I’m going to start this post by saying it isn’t important to understand the nitty gritty or the ‘in’s and out’s’ of SOPA or PIPA. However it is important to understand how it affects you.

We face a very real chance of losing a lot of our own communication liberties.

Personally I feel it is important to understand that governments and organisations are not happy with how information and intellectual property is easily and often freely distributed. The restrictions to TV and radio broadcasting exist for a simple reason; controlling the flow of information.

It just so happens that with the invention of the internet people have taken that control back. We decide what we watch and when – and for some of us WE control what we produce, upload and make available for others to watch. The governmental systems have very little control over what we say or what we do on the open internet.

This will change; by the means of SOPA, PIPA or something else in the future. People can only fight for so long before the systems in place apply smarter laws. Laws we might even be told will do us some good.

SOPA and PIPA even make it almost impossible to use I.P content under fair use.

Keep vigilant about your own views and liberties.

We’ll tell our children stories of open, free and uncensored communication and they’ll think we’re making it up.

If it’s not SOPA or PIPA it’ll be something else that reverts power and control over communication away from people and back to governments and organisations.

If you’d like to know more about SOPA or PIPA the guardian have compiled a great article which you can find here: http://bit.ly/w6OHBE