It hasn’t been a fun week for web server provider Go Daddy and if things keep going they way they have been it just might get worse for them, at least in the short term whilst large main stream media entities quietly bide their time hoping the current snafu surrounding the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) blows over….
The fury began when it was disclosed that Go Daddy had been working side by side with legislators to craft legislation (the stop online piracy act) which would in principle exist to stop people from stealing content like movies, music and books online.
That however has been seen as a ruse by many independent content providers who claim in essence the proposed legislation exists to affect what gets put out on the internet and who controls and monetizes such content. A theme which of late has not been conspicuously picked up by the mainstream media until one realizes that they too have emboldened such legislation in an effort to claim an arena within media that they have yet to monopolize or make entirely their own yet (one supposes the internet has become the domain of the independent content provider to the chagrin of mainstream media providers who besides controlling print media, radio and cable wish to now also control the internet, ostensibly the last bastion of independent content and thinking).
themacobserver: Domain registrar Go Daddy’s initial support for SOPA, or the Stop Online Piracy Act, has spurred many of its customers to transfer their domains to other hosting companies despite the fact that the company ultimately reversed its stance and issued a statement saying it no longer supports the bill. So far, Go Daddy has lost over 72,000 domains, and now Reddit users are calling for a boycott on December 29.
It apparently all began on December 22nd when one reddit user, selfprodigy got on the extremely popular activist/social media site reddit to express their discontent with Go Daddy’s intention of supporting the upcoming SOPA legislation, declaring on a forum thread that they intended to transfer up to 51 personal domain names to a different registrar . With the boycott planned on Dec 29, webmasters spared no time in already moving out of Go Daddy, as overall disgust mounts.
Reacting to the mass exodus, Go Daddy CEO Warren Adelman tweeted the following over the weekend:
Fighting online piracy is of the utmost importance, which is why Go Daddy has been working to help craft revisions to this legislation — but we can clearly do better. It’s very important that all Internet stakeholders work together on this. Getting it right is worth the wait. Go Daddy will support it when and if the Internet community supports it.
The bill being hashed out proposes to people from stealing content like movies, music and books online. Opponents though argue the following:
The bill would make it surprisingly easy to get court orders to shut down any website suspected of participating in copyright infringement in any way, even if that happens to be indirectly. Internet service providers would be required to block access to sites that host or link to other sites suspected of copyright infringement, and online search engines could be blocked from showing results that include blocked websites, regardless of whether or not they are hosted in the United States
Those accused of unauthorized streaming of copyright-protected content would face felony charges.
Who’s also supporting the proposed bill include large media companies which may explain why there has been very little said on the topic in the mainstream. Walt Disney, Intuit, Microsoft, CBS, Bose, and even Apple are but just to name a few.
Although Go Daddy seems to offer some concession, its overall stance on the bill has not swayed webmasters from switching servers who believe Go Daddy will augment itself in the bigger role play of SOPA getting off the ground. Perhaps what makes the bill ironical is its purported stance to protect liberty and the rights of the individual (Patriot Act anyone?) when in actuality it offers to usurp the rights and liberties of business interests and media outlets over those of the individual.
On a final note what does make the impending legislation interesting is the fact that Go Daddy will be exempted from having to obey its stipulations, effectively giving it free reign and the proxy to continue its role as a server to large media outlets who stand to take market share from independent media agencies and re assert their dominance from cable, print media and if they play their cards right the internet…the final holy grail and until now the dominion of indie content providers.
We can see Scallywags interes in stopping SOPA legislation as if it became law with all the content Scallywag rips off and steals they would be in jail many times over..