Dear Friends of SurfGuitar101.com:
bgneal@548:bgneal@550: I am joining many other websites today and closing the site to protest two pieces of legislation in the US Congress: the so-called bgneal@548: Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA in the House, and the so-called bgneal@550: Protect IP Act, or PIPA in the Senate. I hope to draw your attention to these acts and bgneal@548: urge each one of you to read up on them. Then, please contact your representatives and ask them to withdraw bgneal@548: their support for these bills. bgneal@548:
bgneal@548:I too am concerned about protecting copyrights and intellectual property. But these bills have provisions in them bgneal@548: that go too far. They allow media companies to ask the government to remove sites from the Internet without any bgneal@548: due process or oversight. The burden of proving that no coypright violations are present will fall on site operators. bgneal@548: Major tech companies like Google, Facebook, and Twitter oppose these bills. The engineers that built the internet have bgneal@548: also spoken out, pointing out that the provisions in these bills will not prevent piracy, but in fact will create bgneal@548: security problems and disrupt the operation of the Internet. bgneal@548:
bgneal@548:bgneal@548: The Internet is quite possibly the greatest invention of my lifetime. It should be a tool for free expression, bgneal@550: democracy, innovation, and entrepreneurship. However, the media companies are failing to innovate and embrace bgneal@550: this new digital age, and instead are asking the US government to essentially let them decide what we can and cannot bgneal@550: view on the internet. We cannot let the US goverment bgneal@548: join the ranks of despot countries like China, Iran, Syria, and North Korea and censor their citizens' use of the Internet. bgneal@548:
bgneal@548:Here are some links that I ask you to look over. They explain the issues far better than I can.
bgneal@548:
bgneal@548: Thank you for your patience and understanding. I firmly believe that even small community websites like ours
bgneal@548: would be threatened if bills like this were allowed to pass.
bgneal@548: -- Brian Neal
bgneal@548:
| Are you a US citizen? | Contact your representatives now... | bgneal@551:
|---|---|
| Not in the US? | Petition the US State Department... | bgneal@551: