Stop SOPA: Aaron Swartz Speaks Out

Do we want a ‘safer’ Internet? Of course. Should website owners, users etc. be responsible and held accountable according to the rules and regulations of the Internet? Of course. So what’s the big deal about SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act, House Bill 3261 or H.R. 3261)?

Many websites went dark on 1/18/2012 in protest of the SOPA bill, including the web giants Google and Facebook.

In short “the movie and music industries want Google and online services to block non-U.S. websites that peddle pirated movies and counterfeit goods, while Internet companies say the bills would promote censorship, disrupt the Web’s architecture and harm their ability to innovate.” (Washington Post, SOPA protests by Google and Facebook upend traditional lobbying)

Aaron Swartz, founder of demandprogress.org, says that “under this bill, the (Internet) rules totally change,”

RT – ‘SOPA turns anyone who runs a site into policeman’

(Video description) Thousands of websites have joined the blackout in protest against the SOPA bill, as the controversial legislation is put to a vote in the US Congress. Participants range from giants like Wikipedia and Craigslist to tiny individual pages. The world’s biggest online encyclopedia went on strike for 24 hours at midnight East Coast Time. Other majors like Reddit opted for a 12-hour blackout.

Lawmakers argue the bills will protect copyrighted material, but many, including demandprogress.org founder and executive director Aaron Swartz, believe it will change the rules for the Internet not just in the United States, but around the world.

“Under this bill, the rules totally change,” Swartz told RT. “It makes everyone who runs a website into a policeman. And if they don’t do their job of making sure nobody on their site uses it for anything that’s even potentially illegal, the entire site could get shut down — without even so much as a trial.”