SOPA and PIPA are still on the table. They are both acts that attempt to prevent piracy of digital property and attempt to maintain the ability for creators on the internet to assert their intellectual property rights.

Those things are actually bad.

There are all kinds of theoretically suspicious things about the assumptions that the bills make, but none of those things really matter here. What matters is the practical effects of what would occur of the bills are/were passed.

One thing that would happen is that I wouldn’t be able to blog anymore. As you know, it is critical to me to link, show, and talk about visual media. I wouldn’t be able to do that in a SOPA/PIPA world. Comic book companies that don’t agree with my reading or use of their material (read: my opinion) would be able to prevent me from using their images under fair use plus they would be able to prevent my website from loading. While it appears that DNS blocking gone from the bill, Congress edits and creates new portions of bills all the time, and the lobbies for the media industry are wealthy.

The same goes for the video game industry.

So this is important. Coilhouse says everything that I want to say about it, so go read their post and reason for blacking out.

I am not blacking out, but that’s because I wanted to make this post and be visible today. Also, people gotta get their Rise of the Planet of the Apes symbolism searches fulfilled.