Neil Gaiman and Peter David on SOPA/PIPA

by Mike Hansen

Image by ~C4Chaos via Flickr

Two of my favorite comics writers have been talking about SOPA/PIPA online.

Neil Gaiman posted an open letter to Washington, signed by quite an array of creators, including some of my favorites:

We are deeply concerned that PIPA and SOPA’s impact on piracy will be negligible compared to the potential damage that would be caused to legitimate Internet services. Online piracy is harmful and it needs to be addressed, but not at the expense of censoring creativity, stifling innovation or preventing the creation of new, lawful digital distribution methods.

(much more in link)

On his own site, Peter David blames illegal downloaders for the bills’ existence:

All people had to do in order to prevent anything like SOPA from ever coming into existence was respect copyright laws. You don’t bitch that copyright law is outdated. You don’t declare that the rise of the Internet means that everyone, everywhere should have free access to everything. If you felt that strongly that copyright law should be changed, then you do what you’re supposed to do: you go to your elected officials and seek redress of grievances. You don’t just sit on your ass in front of your computer screen, announce that you can do whatever you want, and declare that anyone who disagrees with you is clueless and should just piss off. Because you know what? Maybe they are clueless. But they’ve also got high-powered lawyers who are going to seek redress of grievances, and suddenly you’re staring down the double cannon of SOPA and PIPA and wondering how it all went wrong.

(much, MUCH more in link)

For added fun, read the comments, in which Mr. David and I misunderstand one another, make blanket assumptions about each other, and disregard each other’s points! (I’m being nice: it is his site, after all).

Any thoughts, readers?

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