From the Desk of the Editor...

An open letter to Washington from Artists and Creators

neil-gaiman:

We, the undersigned, are musicians, actors, directors, authors, and producers. We make our livelihoods with the artistic works we create. We are also Internet users.

We are writing to express our serious concerns regarding the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

As creative professionals, we experience copyright infringement on a very personal level. Commercial piracy is deeply unfair and pervasive leaks of unreleased films and music regularly interfere with the integrity of our creations. We are grateful for the measures policymakers have enacted to protect our works.

We, along with the rest of society, have benefited immensely from a free and open Internet. It allows us to connect with our fans and reach new audiences. Using social media services like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, we can communicate directly with millions of fans and interact with them in ways that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago.

We fear that the broad new enforcement powers provided under SOPA and PIPA could be easily abused against legitimate services like those upon which we depend. These bills would allow entire websites to be blocked without due process, causing collateral damage to the legitimate users of the same services - artists and creators like us who would be censored as a result.

We are deeply concerned that PIPA and SOPA’s impact on piracy will be negligible compared to the potential damage that would be caused to legitimate Internet services. Online piracy is harmful and it needs to be addressed, but not at the expense of censoring creativity, stifling innovation or preventing the creation of new, lawful digital distribution methods.

We urge Congress to exercise extreme caution and ensure that the free and open Internet, upon which so many artists rely to promote and distribute their work, does not become collateral damage in the process.

Respectfully,

• Aziz Ansari
• Kevin Devine, Musician
• Barry Eisler, Author
• Neil Gaiman, Author
• Lloyd Kaufman, Filmmaker
• Zoë Keating, Musician
• The Lonely Island
• Daniel Lorca, Musician (Nada Surf)
• Erin McKeown, Musician
• MGMT
• Samantha Murphy, Musician
• OK Go
• Amanda Palmer, Musician (The Dresden Dolls)
• Quiet Company
• Trent Reznor
• Adam Savage, Special Effects Artist (MythBusters)
• Hank Shocklee, Music Producer (Public Enemy, The Bomb Squad)
• Johnny Stimson, Musician

Reblogging for a couple reasons.  1.) I support this, and am happy at how many of the people on it are involved in things I already like.  2.) It made me come to a realization.

See, I’d been seeing stuff, like this post, and webcomics blacking out, and thinking about how it makes sense that people who make money by way of sharing their work on the internet would like to be able to continue doing so.  But in the midst of doing that, I realized that I am one now.  With the column.  It’s a minor one, and so far hasn’t actually paid off noticeably, but I hold the copyright on everything I write there as part of the standard agreement at the Examiner and my financial potential from that it directly related to how far word of it is spread across the internet.

I share this with you because I want you to realize that this isn’t a localized problem that would only hurt people who are nationally recognized and have already collected a fair living off their works.  Writing online is one of the three jobs I have right now in an attempt to help get my family a place of our own to live while I go to school full time to secure a future for us, and I’m not alone in my reliance on it.  SOPA and PIPA give the federal government (rather than the creators of intellectual property) the power to determine how and where our content can be shared, and by extension eliminates what power we have over how much benefit we can gain from it.

This isn’t just about file sharing.  The cause is noble, make no mistake - there is a difference between the creators of intellectual property spreading their work and encouraging attention, and people online stealing those works and distributing them in a way that brings no revenue or attention back to the source.  But the solution must give the creators the power.  If anyone else has it, including the government, the creators are the ones who lose.

(Source: stopthewall.us)