If you didn’t notice Google and Wikipedia both blacked out their sites today. There are quite a few posts where I have used Wikipedia as a source. It would sadden me greatly if we lost such a project, one of human contribution and collaboration. The organization believes this could happen under these laws meant to protect copyrighted material. Human collaboration, user generated content, is the foundation of the success that small businesses have been able to gain from the web. Copyrights must be protected, but not at the expense of capitalism!
The ability for a company to remove a website entirely based upon a single participant’s actions makes these laws dangerous. We would not support shutting down a music hall because one band sang a copyrighted song without paying for it? We would support going after the band, not the venue. With these laws, a simple comment on a website, even by a competitor, could be misconstrued to shut it down.
I would like to direct readers to www.business2community.com’s post: Why SOPA and PIPA Are Bad for Business rather than create my own full post. The post is well written and covers much of what needs to be discussed.
