Okay, so I know we're technically on "Solstice break," but we wanted to make a quick post about this recent ReadWriteWeb article by Alicia Eler, since it touches on such an important issue. Though not yet widely publicized in the mainstream media, proposed legislation called SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PROTECT IP (Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act) could provide a true and serious threat to online free speech and the Internet as a whole.
To learn more, watch this great video by FightForTheFuture.org (below) that explains the bills briefly and clearly:
Alicia interviewed Brian (Co-Founder of OPP) and our good friend/amazing artist Stacia Yeapanis on how the proposed SOPA/PROTECT IP laws could affect art and artists online. The article focuses on the dangers that the proposed legislation could cause to content providers and services like OtherPeoplesPixels. If passed, SOPA & PROTECT IP could also have catastrophic reprocussions on the rights of individual artists to publish, share and promote their work online -- especially artists like Stacia Yeapanis, who use, comment on and transform copyrighted material in their work.
You can find many ways to learn more about these proposed laws and take action to stop their passage, here.