SOPA and PIPA

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

A lot of websites are down today in protest of SOPA and PIPA.  The blackout of Wikipedia alone is causing students around the world to panic uncontrollably.  "When was the war of 1812 again??  I NEED Wikipedia!"  By now you've probably heard that SOPA and PIPA are the names of the pending legislation to help protect against stealing of intellectual property such as music and movies.  That sounds fine, but the problem is that many people think that the proposed laws go too far and give certain companies too much control over the internet.  In the US, we have something called fair use that allows certain uses of art, music, videos etc in the creating of new art, music and video.  The general sentiment among many on the internet, including myself, is that while piracy may be an issue, this particular solution does more harm than good.  That is certainly the opinion of the video above.

You can decide for yourself by looking at the actual proposed bills which are SOPA and PIPA.

What do you think?  Are videos like the one below new works of art, or just copies of existing material?

Hello from ant1mat3rie on Vimeo.