SOPA and GoDaddy – Time to Move.

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Below is a copy of what I posted on Facebook concerning SOPA. Bottom line is I’m moving my domains to a new registrar eventually. I have around 25 total domains, so this won’t be cheap by any means. I’ll move the primary domains first and over the next few months I’ll eventually move all of them. If you haven’t friended me up on Facebook or Twitter hit the icons above! Facebook post follows:

So I don’t post a million twitter status updates here about SOPA, OK maybe only a couple, I’ll consolidate it here. SOPA is bad for websites. Especially people like me who are small. One of the issues here is that someone could post a comment to your site that contains copyrighted material and your hosting company could get a take down notice and you’re screwed.

Now, for me, all comments on my site (the few that are actually there) are moderated. I approve each one. Not to censor them, but to prevent spam. As long as it’s not a spam comment I’ll approve it. Even if it’s critical of the review or me. It sparks discussion and improves the site.

However, I also distribute my videos to multiple platforms and I can’t always control what’s posted there, so I could conceivably lose a lot from YouTube, or Daily Motion, or any number of other video hosting places getting a take down notice for a comment.

Or even just being accused of copyright infringement can trigger this. My videos are CC (Creative Commons). The music and sound effects I use is either music I’ve purchased for my use or is royalty-free, except for one sound effect that I’ve used maybe twice (Price is Right Sad Horns for a really low score). So I’m pretty safe from any issues. HOWEVER all it takes is one person to accuse me of infringement and my hosting company, Zippy Kid, would have to block my site until I could be proven innocent. This is the exact opposite of how our legal system works.

So what prompted this? GoDaddy’s 100% support of SOPA. If you’re with GoDaddy as a registrar and don’t support SOPA, then find someone else. I’m already looking. Here is a blog post from one of my Twitter followers that talks about it and gives suggestions of places that even have discount codes to transfer your domains. Kurteng.com.

1&1 is another company I’m looking at and I believe it was suggested to me some time ago when I last thought about transferring my domains. However, I’ve been reading some disturbing customer complaints about them. In any case, here is their Facebook posting also against SOPA – 1and1 Facebook Page.

No matter which company I choose, their position on SOPA will be a deciding factor.

****UPDATE**** 12/23/11 @ 23:00

Reports have been confirmed that GoDaddy has withdrawn support for both SOPA and the Protect IP Act (the Senate version). While this is good news, this may not be enough for me to stay with GoDaddy. I’m exploring my options for a new registrar.

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