Letter - Feds should stay out of copyright issue

To the editor:

If you’ve been keeping up on the events of Megaupload and its founder Kim Dotcom, it’s hard to miss that new law is about to be made, an ugly new law.

First was PIPA, then SOPA, and now the Justice Department wants to prosecute a businessman for what others stored on his servers. I won’t argue that Kim Dotcom had some idea that others were sharing copyright materials; was it his responsibility, or the Justice Department’s, to stop it.

Should the U.S. Post Office open every piece of mail and inspect the contents to prevent people from breaking the law?

If you decide to use online storage for backing up your home or business network and lease space on my servers for this purpose, do you really want me looking at what you upload?

With all the pressure (and money) that the Recording Industry of America and the Motion Picture Association of America is placing on Congress, it’s only a matter of time before power is granted to the federal government to reach right into your computers and phones and have a good look around.

By no way am I condoning pirated movies, music and software. I believe that the copyright holders deserve to get paid. What I don’t believe in is the federal government being handed the responsibility (and cost) for what is clearly a civil matter. Why should these billion dollar companies be relieved of the cost of protecting their content, instead passing the cost on to the taxpayer?

Contact your representative and tell them to stay out of the copyright business and let the civil courts handle it. It’s a proven fact that the deeper the federal government gets involved in something, the more it costs and the less it works.

Shawn Sipe

Alexandria, MN

Tags: opinion, letters