MLB Supports SOPA and That Should Bother You
I am all for legislation that goes after individuals that pirate copyrighted material. This bill appears to be too vague and far-reaching. Modern corporations can’t be trusted with this far-reaching power because they will use it in a way to destroy necessary competition. The reality is this type of bill could wind up legislating our news. Is that a situation you feel comfortable with? Imagine the only baseball information you received was from MLB and its preferred news partners? Think you might be kept in the dark? Now imagine this was the situation for the important news issues of the day.
Here is the list of companies that are supporting the bills. Major League Baseball, the National Football League, and Disney, which owns ESPN, are on the list. They will tell you it’s to stop illegal use of their product, but why isn’t the NBA or NHL on the list? Perhaps because they are third and fourth tier sports that still need to compete for customers? What will stop any sports league from using this bill to target individual sites they deem dangerous because of critical content? What makes you think ESPN wouldn’t push their corporate partners to help them shut down sites under the guise of intellectual property? You create something successful and take away customers from the big boys, and they will find a way to put you out of business. Business has become about legislating out competitors versus generating new ideas or improving current product lines. – NY Baseball Digest
Mike Silva provides the best argument against SOPA from an independent blog owners perspective that I’ve ever read. This bill really creeps me out. Team blogs backed by huge corporate sponsors have little to fear, but sites like mine and Mike’s will be huge targets because we speak our minds regardless of how critical it may come off to some. That’s the beauty of independent sites like ours.
Today you have had the benefit of reading our site mostly because I was overcome by a moment of cowardice this morning. My partner Kelly wanted to shutdown MMO today to support the blackout like so many other great sites did. That was the plan. Then I thought otherwise. After a huge heated argument this morning, I got my way and kept the site going. My conscience has been bothering me all day. I may have erred in judgement and I apologize to Kelly for that. She is a big believer in freedom of the internet and is aggressive in protecting independent blogger’s rights . Anyway, read Mike’s article at NY Baseball Digest.
