If the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) were to pass, this post could cause Tacky Raccoons to be taken down with a single complaint.
The complaint could be made by one of the pet owners, the person who created any one of the images, the company that printed the calendars where the images were featured, any website that sold those calendars, and any individual claiming ownership of the pictures, whether the claims were legit or not.
Every website that posted any image could be accused and shut down, whether guilty of copyright infringement or not. Google itself could be in violation, because they linked to the images where we lifted them, which is aiding and abetting.
The U.S. Government has been trying to figure out ways to control the internest for a long time, especially for taxation purposes, but this latest power grab (by a bipartisan commission!) is beyond insidious. James Watt takes it a step further:
SOPA/PIPA is not the way of free speech, nor is it going to help the exchange of ideas. It will hurt science just as much as any other venue to protect a few media conglomerates. SOPA and PIPA is a real danger to all of us who frequent websites such as this one. Imagine if you will, we are discussing the new HadCRUT4 using station data – a complaint is lodged by UEA/CRU to the SOPA/PIPA entity over some portion of that dataset they consider “proprietary” or protected by one of the non disclosure agreements they claim to have with some countries. One complaint is all it would take to shut WUWT, Climate Audit, and other websites using this data for discussion down- without any hearing or trial. Basically, “fair use” gets tossed down the hole. Science loses.
Freedom of Speech is one of the unalienable rights of citizens of this great country. Let’s make sure it’s never taken away, because we’ll never get it back.
Tacky Raccoons 