There is a host of information regarding SOPA/PIPA on the web today, during this “blackout” You can find more information on Wikipedia or Google. This post is my take on what needs to happen next. — Douglas
What truly needs to happen next is direct action against the sources of funding for the MPAA/RIAA. Without their funding they cannot be effect lobbyists for bills such as SOPA/PIPA (and surely more to come down the pike).
It is time to starting working our way through the MPAA/RIAA membership lists and taking action to convince their members that associating themselves with the MPAA/RIAA is no longer a good deal, nor it is in their own best interest.
Further, if people want to stop bills such as SOPA/PIPA being produced, we all need to stop supporting/funding these bills with our movie, television and music listening choices. It can be hard to face the fact, but we ourselves have funded the bills that we are now protesting against.
“Follow the money” was Deep Throat’s advice and it still applies today. The money flowing to MPAA/RIAA members flows to their lobbyists and directly into our elected representatives coffers. Think about your actions next time you go to the movies or pick up a CD/DVD. Do you really want to be funding legislation that actively seeks to criminalize your Internet activities? Do you really want to have to protest bills that you yourself funded?
For myself, I find that I can more easily live without MPAA/RIAA member content than I can without the Internet and all that it provides. If it comes down to a battle between the two, and today shows that it has, I know where my loyalties lie. Close the theaters and studios and the record companies. It won’t hurt me one bit. I have many choices in music and entertainment these days beyond MPAA/RIAA. We are not longer living in a world of entertainment scarcity and it is time that these old guard companies learned that lesson. Innovate or get out of the way.
If we have truly awakened from our slumber, we need to understand who and what is funding these bills and cut off that funding at the source. Close your pocketbook to those entities that think maintaining their out of date business model is more important than benefits the Internet provides. Show them that they have truly been supplanted with so many alternatives that they no longer matter.
This is the way forward.