As If There Was Doubt: Yeah, We Oppose SOPA & PIPA Too

While SOPA and PIPA were already pretty close to being DOA before all the web site shutdowns you’re watching today… it shouldn’t be any question to PhoneNews.com fans that we would oppose them from day one.

It’s pretty clear why, we’ve been targets of the kinds of actions that SOPA and PIPA could (easily) rain down on a nearly-daily basis. We’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars in court, behind the scenes, to protect bloggers rights. What did we get for it? Losses in readership, downranks in search engines, and lost business opportunities. At one point, we were nearly bankrupted by these kinds of frivolous legal actions.

No, we didn’t play the victim card here on PhoneNews.com. In fact, we only mentioned it once or twice in times where we really had to pull together to keep things going. Those days are behind us, and we have enough legal guns, insurance, and backing at this point to stare down the largest of digital bullies.

Many however don’t have that support. And, with just a single typed page letter from a law firm, SOPA and PIPA would require Internet Service Providers to deny access to a web site. You won’t hear that in the mainstream media, as these two pieces of legislation are sponsored by the big media conglomerates. Not only can these companies use this legislation to shut down piracy, but their media/publishing wings can use shell companies to shut down their competitors… like us.

Don’t believe it? Just as there are advocacy agencies for just about everything, those agencies could hire big legal guns to create crafty challenges arguing that even a fair-use image on a site like this one, constitutes piracy. And, to get back online, a site like ours could go bankrupt just trying to get its day in court.

Again, we’ve been there.

So please, go to Wikipedia, go to Google.com, use the tools on those home pages today to find out how to contact your local representatives in Congress.

We aren’t shutting down our site today, but we are going to leave this post as the top article for the rest of the day. Don’t worry, just scroll down to see the latest news… we think SOPA and PIPA will fail, as they should, but if you don’t speak up with your elected officials, we can’t confirm it’s dead and done for.

The mere possibility that other, independent, members of the media could be even more easily brought to the brink of bankruptcy, is enough for us to ask for you to take the five minutes, to help out on this one.