A small point of darkness

Today the internet went a little bit dark.  Boingboing is black, google is showing a 'get rid of SOPA!' message (though I can't see it since it directs me to the .ca version) and many other websites are either shutting down or putting up special messages in a show of defiance against the lunatic laws poised to come into effect in the US.  The thing I find most hilarious is how much this will splash across the rest of the world if SOPA and PIPA actually do become law.  I could easily have this entire blog removed either through any random fool claiming copyright infringement or through Google deciding that their liability in having all kinds of bloggers who are posting illegal links is too much.  The fact that the crazy music and movie industries in the US are so likely to be able to shut down so much of the internet is truly nutty but there it is.

I can't do anything about this aside from yell and scream on my blog, which admittedly does nothing on its own.  If you live in the US and can actually call up your elected representatives and tell them what an idiotic thing these laws are you might actually have an impact since every one of those people is trying to get reelected and if enough people call and yell at them they might actually get the fear of the Flying Spaghetti Monster instilled in them.  So get on it.  There is nothing wrong with protecting intellectual property rights but there is no reason whatever to use the punitive and completely out of control measures that are coming down the pipe now.  We don't need every website that is accused without evidence being shut down and we don't need industry executives having veto power over anything created anywhere in the world.

I took this picture from http://ziggyny.blogspot.com/2012/01/stop-sopa.html  He took it from somewhere else undoubtedly.  I am quite confident everybody involved wants us to post it every damn place we can.