What You Can Do

I am a content creator. One of the first things I learned when I was studying photography was the copyright laws and how they applied to the latent image on the film from the moment the exposure is made. That's right, for those of you that grew up post actual film, the image (and its ownership) is sacred and copywritten the instant it exists in the camera.  Protecting that copywrite was a very different matter back then and possession was nine tenths of the law, as the expression goes.  The negative was a physical thing that couldn't be duplicated by a simple click of the mouse. Publication wasn't instantaneous and world wide.

Today, theft and piracy are constant threats for anyone who creates art and content and publishes it electronically. We are all on guard constantly to make sure that not only is our material not being used without our express authorization, but also that we are not leaving ourselves vulnerable to theft by corporations with questionable terms of service contracts.

As terrible as online piracy is, and the threat is real, the answer is not government censorship, or the potential ability to censor.  Censorship of legitimate activities because of the potential bad behavior of others is not how I want my country to be run.  I don't want a bunch of rich white men who don't know an IP address from an IHoP telling me what I can or can't put up on MY sites.

Being anti-SOPA or anti-PIPA does not mean I am for piracy, it means I am against my government trying to regulate something it's ruling membership doesn't even understand by means of censorship at the expense of the innocent.

Today, this site went dark in solidarity with hundreds of thousands of other websites large and small to boycott the pending SOPA and PIPA legislation. But, we need your help to make our point to the elected officials that want to curtail our rights to put our content up without the risk of censorship.

Please contact your representatives to Congress and tell them that if they support these bills, instead of the internet going dark, it will be the lights in their district offices going dark when we vote them out of office.

You can find your representative and their contact information HERE.

Stop SOPA

Please tell your representatives in congress that you oppose the proposed SOPA legislation.  On January 18, 2012 I will be refraining from tweeting, posting on facebook or Google+, and posting here.  My site, ChocolateScotch.com, will be down from 8am to 8pm est.