Just when Silicon Alley 2.0 is taking off, could proposed anti-piracy legislation in Congress pull the plug on the Gotham’s tech-job boom?
That’s what the almost-21,000-strong group NY Tech Meetup fears could happen if so-called SOPA and PIPA legislation gets passed. The group is holding an emergency protest outside of the offices of Sen. Chuck Schumer and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who co-sponsored the Senate bill, at 780 Third Ave. from 12:30 p.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday in a bid to defeat the legislation.
“What is at stake is the ability of New Yorkers to freely participate in the 21st century economy and whether we believe America should remain a refuge for free speech in the world or whether we should allow our government to practice censorship without due process like China and Iran currently do,” said Andrew Rasiej, the chairman of the NY Tech Meetup.
Protesters will be asking Schumer and Gillibrand to withdraw their sponsorship of the legislation, Rasiej said, “or tell us specifically under what circumstances they would vote yes for PIPA taking into account our grave concerns.”
In a joint statement Wednesday, Schumer and Gillibrand said they have had numerous discussions with NY Tech Meetup and other concerned parties, and will continue talking to them.
“We will continue to work with our colleagues to ensure a proper balance between stopping the theft of intellectual property and copyright infringement, and doing so without the unintended consequence of stifling or censoring the internet, which we strongly oppose,” the statement said.
Rasiej said the web and information technologies have created “a renaissance in startup innovation in New York that now rivals Silicon Valley as a hub for economic growth.”
The legislation would have a chilling effect, he said.
“Because a new innovation by a startup could be interpreted by a judge unfamiliar with how the technology works, as infringing on copyright, investors and entrepreneurs would be discouraged from moving forward with a startup due to a significantly increased risk of legal entanglement. This in turn would dampen job creation and future opportunities for
New Yorkers and Americans as a whole,” he said.
With opposition piling on fast, SOPA in the House of Representatives is on hold, and PIPA in the Senate faces a procedural vote next week. Both bills seek to halt piracy of copyrighted materials such as movies and TV shows, especially overseas. Proponents also argue that the legislation would protect U.S. jobs being lost to rampant piracy of U.S. intellectual property.
But opponents say the legislation goes too far, imperiling innovation, fostering censorship, threatening the existence of legitimate websites and inhibiting the freedom that helped shape the medium.
The Manhattan protest comes as a number of prominent websites, including Wikipedia and BoingBoing, went dark early Wednesday or obscured their logos to protest the legislation.
“We agree piracy needs to be stopped wherever possible, but we don’t understand why there is such a rush to pass this legislation when so much is at stake and when the cure that is being proposed is clearly worse than the disease,” Rasiej said.
The senators’ statement said the threat to New York jobs due to online piracy is real and must be addressed.
“But it must be done in a way that allows the Internet and our tech companies to continue to flourish.”
