StumbleUpon: Why We’re Against SOPA and PIPA

[Eric J in MN]

Under SOPA, copyright holders can simply send a notice alleging copyright infringement to payment processors, ad services and hosting providers that many of the most heavily trafficked web sites rely on, who in turn would have five days to suspend their services to the offending sites.

Because the mandated response time will prevent these service providers from investigating the legitimacy of any such claim or fine-tuning their response to the allegedly offending page(s), and because these proposed laws would grant legal immunity (for example, from claims of business damage) to these service providers even if the original accusation turns out to be incorrect, they will likely shut off services to entire web sites altogether, effectively shutting down entire business operations.

All of this can be done without a judge finding a web site guilty of a crime and without giving that site sufficient time to address the issue themselves. This wouldn’t just be detrimental to large companies, but would likely keep resource-constrained startups from getting off the ground or taking the kinds of risks that lead to innovation and experimentation.

The burden of proof is thus very low for the copyright holder making the claim against a web site or blog. Simply put, the responsibility is shifted disproportionately to the accused without placing enough accountability on the accuser. That’s antithetical to our system of law.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/8I55no/www.stumbleupon.com/blog/why-were-against-sopa-and-pipa

Please contact your Senators against PIPA.

Please contact your Rep against SOPA.