Trent Reznor, OK Go, MGMT, Zoe Keating, Neil Gaiman, Others Join Anti-SOPA Fight
(UPDATED) Adding their voices to a rising anti-SOPA tide, a group of prominent musicians, actors, and authors including Trent Reznor, OK Go, MGMT, Zoe Keating and Neil Gaiman have signed an open letter to the US Congress.
An open letter to Washington from Artists and Creators
We, the undersigned, are musicians, actors, directors, authors, and producers. We make our livelihoods with the artistic works we create. We are also Internet users.
We are writing to express our serious concerns regarding the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).
As creative professionals, we experience copyright infringement on a very personal level. Commercial piracy is deeply unfair and pervasive leaks of unreleased films and music regularly interfere with the integrity of our creations. We are grateful for the measures policymakers have enacted to protect our works.
We, along with the rest of society, have benefited immensely from a free and open Internet. It allows us to connect with our fans and reach new audiences. Using social media services like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, we can communicate directly with millions of fans and interact with them in ways that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago.
We fear that the broad new enforcement powers provided under SOPA and PIPA could be easily abused against legitimate services like those upon which we depend. These bills would allow entire websites to be blocked without due process, causing collateral damage to the legitimate users of the same services – artists and creators like us who would be censored as a result.
We are deeply concerned that PIPA and SOPA's impact on piracy will be negligible compared to the potential damage that would be caused to legitimate Internet services. Online piracy is harmful and it needs to be addressed, but not at the expense of censoring creativity, stifling innovation or preventing the creation of new, lawful digital distribution methods.
We urge Congress to exercise extreme caution and ensure that the free and open Internet, upon which so many artists rely to promote and distribute their work, does not become collateral damage in the process.
Respectfully,
- Aziz Ansari
- Kevin Devine, Musician
- Barry Eisler, Author
- Neil Gaiman, Author
- Lloyd Kaufman, Filmmaker
- Zoë Keating, Musician
- The Lonely Island
- Daniel Lorca, Musician (Nada Surf)
- Erin McKeown, Musician
- Benjamin Goldwasser (MGMT)
- Andrew VanWyngarden (MGMT)
- Samantha Murphy, Musician
- OK Go
- Amanda Palmer, Musician (The Dresden Dolls)
- Quiet Company
- Trent Reznor
- Adam Savage, Special Effects Artist (MythBusters)
- Hank Shocklee, Music Producer (Public Enemy, The Bomb Squad)
- Johnny Stimson, Musician
To help protect Internet innovation please visit: stopthewall.us
STOP SOPA! it’s going to cause more harm, than any kind of good and a lot of people’s jobs will be gone if this is passed. America’s economy does not need another hit.
Stop this, going with this idea is surely one of the steps the world took that we will start regretting in the coming years! This is robbing to normal people from their freedom on the web, please stop!
American Economy? SOPA/PIPA will effect essentially every county in the world.
PLEASE STOP SOPA
Stop this nonsense Sopa
As a musician, producer, and promoter, I depend on the internet to increase opportunities for artists and fellow musicians. With the passage of these acts, my work would cease to be. Find other solutions without widespread, devastating effects.
Stop the fucking sopa!, We want
freedom of expression
Freedom of speech. Freedom of expression. These things are important to ME.
If SOPA pass, it s the beggining of the censorship era on internet!!
Please stop SOPA.
No to SOPA
SOPA must not come to pass. The american government is becoming Team America, and trying to police the world. And in doing so, all they do is screw things up for everyone! I enjoy my freedom on the internet. I find new music, new information, and new connections via the internet. It’s a free source of information and SOPA will only cause more harm than good!
This is completely illogical! This would cause more harm than good, and would only be counter productive: in a clearly hasty attempt to solve one issue, they are simply opening up the floodgates for other problems to be introduced, ie. means of social interaction, etc. We all have the right to express ourselves, and in this day and age, the most common medium of doing so is by the employing of the internet and other social medias connected with it. Ironic how the country which has always promoted freedom of speech is considering obliterating it from its population.
Honestly one of the stupidest acts I’ve ever heard of – totally pointless
OH YEAH MAN. The Government needs to hear from this point of view. The POV of the people who they are supposedly trying to protect.
y yo tmb!
SOPA and PIPA are a violation of constitutional rights!
SOPA won’t pass. So don’t worry about it.
What’s more interesting is what’s about to come with google and facebook.
Facebook is going to introduce their own search engine that returns only facebook content. Google is going to be tempted to change their search algorithms to favor content on Google+ and Google Music – the forbidden fruit, and something that Lary and Sergei said they would never do.
Imagine what happens when your search results are no longer suggesting the actual ‘best’ sites on the web, but instead trying to funnel you into proprietary content from these behemoths…
Seriously, its coming. Search will no longer be democratic. How will the world react? Will there be new life at Yahoo and Bing for providing unbiased search results when others stop doing so?
This will be the big story of 2012. Get ready for a big fight and lots of political drama.
Taking Away Some Freedom Now? Whats Next? Stop This Nonsense That Will Harm Many!!
Don’t take away a core American value.
If this happens, people will simply move to an unbiased search engine.
AS IT IS CURRENTLY WRITTEN, “We are deeply concerned that PIPA and SOPA’s impact on piracy will be negligible compared to the potential damage that would be caused to legitimate Internet services.”
No they won’t. History has shown that people will give up a lot of things in exchange for convenience. For example , their private life in exchange for some free convenient social media candy. Cf Facebook
We don’t want SOPA.
by passing “SOPA” it is only making us just like China an over protective mother to the point where it can kill you because they also have blocked things like Facebook and choose the music their people listen to, to make sure they don’t get certain “ideas”
fuck sopa!!!
SOPA SUCKS! BITCHESSSSSS