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What is SOPA?
“More sopapillas please!!”
That classic Cartman quote is what runs through my head just about every time I hear the news talking about SOPA. And then I started actually listening to the news talk about this issue, and um… yikes. It sounds pretty bad, people. On paper it looks great – SOPA stands for “Stop Online Piracy Act”. We don’t like pirates, right? (Forget Johnny Depp for a minute.) But stay with me folks. Basically if SOPA passes, internet censorship will become the norm. If a site is accused of hosting pirated material, that site essentially disappears.
It feels a little scary, a little Big-Brother-Is -Watching-And-I’m-Not-Talking-About-The-Reality-Show. And the more I read, the less I like it. It raises all kinds of questions – if I create some kind of funny parody picture for my blog, could the copyright holder of that original image get my site reported and taken out of search engine results? That’s pretty much a livelihood killer right there, guys. My whole design career is currently based on having a website and connecting with potential clients through it.
And that’s taking things a little personally, I know. SOPA was created to take down websites like Pirate Bay based in other countries that promote copyright infringement by letting people download movies and music and whatever. But it becomes a witchhunt before you know it, you know? Leave Britney alone!
I’ll be honest, I’m not the best at explaining political type things. This has just been my broad generalization of how I understand this bill. If you’d like to learn more about SOPA, take a look at some of the following links:
SOPA on Wikipedia (link will be affected by blackout protests on 1/18/12)
SOPA and PIPA explained on BBC.com
What can you do? Visit Stop American Censorship’s website and find out all the ways you can take action.
How do you feel about this controversial bill? Let’s get a conversation going in the comments!
(Image lovingly borrowed from South Park. With parody text. Please don’t report my website for copyright infringement.)
Freelance illustrator Steph Calvert is an award-winning artist with 24 years of experience working as a creative professional. She is based in McDonough, Georgia, just south of Atlanta.
Steph Calvert has expertise as a children’s book illustrator. She is an expert surface pattern designer for art licensing and creates line drawings for publishing and product design. Steph has years of additional expertise as a mural artist, creating original art, and logo design for small businesses. She is currently querying literary agents with her first author/illustrator book projects.
Writing CLIENTS INCLUDE
Moonfrye.com
OC Weekly
Educational Highlights
National SCBWI Conference, 2023
Illustration Summer Camp – The Highlights Foundation, 2021
Make Art That Sells, 2017
BFA in Computer Art – SCAD, 1999
3 responses to “What is SOPA?”
I am hopeful that the very vocal majority will prevail. It seems crazy to think anything like this would actually become law. LOVE the South Park reference…. wait.
I love that SOPA and PIPA are gone! (For now…) Pretty great what folks were able to do coming together to protest online – it’ll be interesting to see how that tactic gets used again in the future!
I really don’t like this idea. I enjoy reading FANFICTIONS and being pulled into the fandom and you can’t share anything about your fandoms with this. It’s not piracy if you want to spread the feels. I hate this idea in general and want to end it.