If you haven’t already heard yet, there are over 7000 websites-including Wikipedia, Reddit, Boing Boing & my all-time fave – Pinterest, that are offline today in protest of a proposed congressional bill that is up for vote. What? No pinterest today???!!! I’m hyperventilating over here. Several more have “gone dark” (check out Google & WordPress). The bill is called SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act). Well it sounds all fine & dandy to protect piracy & copyrights of virtually everyone & every business on the web. However, this is where reading & understanding the bill come into play – it’s far more than what is seems….
I’m usually not a politically outspoken person but I do keep up with bills and policies that would impact myself, my loved ones and my business – as you should too. This bill could negatively impact the wedding industry among other businesses in a huge way & that’s why I’m getting passionate about it and spreading the word.
Check out articles on Splendid Communications & Mashable for more detailed info and explaination. Splendid Communications offered this hypothetical situation, which I think very clearly & perfectly provides just one example of what easily & legally can happen under SOPA-bringing down your business and all others associated with it.
“A bride buys her wedding invitations off of Etsy. What she doesn’t know is that the Etsy seller knocked off the designs from another invitation designer.At the wedding, the photographer takes a photo of the invitation.The wedding gets published on a famous wedding blog. The bride is ecstatic and so are all of the wedding pros who worked with her. The bride shares photos on Facebook, on her own personal blog and in the two wedding forums she’s a part of. The photographer and other wedding pros share some of the images on their own company blogs and in their portfolio galleries.
A reader loves the invitation photo and pins it on Pinterest. Another reader loves it and shares it on Tumblr. Yet another reader includes it in her inspiration board which she then submits to another famous wedding blog as part of a giveaway contest.
The original invitation designer — the one who the Etsy seller shamelessly copied — sees her copyrighted design everywhere with someone else getting credit and complains.
Under SOPA (and PIPA which is a similar bill), every single website that posted this image could be blocked — without a trial or court hearing — regardless of whether or not they knew the invitation violated copyright. Every single one. This means that the wedding professionals’ websites and blogs would no longer be able to be accessed. The professional wedding blogs would lose all ad revenue and for most of them, their entire business.”
I urge you, whether you are in the wedding industry or not – to contact your local congressional representatives to ask them to vote against SOPA & PIPA. Just fill out this form.
I need my Pinterest back – now & forever. Thank you.
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