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Journalism of Courage
The day the LOLcats died is a mournful ditty about what could happen if SOPA and PIPA the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect Intellectual Property Act are enacted in the United States. The proposed legislation threatens to erase entire services off the Web in the US if they find copyright infringement,and a single file would be enough to declare a foreign website rogue. This,obviously,has large implications for Indian Web services as well.
Though the debate has been brewing for months now,between digital activists and entertainment lobbies,many of us only noticed when Wikipedia,that vital part of our lives,along with other sites like Reddit and Boing Boing,faded to black on Wednesday,to warn of a dark,silent future. Even the Obama Administration has made its problems with the bill clear,saying it will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression,increases cybersecurity risk,or undermines the dynamic,innovative global Internet. Under current US law the Digital Millennium Copyright Act,companies can send takedown notices to websites,pointing to instances of copyright infringement and get them removed. It was not perfect,but it was granular and as fair as possible. If SOPA goes through,the collateral damage would be tremendous it would practically destroy all business models around user-generated content,by ceasing payment processing and advertising. Whats more,if YouTube had to personally monitor each video,it wouldnt be YouTube any more,that vast sea of content uploaded by networked crowds.
