PIPA Will Affect You Too!

I would like to take this opportunity and inform every single one of you to not be fooled by the thought “Oh, PIPA & SOPA… it is in the USA. I don’t care. It will not affect me”. You could not be any more wrong! It will affect you, it will affect everyone, everywhere and if it will go through it will be a disaster for everyone. Really, I do not try to scare you. If you are here that means you do use a tool like proxies and VPN services. If PIPA is passed say Goodbye to all that (and more)!

Perhaps you like to watch Hulu in your home in the UK, Sweden, India, …… (wherever you live) or you like to watch programs at BBC regardless of your location or you do anything else that requires proxy or VPN service. Well, what are you going to do if this will not be available to you?

Imagine a World …

Some of them might turn towards P2P and torrent networks but they will be even more underground and if your government has any official deals with the USA, than (maybe not on the day 1) sooner or later you might be on the same blacklist as the guys placing explosives in hotels. And tell me if I am wrong… what encourages online piracy more: making stuff available for everyone or the opposite? Imagine Netflix, Hulu, Spotify and others without any geo-restrictions, with fair price and policy, open to the world – would that increase piracy of tv shows, films, and music?

Now, to make sure you know what will change let me quote 1st web designer (great text, thanks to Jamal!)

“Let’s begin by first breaking down the first of the two bills that were introduced, PIPA. PIPA is an acronym for the Protect IP Act and was first introduced to the U.S. Senate on May 12, 2011, by Senators Patrick Leahy, Orrin Hatch, Chuck Grassley. It is also good to take note that PIPA is re-written legislation, the original being the failure to pass Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) of 2010.

PIPA, if passed, will give U.S. corporations and the government the right to seek affirmative legal action with any website that they see as enabling copyright infringement whether of U.S. origin or not. Here is a breakdown of all that they will have the power to do.

Force U.S. internet providers to block access to websites deemed as enablers of copyright infringement
Seek legal action by using search engines, blog sites, directories, or any site, in general, to have the blacklisted sites removed from their website
Will be able to force advertising services on infringing websites, and those supporting of them, to remove them from their advertising accounts
Companies will also have the power to sue any new websites that get started after this bill is passed, if they believe that they are not doing a good job of preventing infringement on your website“

No more VPN services?

If internet service providers in USA (and in other western countries as well since they will be sued if not) will have to block access to websites (and will have to prevent users from having a possibility to do brake PIPA/SOPA act – blocking access is one way of preventing user from doing just that) there will not be a single company out there that will dare to offer general access to its servers so they can be used as a VPN server. No more US IP or UK IP or any other that you actually want.

If you run a blog and it will mention a single sentence that will catch a careful eye of this “Modern Age Inquisition” they will sue you and if they will not be able to they will sue the company that holds domain of your site, your ISP and everyone else that might be in their way. So… we say start to look for a server and provider in China – just in case!

Or maybe you have a great idea for a new start-up? Well just make sure you will not create competition to anyone who is already out there – you will either get accused of supporting piracy (and terrorism) or that you yourself are breaking all Peoples and God copyright laws by copying someone else ideas, etc, etc… – in general, do not expect any new sites or services any time soon.

Can you do anything about it?

Well, not much but YES, you can.

1. Tell all your friends about it and make sure they know it is serious.

2. Ask your favorite brands how they feel about what is going on and make sure they know you will vote with your money.

3. Contact your local representatives – if many of you will do the same and “they” will have to inform their Bosses that folks are not happy. And maybe (with enough support) governments around the world will tell Americans to stop this insanity.

Just to be clear on things. Piracy is bad, stealing someone else’s work is bad, not paying to creators for their creation is bad – no arguing about it! But …