Aside from the random moment of can't-help-it snark, I try to think through my comments on DK carefully--there are an awful lot of smart and articulate people hanging out here, and I'd prefer to be thought of as one of them. So I haven't commented on any of the diaries regarding SOPA, being rather uncertain where I stood on the issue. And, with most big things--property rights, crime and punishment, how we treat each other--I think that thinking things through is a smart place to start.
But I digress.
The un-digression is below the curlicue thingy. That's the technical term, right?
I'm e-published, with several novellas with a digital-first publisher, for which I receive royalty payments several times a year. A lot of people I know are in the same place. So we take questions of copyright and piracy more seriously than most--not most people on Kos, who are far more inclined to think things through than most others, but most people in general. Like all those people being surprised today by missing Wikipedia pages and so forth. I do NOT regard copyright as an obstacle to the free exchange of information. You, of course, are welcome to disagree, depending on your experience and interests--and you'll undoubtedly be right.
I also do not regard well-reasoned laws as an obstacle to a superb political system or well-lived life. If I did, I'd be a libertarian, and, well, I'm not.
It's the poorly reasoned, useless laws (or those that strike at the heart of our constitution) that I object to. And I finally sat down long enough to decide whether SOPA was one of those.
Piracy, see, is a huge problem in the world of commercial fiction, which is where I spend a great deal of my time and energy. Even authors who are out in print first find their novels scanned and uploaded to sites that often make a great deal of money--either from advertisers or membership--from the piracy. Note--my day job is in marketing, so I don't hold the advertisers entirely responsible--you often have to do some research to find out where your ads are running, depending on your interactive advertising model. I have friends who follow piracy issues closely, and they've found that if you notify an advertiser on one of those sites, the ads come down pretty quickly in most cases. Every time someone downloads a title from one of those sites, the author--who put in hundreds, if not thousands, of hours in the writing and editing of that book, loses their royalty.
(Yes, there is a lot of discussion whether that author is really losing money--libraries get the same discussion, and I'm a big fan of those. Suffice it to say, that's an argument with no real answer, and I'm not going to engage. But you know what? I still put in hundreds or thousands of hours writing that book, and it should be up to me whether I give you a copy for free, or ask you to buy your own. Rather like asking you to buy your own television instead of taking mine.)
So back to SOPA.
On its face (or at least in its title), it's a great idea: clamp down on those law breakers who are interfering with the property rights (and, often, income) of hardworking writers.
But you know what? It's already illegal. I own that copyright the minute I put those words on the page. You don't get to take them without my permission (in theory. I mean, there are only so many ways to string together a bunch of words). We already have piracy laws, and trademark laws, and all other sorts of nifty devices that we don't necessarily enforce now. And we have a judicial system that has proved itself quite competent at extending the reach of existing law to include internet communications and other new technology.
So why do we need SOPA? I dunno...although it does nudge my writer's brain in the direction of...ooh, shiny new plot line...wonder if they did it precisely to chill political speech, or to shut down sites they don't like (Wikileaks, anyone?) under looser standards of proof than otherwise exist. After all, if WL puts up a copy of a gov't doc, it's pretty much going to find itself in violation of the law, no questions asked.
Constitution trumps. Greater good and all that. I don't need you to make it easier to prosecute someone pirating my novel; I need you to make it easier for me to write those novels by guaranteeing my First Amendment rights--which I HIGHLY value--over my corporate interests (as the owner of the copyright, that is).
Don't pass a new law: enforce the ones we have if it's that important. Smaller government rocks!
PS these are, of course, my views, well-reasoned or not. My publisher and everyone else I know have every right to disagree. That whole constitution-thing, you know.