In a powerful example of the internet grassroots in action, a viral campaign through Reddit played a large role in stopping the passage of s SOPA and PIPA and that effort has now expanded into an movement to produce alternative legislation which would address copyright concerns but also protect the rights of internet users and providers.
This collaboratively produced legislation is called the Free Internet Act. It has as its stated goal:
"To promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship and innovation by preventing the restriction of liberty and preventing the means of censorship. FIA will allow internet users to browse freely without any means of censorship, users have the right to free speech and to free knowledge; we govern the content of the internet, governments don't. However enforcements/laws must also be put into place to protect copyrighted content."
The effort is ambitious, and goes beyond just proposing a law for the United States and includes the idea of an international treaty to address not just SOPA but also the European Union's equally troublesome and unpopular ACTA legislation, effectively as a new international treaty on online copyright and free speech.
The proposed bill would make it more difficult for copyright holders to remove suspect content and limit the amount they could sue for, while still giving reasonable protections against piracy. It provides guidelines for fair remedies to get content removed and gives site owners and uploaders a 30 day grace period to deal with problems and defend their content, addressing the concern that SOPA provided no remedies or due process for the accused. It provides for enforcement through the court system and suggests unspecified penalties for abuse of the process or efforts to intimidate content providers. It even provides the rough elements of a sort of internet bill of rights.
Right now the FIA is in rough form, produced through a collaborative process which isn not efficient and not well suited to refining and focusing the language, but it's an excellent starting point which includes sensible alternative proposals which address the legitimate concerns behind SOPA while also protecting civil liberties and the rights of internet users and businesses.
Article comments
1 - Tommy Mack
Laws are all very well and good if they can be enforced. That is where the money-media lobby is already lurking, near enforcement. It will also give the Super PACs something to do after the election. The Internet as a money maker means the laws you refer to will be expensive.
Tommy
2 - mandrake
Senator Orrin Hatch from Utah wants to blow up hundreds of thousands of computers to combat online piracy.
3 - Igor
Giant corporations have been pirating artists for the fruits of their labors for decades and no one seemed to care. But now that those Giant Corporations monopolies are threatened by resourceful consumers they squeal like stuck pigs!
If the Corporate sponsors of SOPA, etc., are sincere then they should be backing laws that give artists more enduring control over their works and more profits thereby. But that is NOT what they propose.