We’re throwing a wrench in the copyright machine

Dangerous new copyright proposals are on the way - here’s our plan to stop them.

In the uncertainty and confusion ushered in by Donald Trump’s accession to office, many opportunistic and powerful opponents of Internet freedom are rushing in to curry favor.

The music and publishing industries in the U.S. are scary examples, and have been quick to address their own fawning congratulatory letter to Trump just last week, asking for all of the copyright favors they have ever wanted. This is dangerous news for everyday citizens, with very real consequences for what you can say and do online.  

More specifically, one key proposal suggested by these Big Media organizationswould force our favorite websites to build expensive robot programs that spy for and track copyrighted material.

These bots will be watching your online activity and will sound the alarm before you’ve even done anything wrong, blocking user-generated content that has been pre-marked as copyrighted from being posted. These automated systems will very often block legitimate speech because they can’t understand fair use.

This is a dangerous attack on free expression -- but it’s hardly new. Notice and Staydown, as this system is referred to, is already being pushed in Europe and Australia, and now giant media companies are trying to impose it on Americans too.

Your OpenMedia team has been paying close attention to these developments, and today we’re launching our fightback. Join our campaign against the Censorship Machine by sending the U.S. Copyright Office a clear message that Internet users find it unacceptable. Handing the interwebz over to automated filtering machines? Not on our watch. Giving giant media conglomerates and government entities the power to stifle our free expression? That’s so 1984.

In these turbulent times we simply cannot afford to have powerful mass censorship tools in the hands of lobbyists and government officials.This is why we’re urging all of you to join our call to the U.S. Copyright Office to reject this bad idea. Speak out now and tell the Copyright Office where you stand!

OpenMedia and our community thrive on idea-sharing and empowering bold, courageous Internet voices. Let’s keep it that way. Notice… and stay fabulous, dear free expression friends.