I wasn’t going to say anything about this because I rarely get political on this blog and because there are sites that attract far more readers than this one providing much better details on what’s happening and why it’s bad. But I suppose since there are sites large and small adding their voices to the outcry and not saying anything at all implies apathy on my part (which isn’t the case), I should mention it. If no one has guessed yet, this is about SOPA.

In the unlikely event that you don’t already know and just think I badly misspelled “soap,” or am making a very loud demand for soup in Spanish, SOPA stands for Stop Online Piracy Act. It’s been the hot item on the table in Congress and could potentially destroy the internet as we know it.

As I understand it (full bill here), the bill gives an unbalanced amount of power to corporations to block IPs they see as infringing their copyrights. While this is seemingly aimed at foreign torrent sites and the like, companies would also be allowed to block websites for even so much as posting links to torrent sites. The bill is also vaguely worded enough to allow for sensitive companies to get rid of sites that feature media they see as infringing their copyrights. You ever have that very annoying moment where your favorite music video or cartoon show got yanked off of Youtube due to some copyright claim? Imagine that  x  the whole internet. Live streams, fan music videos, let’s plays, internet reviews, and machinima could all be illegal.  Things like Facebook, Tumblr, and other social networking sites would have to heavily police their users if they want to stay legal, and sites like Youtube probably couldn’t exist at all.

People are signing petitions and sounding the alarms all over the place, so I guess I’m doing my patriotic duty by doing the same. Here’s some other stuff on SOPA from people far more educated and well known than me, and I encourage anyone reading to take a look. The tiny island of TellyrofTales supports the fight for freedom of speech and freedom to post funny videos of Smash Bros. Brawl characters acting out various internet memes, for what that is worth.