Media MonsterMLBNBANFLNHL

SOPA And You: How The Stop Online Piracy Act Affects Sports Fans And Will Destroy Any Chance You Have Of Killing Time At Work

Today, you will hear about some of the web’s most influential and highly-trafficked websites — Wikipedia and Reddit chief among them — going dark. The reason? They’re protesting the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a controversial proposed law that would constrict (and possibly destroy) your internet experience. Yes, even if you only use the web to enjoy sports-related viral videos of creepy sideline reporter come-ons, Lee Corso saying “f-ck” in a mascot head, and guys’ lives unraveling at basketball games, it still might destroy your internet experience. We’ll explain why.

SOPA, in essence, is an anti-piracy bill that’s snaking its way through government, and is designed to crack down on shady offshore websites that feature illegal content (movies, TV shows, etc.). This part of the bill makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is how vaguely-worded and open-ended it is: at its most dangerous, SOPA would essentially give content providers (and the government) the right to pull the plug on any site that it sees as infringing on a copyright. What “infringing on a copyright” means, again, is very vague, and some people are worried that it will lead to bigger corporations simply shutting down sites it doesn’t like. Kind of like if parental controls for everything were given to the world’s worst parents.

The video below is nice, quick rundown of what SOPA is and how it could break the internet. Plus it has illustrations, and picture books are always nice.

You will hear about how bad and evil SOPA is roughly two hundred times today on Facebook and Twitter. And I’m telling you, this is one of those rare occasions where people saying how evil something is on Facebook and Twitter is actually kind of true: if content providers are given complete and direct control over what appears on the web, there will be no more free market for viral videos. Which means that there will be no more free market for sports-related viral videos. Which would suck.

Sites like ours wouldn’t be able to pluck a funny clip from an NFL or NBA game, thus creating a world where SportsCenter’s always-lame ”Not Top 10″ is the only purveyor of wacky sports videos. It will be a world where you will have no way to kill time at work. It will be a world you don’t want to live in.

We’re obviously coming from a selfish place with this one — the posts that do the most traffic on SportsGrid are generally those “Holy Shit” moments that occur during live sporting events. But, believe it or not, the leagues and networks actually benefit from the current system, because it brings more eyeballs to their sports and shows. A guy might watch that Lee Corso clip purely for the profanity, but he may tune in next week because he notices that College GameDay is actually a pretty good show, and Lee Corso looked like he was having an awful lot of fun before he let that F-bomb slip. Throughout history, “more attention given to your product” has never been a bad thing if you enjoy making money.

Finally, think about how much it would suck for you if SOPA passed: you wouldn’t be able to watch this any time you wanted.

Or this:

Or this:

The internet is a wonderful place where ideas and information are exchanged for free. Businesses are started because of it. Jobs are created. Money is made. The possibility of it is limitless, which is why it will eventually be seen as the single most effective economic stimulus ever created. To attempt to constrict it is short-sighted and potentially disastrous, which is ironic, since this whole thing is about money to begin with.

Plus: no more videos of monkeys riding dogs.

Photo via CJ Fogler.