in a positive way!! Jokes apart! Yes, I believe that we gotta give this model a chance.. Why not act upon it later, if it completely doesn't work..

[Alex R.]

Thanks for this post, David! It's blogs like yours and websites like Wikipedia and Google that helped stop these ridiculous acts.

[Sydney Pianos]

YouTube as a marketing tool to sell single songs (iTunes) and streaming subscriptions (Spotify), the music industry honchos preferred to destroy in a ridiculous attempt to save the status-quo.