Ahoy, matey: Standing in protest of piracy laws

By Steve Landry
Gazette Reporter
steveland1@aol.com

“And don’t it always seem to go/that you don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone.” — Joni Mitchell, “Big Yellow Taxi”

Joni-baby, how right you are. Wickipedia went “dark” for one day last week and I hadn’t realized how much I used it until it was gone from my purview. Usually, I double-check on their info, but it’s still a good place to start your research on most any topic.

Why did the Wick go dark? Basically, it was a protest against the government — or gub-munt, as my uncle Wilson used to say — which was attempting to overreach its giant claw over our freedoms by wanting to quell online piracy of copyrighted movies and TV programs. But the legislation included verbiage that would completely alter our Web lifestyle.

And that meant that not only did our favorite Web-based encyclopedia battle Congress (the members of which are mostly antediluvian in their concept of the Internet’s power), but it also pitted Silicon Valley against Holly-weird.

And “we” won! The cyber-nerds have triumphed! Harry Reid, whose pages know more about the Net than he ever could, threw his proverbial gavel away as protestors opposed to PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act) and to SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) held sway over the proceedings.

But we, the people, did not win this portion of the war until after that fateful Wednesday, Jan. 18, when Wikipedia blacked out its English articles for 24 long hours. One guy noted it was a “day that will live in ignorance,” apropos to what FDR said after the attack on Pearl Harbor. It would be funny if weren’t so scary.

My opinion is that this legislation had zero and nada to do with “saving” actors’ jobs, but all to do with negating a free and open Internet. What a sham. Let me say this: I’m also a news reporter and I’ve covered government. Believe me, once government takes something away (or in the case of passing a tax) it does not revisit the issue, generally speaking.

This was about online censorship. And that’s a “C” word that I abhor. Frankly, it scares the hell out of me.

It’s OK to stem online piracy. But these politicians wanted to totally change the way the Web works. True, we don’t want copyright infringement perpetuated by huge companies from other countries. But the way the bills were written would have punished the college kid who wants to hear an Adele song — which, studies show, he’ll buy anyway once he hears it.

Piracy, on its face, can be an abuse of intellectual property. And yet, thanks to Wikipedia and the protestors, we read now where the legislation will not go forward as written. The people have spoken and finally Congress listened. It was a mini-revolution, folks, and be thankful that it worked.

Steve Landry is a Lafayette-based journalist and news-features correspondent, published in newspapers and magazines around the South. Write him at steveland1@aol.com.