If you haven't heard of SOPA yet, let me elucidate. SOPA stands for "Stop Online Piracy Act", and is legislation our congressional leaders (HA!) are thinking of passing. Stopping online piracy doesn't sound like such a bad thing, does it? Well, actually it is, the way this legislation would work anyway. Basically, SOPA would make it a felony to use someone else's copyrighted material in any way. Here's one way this scenario could go...
Imagine Grandma is watching her young granddaughter one day, she's 10. One of her favorite singers is Lady GaGa. She's playing "Edge of Glory" and starts lip-syncing to it. Grandma whips out her Iphone and starts recording her precious grandchild. She thinks the video is so cute, she decides to upload it to Youtube so that all her friends in her knitting circle can see it. The next day, Lady GaGa's record label, Interscope Records, catches wind of this video. Since they're the copyright holder for that song, they can have Youtube blacklisted so that no one can go there until the video is taken down, Grandma will be arrested and if convicted, spend 5 years in a state prison for the heinous crime of being proud of her 10 year old grandchild singing a Lady GaGa song!
Yes, this is the kind of legislation that our congress, (who can't even stop bickering long enough to give a crap about how our country is going to HELL) is thinking of making into a law. Let's make anyone who wants to sing a song or act out a scene from their favorite movie into a felon and lock them up for 5 years! After all, we don't have enough people in this country behind bars yet.
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