In the wake of all successful protest movements, once the dust settles, the time comes to take positive action. With SOPA and PIPA dead in the water, thanks to the sustained and comprehensive efforts of the internet community; the thousands of phone calls we made, the millions of us that signed Google’s petition, it’s time for our community to come up with alternative legislation - a solution that addresses online copyright infringement without compromising free speech and innovation.
A letter sent today to Congress and signed by 70+ companies, including Engine, Mozilla, and Public Knowledge, urged Congress to “to take a breath, step back, and approach the issues from a fresh perspective.”
The letter warned against repeating the mistakes of SOPA and PIPA, and requested that legislative debate surrounding the issue be “open, transparent, and sufficiently deliberative to allow the full range of interested parties to offer input and to evaluate specific proposals.” That means taking into account the views from tech companies and media companies. It means seeking out information and statistics from unbiased sources.
It means keeping the users of the internet in the loop, because our input matters, and we have shown that we can and will make ourselves heard.
Read the letter, in full, here from Public Knowledge.
