no sopa no!

I am totally against SOPA, therefore I have contacted my government reps to shout about it. I suggest you do the same. I’ll be adding this little plea to all my images today—but I won’t black out.

Content is king- and if someone reading this happens to like my picture and read it, so much the better. SOPA would pretty much put me under. I post my original works to sites which sometimes include violating images- while my work doesn’t violate any copyright law, shutting those sites down because of other people’s sins would punish ME, an innocent bystander.

I also feel that there are enough and proper copyright laws right now to defend original works. If someone “steals” my image and uses it commercially, I can right now, without any additional laws, stop them. Legally. SOPA is good for huge conglomerates who don’t want competition, but would absolutely DESTROY the small, lone, artists, those of us who toil away in relative obscurity.

It will take away the venues we use to sell our original works, and it will destroy our ability to self-promote. It will make us vulnerable to any jerk that wants to take us down- and enable censorship by the few. If someone finds a work online offensive, right now, they can flag it or ignore it. Under SOPA, they could report it as a violation, and it would be immediately removed.

The burden of proof is on the person accused, not the accuser- and this is contrary to ALL previous law and statute in the US.

If you are not from the US, imagine all your US viewers GONE. Unable to see you. As well as the sites you use that are from the US- GONE.

For our sakes, and for your own, stand against this utterly stupid law. You can contact your representatives through this site:

https://action.eff.org/o/9042/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=8173

and let them know how wrong they are about what the voters want.