Three separate protests of SOPA, two in music form, as the Internet public starts to realize the real dangers of the controversial legislation
Activists and musicians are turning to music to protest the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), showing that the Internet is a force for creativity, and bills like SOPA will ultimately hurt the next generation of content creators.
Artist and activist Dan Bull has published a new rap song on YouTube, titled 'SOPA Cabana'. Featured on the home of page of the infamous The Pirate Bay, the song now has nearly 300,000 views and more than 26,000 likes.
Taking full advantage of how the Internet works, the music video was made with the help of the Internet public via crowd-sourcing, with people filming themselves holding up sections of the lyrics as part of the video.
Speaking to TorrentFreak, Bull urged legislators to reconsider SOPA and not risk harming the creative engine that is the Internet. "People from all around the world wanted to share in the creative process, for free, and to me that demonstrates the best of what the Internet is about. I hope it comes across as a great example of precisely what SOPA will destroy – free speech, free culture and a free internet," said Dan.
On a similar theme, the musician who penned the influential hit "Obama Girl" is back with another comedy hit, 'Firewall (Don't Let Our Government Ruin The Internets)', featuring the hilarious lyrics "Someone could spend more time in jail than Conrad Murray for illegally downloading a Michael Jackson song!". Leah Kauffman is hoping her song helps to stop SOPA, and when asked by Cnet what she would do is President Obama signs SOPA into law, Kauffman responded: "I would no longer have a crush on him".
A song without music is just words, and document uploader Scribd is doing their part in protesting SOPA by censoring selective words in uploaded documents, and presenting visitors with information on how to oppose SOPA.
Scribd allows users to upload and share documents online, some of which will inevitably be copyrighted. Under SOPA, websites like Scribd could be classified as "dedicated to piracy", and could be forced offline as a result. "Congress is pushing through legislation that threatens the future of the Internet. With this legislation in place, entire domains like Scribd could simply vanish from the web," said a statement, which was presented to users during Scridb's protest.