We Stopped #SOPA (For Now), But Here’s How It Would Have Killed Your Business
Matter Deep participated in an interview on Teen Business Forum about the dangers of SOPA. Read the excerpt below or the fill article at Teen Business Forum.
1. The End Of Independent Publishing
Specifically, SOPA will harm any site or business that relies on user created content. Secondary liability becomes a felony with SOPA, meaning that people can be held legally liable for felony charges if someone else commits copyright infringement using their tools. Further, sites that even LINK to copyrighted content could be blocked under SOPA. This means that sites that rely on user-created content would have to hand-check every piece of content they post.
What does this mean for Independent Publishing? Sites like Smashwords, Createspace, Kindle Direct, PubIt!, and Lulu perform a great service for Indie Publishers. They allow for distribution of their material without the need to stock a warehouse full of books that might not sell.
Under SOPA regulations, these sites would have to hand-check the content of every book that they print or digitally distribute for instances of copyright infringement. Even if we lived in a fantasy world where it was possible to know about every copyright under the sun, it would be impossible to hand-check the millions of submissions to these sites.
Wait times for print on demand and digital distribution would be excessively long and the salary to pay employees to read millions of books (many which may never make so much as ten dollars) would not be worth the profits.
