I recently wrote a letter to my representatives in congress. I feel we need to immediately kill bills such as SOPA and PIPA. Here is that letter:

Please end your support for this bill. It would harm technological innovation and grant powers to government officials that they are not qualified to use. This bill harms our society.

There are strong lobbyists on behalf of copyright-reliant organizations such as the MPAA, that have framed the argument to make you believe that they are losing billions of revenue. Simple supply and demand explains that NOT ALL of the pirates using a piece of software represent lost revenue. When the price of a product goes down to nothing, the number of individuals willing to partake goes up greatly. To believe that 100 acts of piracy equate to 100 cases of lost revenue is lunacy.

This is further compacted by the fact that often, piracy ENHANCES the use and desirability of a product. Users uploading popular songs to YouTube for free distribution, has now been adopted by the record labels as a key way of increasing sales for example, although this was originally percieived as copyright violation. Supporters of this bill show that they don't have the technical understanding to participate in the future economy.

If you use this bill to allow companies to resist exploring new markets and opportunities, the American economy is going to be left behind.