Hollywood Star Ashton Kutcher Says 'SOPA Is The Problem, Not The Solution'

Say That Again

from the speak-out-speak-up dept

We’ve been pointing out that more and more people, whom the MPAA and US Chamber of Commerce pretend to be representing in their please to pass SOPA and PIPA, are actually very much against the bill. The latest is famed actor Ashton Kutcher. Kutcher, of course, isn’t just an actor but has spent a fair amount of time in the entrepreneur/startup world as well, both working on startups himself and (more prominently) investing in a bunch of startups. He’s also a very active user of a variety of online platforms. So he definitely has experience both with the “Hollywood” side as well as the “Silicon Valley” side — though, he’s obviously much more well known for his Hollywood success.

Either way, he’s come out extremely strongly against SOPA and shows that he really gets the issues here. The key point that he makes, which we’ve been trying to get across for many months, is that SOPA works by putting tremendous compliance costs and liability on tech companies and startups:

Forcing social media sites and ISP’s responsible for users content is amazingly burdensome and costly. SOPA will create economic problems for Internet start-ups which will be an additional negative side effect. This may cause a slow down in the Internet economic sector, which is providing real jobs and innovation for the US economy.

He points out that while the DMCA may not be perfect, it does mostly work for takedowns of infringing content, and that it doesn’t make sense to add liability to service providers. Furthermore, he admits that SOPA supporters are correct that the DMCA process doesn’t always work for foreign sites, “but SOPA as it is written causes more problems [than it] solves.”

Separately, he recognizes how ridiculous it is to put technological choices in the hands of judges, rather than technologists:

Moreover, what is most shocking, is SOPA’s idea of giving judges determination of Internet DNS. The bill suggests DNS administrators remove bad actor domains on judges orders; thus breaking the fundamentals of the Internet. It is a disastrous precedent to have Congress legislate Internet DNS control.

He points out that his colleagues supporting SOPA may be “well-meaning people,” but that they “fundamentally don’t understand how the internet works,” and that what comes out is a “bad and confused” attempt at regulating the internet.

Finally, he points out that SOPA’s actual result will be to do the exact opposite of what it claims to want to do, since its methods of enforcement will harm the economy. He closes with a call to action:

I don’t support SOPA and I believe we all need to call and write our Congress to help them know we want a No vote on SOPA.

Indeed. It’s fantastic to see someone like Ashton Kutcher speaking out so publicly on this issue. Yet, you can rest assured that the MPAA, US Chamber of Commerce and the politicians pushing this bill will, once again, pretend that they’re supporting SOPA to help people like Ashton Kutcher. Yet, he’s making it clear, this is not the kind of help that the industry wants or needs.

Filed Under: ashton kutcher, copyright, innovation, pipa, protect ip, sopa