Protests Against Antipiracy Bills Take to the Streets
About 100 people gathered outside the offices of senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand in Midtown, chanting "Stop SOPA! Stop PIPA!"
"So glad you can come out today on behalf of the future," said John Parley Barlow from Electronic Frontier Foundation, "you are the party of the future."
Midtown outside the office of NY Senator Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, protesters ditched their computers and took to the streets. Over a hundred people held signs and raised their disapproval over the controversial bill SOPA and PIPA.
"The tech industry is creating new business models, creating new jobs, and helping economic growth. And we need to speak up and make sure this industry is not squashed," said Jessica Lawrence, NY Tech Meet-up Manager Director.
SOPA, Stop Online Priracy Act and PIPA Protect IP Act are bills meant to stop piracy by killing off rouge sites who illegally uses copyrighted materials. The Motion Picture Association as well as big players in the entertainment industry support the bill claiming it protects US jobs.
Alexis Ohanian Co-founder of Redditt disagrees, "Why is it when there are more serious problems like the deficit, like unemployment that congress cannot agree on. But yet, when Hollywood lobbyist show up with $94 million dollars as they did last year, democrats and republicans sign up to co-sponsor a bill that everyone can agree on. That doesn't seem right."
Most of Silicon Valley and tech companies opposed it. Bills can hold host sites like google and youtube responsible for copyright infringement from one of their users.
"We encourage legal content to be shared, but we don't have the infrastructure as a start up of 44 people to monitor everything that happens across our platform. We have 2 million users and its impossible for us," said Gervis Menzies of Boxee TV an online company.
Tech companies say it stifles innovation, even free speech. Online, Google, Reddit and Wikipedia donned the black bars against the bill. And Wikipedia went as far as going offline. It's a fight that pits the entertainment industry against Silicon Valley. With people protesting in New York along with more than millions online its a fight that's not going down easily.
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