by Ylanne on Fri Jan 20, 2012 12:51 pm
For those who are interested:
Today, I stopped by the Capitol Hill Complex and visited the offices of some representatives and senators, urging them to oppose SOPA and PIPA. I spoke to staff and left my contact information. (Yes, I gave them my real name and phone number.) I explained that I am a writer (still working on my fifth novel, actually), and while I am certainly very much concerned about protecting my intellectual property and copyright, these bills are NOT the way to do that. "This is like taking a sledgehammer to kill an ant," I told one staffer. "Sure, you might kill the ant -- or you might miss -- but there's going to be a whole lot of other ants, and you might also take off your own toe in the process."
For those who are curious, I did mention RolePlayGateway. I talked about the community that many of our members have found on this site, and emphasized that there are multiple sites like ours, all of which will be destroyed by these bills, even if the vast majority of people never engage in copyright infringement and the administration and staff take all reasonable measures to prevent it. So there are now people in Congress who have heard of our website.