http://www.stumbleupon.com/blog/why-were-against-sopa-and-pipa

I thought all day about what I was going to write about tonight, and I pretty much came up with nothing. I had a pretty boring day, and nothing really pissed me off enough to rant or rave about. So I decided to start stumbling, with hopes that something I stumbled upon would spark some ideas. Leave it to the world wide web to get my brain mojo going.

First of all, If you dont know what stumble is, you really need to check it out. It is probably my most favorite website, and I use it on a daily basis. It is a discovery engine that helps you find the best on the web, based on interests that you have chosen. Every time you hit the stumble button, it will direct you to a website based on your interests. Then you have the option to either like or dislike the page, and stumble will either send you to more pages like that, or never send you pages like that again. It is actually really awesome and can be very time consuming. That being said, I dont recommend that you stumble while at work, unless you have a really cool boss that doesn't care you are using company time and resources for personal shit.

Anyway, back to the point of this post. I stumbled upon the article above. Feel free to read it if you would like, its a good read and has a nice short video at the end (about 4 minutes) and sums up the article pretty well.

The article talks about a new law that Congress is trying to pass called "Protect IP". In a nut shell it gives government and big corporations the power to censor the internet. There are certain private corporations that want the power to be able to shut down sites that use unauthorized content, and sites that allow users to download movies, music and television shows.

The bill also gives our government the power to force US internet providers to block access to certain search engines, directories, or blogs and forums and have links and access to this content removed. Also, it can force US Advertisers who advertise on these sites to suspend or cancel their accounts.

Now, what does this mean for the internet and us as internet users? Basically this is the beginning of a censored society. A society that built it self on freedom of speech. I understand that intellectual property is something that should not be stolen from someone. But I dont really think sites like stumble, youtube, tumblr, facebook and twitter are actually stealing anything from anyone. Another thing this bill can do is hinder new start up websites from ever going public. If a corporation or judge thinks that a site is infringing on copyrighted content, it can shut down the website and even pursue legal action against the site.

The language in the bill (which I have not personally read, but according to the article I posted above) is very vague and shady, and gives judges and corporations a lot of leniency when deciding if a site is in fact violating copy right laws. The government already can block sites just for one infringing link. Sites like youtube, twitter, facebook and stumble will have to start censoring their users, or shut the sites down since they are responsible for the content published by their users.

Normally I am not one to protest against the government, and I was all for the Patriot Act. This is something that really has me heated though. And let me tell you why. Back in 2006, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA or HUGE DOUCHE BAGS AS I LIKE TO CALL THEM) went on a witch hunt for people who were "illegally downloading music". Since web provides like Time Warner and Comcast had too big of a network to pinpoint individuals who are participating in illegal downloading, they decided to take it to the college campuses where the network was a lot smaller and easier to get access to all its users. They targeted a handful of colleges around the nation, OU being one of them. On a random day, they went online and looked to see who was using sites like Napster (actually Napster had already been shut down by this time) but the biggest peer to peer sharing site was Limewire. They randomly selected 50 IP address that were sharing or downloading music. They contacted the University and informed them of the infractions, and that legal action was going to be taken.

Since the RIAA needed a subpoena to get the names from the University, OU took it upon them selves to inform the students that they were in fact being sued by the RIAA for copyright infringement. Now, your probably asking your self "Lutz, how do you know all of these details?" Well one awesome OU day, I was kicking it in my dorm room, probably higher then a god damn kite, playing playstation and what not when I heard a knock on my door. It was my RA. He handed me a thick ass envelope and said, here I was told to give this to you and then rolled the fuck out.

I had no idea what the hell was in the envelope. Upon opening it and reading the content I about shit my pants. It was a letter, well more like a book it had so many damn pages, informing me that my IP address had be associated with the act of illegally downloading music. They even went as far as sending me a list of songs they caught me downloading that day (which I wish I still had because it was the most ridiculous mix of music, they probably thought I was the biggest queer/wigger/emo fuck ever). To go even further, some how they were able to see everything I had downloaded since I started using Limewire, my library at the time was 3000+ songs.

The letter informed that the law suit was legit, and I was being sued for $750 per song. Now lets do some math. 3000 songs at $750 per song...that is....$2,250,00.00 Dollars. WHAT THE FUCK? I flipped the fuck out. But then in small print on the last page I was informed that I could settle out of court, for $3000. To make a long story short, the University hired some lawyers for us and held a big meeting for the 50 students involved and helped us with a plan of action. Everyone pretty much agreed that they would find one way or another to pay the $3000 and just get this the hell over with.

I had to tuck my tail between my legs and call me dad and inform him what was going on. I dont think I have ever been so embarrassed as the day I had to call my father and tell him I was being sued for $2 million dollars. If that were to happen, and I was actually sued for that ridiculous amount of money, there is no way I would ever make a dime in my life. Every cent I made would most likely go to paying off that law suit. Thankfully my Dad understood that and helped me pay the HUGE DOUCHE BAGS the 3 grand they hustled me for. Basically it was white collar extortion.

Anyway, we paid the money and the law suit was never taken any further. It was still a very frustrating and ridiculous thing to go through (but honestly, it probably was not the most ridiculous thing I have done or have had happen to me at while I was at OU).

Reading the article about the new law being passed by Congress brought back some unwanted nostalgia and made me think of this story, and I felt it would be a good topic to post about. Apparently there is a protest movement going on about this. Probably something I will never get involved in because I think hippy protestors are a bunch of bull shit. But censoring the internet is something that cannot happen, and if it does I think it will have a lot more wide spread negative affects than just censoring youtube and twitter. If you think about it, our world now revolves around the internet.

Well guys, that is all I have for now. Keep checking back. Dont forget to follow me on twitter @_justlutz. Much love and appreciate all the feed back! Have a great night!