LifePath "goes dark" on January 18, 2012
This single page was the LifePath website on January 18, 2012. As of January 19, the SOPA and PIPA legislation looks like it is not going to pass as it was originally written. But the journey is far from over. I hope you will continue to connect with your legislators and ask for internet copyright protection law that does not interfere with our freedom to communicate, to create, and to share our lives with each other.
Hello, everyone.
In the ordinary course of things, you wouldn't be seeing this on the LifePath homepage.
However, for this one day, LifePath is joining hundreds of other websites across the internet (including Google and Wikipedia) in "going dark" to protest SOPA and PIPA, the pending US legislation that creates an extensive Internet censorship protocol and exports it to the rest of the world.
Here are a few of the thoughts (used with his permission) that Cory Doctorow of the incredibly creative website Boing Boing writes about in his original inspired text on this issue.
If the SOPA or PIPA legislation passes, "we could never link to another website unless we were sure that no links to anything that infringes copyright appeared on that site. So in order to link to a URL on LiveJournal or WordPress or Twitter or Blogspot, we'd have to first confirm that no one had ever made a copyright-infringing link, anywhere on that site. Making one link would require checking millions (even tens of millions) of pages...
"If we failed to take this precaution, our finances could be frozen, our ad broker forced to pull ads from our site, and depending on which version of the bill goes to the vote, our domains confiscated, and, because our (Boing Boing) server is in Canada, our IP address would be added to a US-wide blacklist that every ISP in the country would be required to censor."
But SOPA and PIPA isn't just about the "big" websites -- and that's where it gets personal for LifePath.
These proposed laws "declare war on every person who uses the net to publicize police brutality, every oppressed person in the Arab Spring who used the net to organize protests and publicize the blood spilled by their oppressors, every abused kid who used the net to reveal her father as a brutalizer of children, every gay kid who used the net to discover that life is worth living despite the torment she's experiencing, every grassroots political campaigner who uses the net to make her community a better place -- as well as the scientists who collaborate online, the rescue workers who coordinate online, the makers who trade tips online, the people with rare diseases who support each other online, and the independent creators who use the Internet to earn their livings."
The SOPA and PIPA laws do this by making it easy for corporations that claim an incident of copyright infringement to shut down an entire website, and very difficult for those who have to defend themselves against it. Websites could be removed from the internet without due process based on a single claim of infringement related to something posted on the website or even linked to on the website, and the appeals process would be lengthy, cumbersome, and costly. It would put ordinary people at risk who upload their family photos to websites that might be shut down, who link to other websites on their Facebook pages, and who value the opportunity to access news sources that link to other sites.
To put it bluntly, instead of just stopping individual incidents of copyright infringement (which as a writer, I have no problem with), SOPA and PIPA give corporations the power to silence websites accused of infringement before they can remedy the situation or defend themselves. This would be like giving them the power to shut down newspapers or magazines by accusing them (not even convicting them) of misusing copyrighted material.
One place you can go to make your opinion against this legislation known to Congress is here. There's a specific message you can rewrite and email to your own representative and senators.
LifePath will be back tomorrow. On this important day, though, please spend a few minutes to notify your representatives to make sure we can keep coming back!
Hello, everyone.
In the ordinary course of things, you wouldn't be seeing this on the LifePath homepage.
However, for this one day, LifePath is joining hundreds of other websites across the internet (including Google and Wikipedia) in "going dark" to protest SOPA and PIPA, the pending US legislation that creates an extensive Internet censorship protocol and exports it to the rest of the world.
Here are a few of the thoughts (used with his permission) that Cory Doctorow of the incredibly creative website Boing Boing writes about in his original inspired text on this issue.
If the SOPA or PIPA legislation passes, "we could never link to another website unless we were sure that no links to anything that infringes copyright appeared on that site. So in order to link to a URL on LiveJournal or WordPress or Twitter or Blogspot, we'd have to first confirm that no one had ever made a copyright-infringing link, anywhere on that site. Making one link would require checking millions (even tens of millions) of pages...
"If we failed to take this precaution, our finances could be frozen, our ad broker forced to pull ads from our site, and depending on which version of the bill goes to the vote, our domains confiscated, and, because our (Boing Boing) server is in Canada, our IP address would be added to a US-wide blacklist that every ISP in the country would be required to censor."
But SOPA and PIPA isn't just about the "big" websites -- and that's where it gets personal for LifePath.
These proposed laws "declare war on every person who uses the net to publicize police brutality, every oppressed person in the Arab Spring who used the net to organize protests and publicize the blood spilled by their oppressors, every abused kid who used the net to reveal her father as a brutalizer of children, every gay kid who used the net to discover that life is worth living despite the torment she's experiencing, every grassroots political campaigner who uses the net to make her community a better place -- as well as the scientists who collaborate online, the rescue workers who coordinate online, the makers who trade tips online, the people with rare diseases who support each other online, and the independent creators who use the Internet to earn their livings."
The SOPA and PIPA laws do this by making it easy for corporations that claim an incident of copyright infringement to shut down an entire website, and very difficult for those who have to defend themselves against it. Websites could be removed from the internet without due process based on a single claim of infringement related to something posted on the website or even linked to on the website, and the appeals process would be lengthy, cumbersome, and costly. It would put ordinary people at risk who upload their family photos to websites that might be shut down, who link to other websites on their Facebook pages, and who value the opportunity to access news sources that link to other sites.
To put it bluntly, instead of just stopping individual incidents of copyright infringement (which as a writer, I have no problem with), SOPA and PIPA give corporations the power to silence websites accused of infringement before they can remedy the situation or defend themselves. This would be like giving them the power to shut down newspapers or magazines by accusing them (not even convicting them) of misusing copyrighted material.
One place you can go to make your opinion against this legislation known to Congress is here. There's a specific message you can rewrite and email to your own representative and senators.
LifePath will be back tomorrow. On this important day, though, please spend a few minutes to notify your representatives to make sure we can keep coming back!