FlameStorm

The goals of SOPA, or the Stop Online Piracy Act, are noble. There is no question that plenty of copyrighted material has been exchanging hands online with no payment whatsoever to the rightful copyright holders – people who make great music, movies or books. There are plenty of people, in fact, the majority of the Internet users, who don’t care, because they like getting stuff for free, and after all, who doesn’t. Most of these people never produced a song, a movie or written a book – and never will.

Copyrights should be protected if we want to continue getting great movies and so on. Because without money, they will never be made. We can look at the chaos in countries like Russia or China, which offer little copyright protection. Do we want to live like them? No, we don’t.

The problem is, SOPA is the wrong way to do it. It’s overbearing and vague. It will be detrimental to the Internet, will create more lawsuits and so on. The problem is that our government can rarely get things right, and in this case, they are consistent with their poor track record.

So, if SOPA is the wrong way, what’s the right way? Honestly, I don’t know. Your suggestions in the comment box would be appreciated.