Austin360 blogs > Digital Savant > Archives > 2012 > January > 20
Friday, January 20, 2012
SOPA officially shelved… but what comes next?
So, this happened and in large part caused this to happen today. There’s nothing like a chorus of all the people with the loudest megaphones telling you you’re wrong to change your mind about something (or at least cause you to see the writing on the wall and retreat).
But, while technologists have flexed their muscle in proving they can block political change they find repugnant, the underlying issues haven’t been fixed. Media companies still are at their wits’ end over piracy, there are those in the government who want more control over the unruly Internet (they can’t imagine something more horrifying than a homegrown Wikileaks) and apart from the protests, which were more organized than is typical in the tech industry, no one has really set forth a reasonable solution that’s going to fix anything long-term.
The last thing I want is a more restrictive Internet, but let’s not pretend that piracy doesn’t exist and that many copyright holders (small content companies and independent artists, not just the major labels and studios) aren’t being robbed blind by those who feel entitled enough to take what they want, when they want, from the generous Internet. I wonder how many protesters this week looked around at scorched-earth hackers and other allies who appear to be in favor of no piracy restrictions (or copyright enforcement for that matter) and wondered, “Wait, do I really want those people on my side?”
Too often this week, I saw people fighting against SOPA without really understanding what SOPA and PIPA were about and refusing to acknowledge that perhaps, in some small way, there’s a problem that needs to be addressed somehow.
Being against the anti-piracy bills doesn’t mean you can’t acknowledge that things aren’t quite right the way they are now and that a victory today won’t prevent more measures to come down the pike (perhaps in more subtle, harder to fight legislation).
The failure of SOPA, I think, has more to do with the almost cartoonish overreaching of organizations like the RIAA and of certain lawmakers than the underlying principles. SOPA and PIPA were very easy to paint as villainous because the MPAA and RIAA, as crusaders, have been historically tone-deaf as to the realities of the way people consume media in the digital age.
But it doesn’t mean they’re completely wrong or that they won’t gain some ground on these issues in the end. For the tech companies and pundits who preached so loudly in the fight this week, it’s not enough to win today. You’re going to have to help fix the problem, too.
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Richard Garriott space documentary opens in Austin today
Image credit: TMS
The documentary about Austin game developer and space traveler Richard Garriott is finally touching down. “Man on a Mission: Richard Garriott’s Road to the Stars” opens today at the Alamo South and there’ll be a special screening at 7 p.m. tonight with Garriott, director Mike Woolf and producer Brady DIal. (They’ll stick around for more screenings after that since the 7 p.m. show is sold out.)
The film will also play at Alamo Village starting Feb. 1 and Alamo Lake Creek starting Feb. 9.
The documentary follows Garriott’s $30 million guest to be a commercial space traveler.
Our film writer Matthew Odam has written an excellent piece for today’s American-Statesman about the film. You can check it out here.
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