sopa oatmeal
The Oatmeal’s page for 1/18/12

Yesterday, I participated in the online protest against SOPA and PIPA. This is what my page looked like to visitors that landed on the main URL of www.banalleakage.com:

sopa banal leakage
Banal Leakage’s page for 1/18/12

I chose that image because it’s one that could be used to shut down a site/domain without much notice. I mean, with a name like Banal Leakage, it’s possible someone could have issue with it [besides the general structure of the name itself], think some link I used belongs to them and without even talking to me first, complain loud enough and take me down. Am I up all night worried that will ever happen? Nope. But I don’t want shoddy legislature with a gray area of due process giving it a better chance of happening.

sopa webosinternals
webOS Internals’ page for 1/18/12

This is why the web’s biggest players came out in full force. Was it effective? Well, the web sites for Senate and Congress for each elected official were getting slammed and many were down most of the day. Three of them pulled their names off as co-sponsors of the bills. The general populace of the web is now more learned of SOPA and PIPA. Over 4,000,000 signatures were collected by Reddit. I would say that’s quite an effective list.

sopa wikipedia
Wikipedia’s page for 1/18/12

This fight is not over. And while certain provisions of the bill have been changed, altered or removed, the bill is still very flawed in how it plans to fight piracy. I am against piracy on many levels and very much for owners of media and copyrighted material for getting their monetary compensation for their work. Yes, I admit to visiting the torrents here and there, but my intent is always to become legit with the media I plan to own. As I venture into media distribution myself, I know there will be items taken without proper payment. That’s going to happen regardless of how many web sites the government shuts down. The goal is to get your media into the hands of people at a reasonable price and without the hassle of DRM and other hinderances that prevent a great user experience.

And SOPA and PIPA do not accomplish this task. Their purpose is not concerned with any user experience. Their purpose is to prevent criminal intent and illegal forms of delivery. There are other methods that will can and be more effective. Working together as a collective group, the government and the tech industry can find the best solutions for protecting the property owner as well as the design and flow of information on the internet.