Anyone watching the debate over SOPA?

[EDWARD C MORGAN]

I was wondering if anyone is watching the debate over the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), and what your thoughts might be. Here's a wikpedia link, but the article is somewhat shallow.

As I've watched the debate unfold, it seems to me that it is becoming a debate between two camps - the content (writing, music, etc.) creators and companies that need content to remain free.

In the late 1990s, a story I wrote and published was "reprinted" by an online magazine in Australia. No payment, no credit, no attribution, and really, nothing me nor the magazine here in the states could do about it.

As a publisher, I've watched sites such as Google, Topix, Yahoo, and many others, aggregate my newspapers' content to their websites without paying for it. This is a common practice. Trust me - they don't drive as much traffic as they might claim.

Here in Nashville, with a prominent country music and christian music industries, we're hearing quite a lot about the content creation side, but I must admit how daunting and probably impossible it must be even or a Google to monitor piracy itself.

Not sure. Just an interesting debate.

I will make these two concluding statements:

• One side says "information wants to be free." Horse crap. Not my information.
• SOPA will destroy the internet. Can we be a little more melodramatic?

[I. J. Parker]

I think the problem of illegal downloads of my novels is significant, when I check my name on Google, and in a 24-hour span more than half the entries are offers of free e-books of my titles.

[Tim Scanlon]

IJ, there are a few threads discussing this on the Kindle Boards. Most people have found that all those links are un-seeded, as in there isn't a copy of your book to download, but rather a lovely trojan.

[I. J. Parker]

Wow!  I had no idea.  The sites have familiar names, though.  I suppose it's poetic justice.  :)