SOPA and PIPA

It's been a while since posting, so I figured I would do two back to back. The first one is on this US legislation. If you don't like the topic skip to the next blog.

The US is not doing really good right now, and unfortunately the government isn't helping things there either. It's a shame, I really like the US, and if things were even on a slight upward trend I would love to work there. But because of bills like SOPA and PIPA, among others I have to look towards Asia more. I live in Canada and even we have bills like C-11 being pushed through.

I really don't want to get into the debate of why this is a danger, why others think it's not. There's plenty of places you can find information on that anyway. There's just two points I want to get across.

First, for me it seems to be a priorities issue. There's a lot of people that are most concerned about corruption in both business and government. In a time like this, the need for transparency and open communication certainly takes precedence over the fear of piracy.

Second, I hear lots of people saying "Cheap labor" is taking jobs to other countries. I can't speak for everyone, but for myself it's laws like this. Even though places like China have it's "great firewall of China" going on, but every year they are opening up more. And thats my point, the direction they are going in is the right one.

Now these bills may not even pass in their current form or be re-written. So all the fuss would be for nothing right? Wrong. I'm measuring recent history and the direction and strength of a political push, not a specific bill. For example there was a copyright reform bill that was passed, thats only reformed it in the wrong direction. Nothing would make me happier than being wrong about this.

Does this mean I'm only making titles for Asia or moving there? No, but I'm looking towards there for the future. So if I decide to localize a product or there's an opportunity that comes up, I hope some will at least understand my reasoning of why.