Apple, Microsoft, And The 27 Other Tech Giants Who Support SOPA

The Next Web’s Alex Wilhelm noticed something interesting — after trying to get a comment from Microsoft over the fascist Stop Online Piracy Act, he received silence. So he dug around and found Microsoft isn’t alone — here are their pro-censorship allies.

Microsoft’s implied support for SOPA stems from its membership in the Business Software Alliance, a pork chop-fisted, finger-wagging piracy cry baby lobbying firm, whose life’s work is ratting our petty piracy and releasing misleading studies. And as Wilhelm points out, the BSA has, shockingly, come out strong in support of SOPA:

The Business Software Alliance today commended House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) for introducing the “Stop Online Piracy Act” (H.R. 3261) to curb the growing rash of software piracy and other forms of intellectual property theft that are being perpetrated by illicit websites.

So what other companies pay money to have the BSA speak for them in support of SOPA? Many:

• Adobe
• Apple
• Autodesk
• AVEVA
• AVG
• Bentley Systems
• CA
• Cadence Design Systems
• CNC Software — Mastercam
• Compuware
• Corel
• Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks Corporation
• Dell
• Intel
• Intuit
• Kaspersky
• McAfee
• Microsoft
• Minitab
• Progress Software
• PTC
• Quark
• Quest
• Rosetta Stone
• Siemens PLM Software, Inc.
• Sybase
• Symantec
• TechSmith
• The MathWorks

Never mind the pissant little companies on this list you’ve never heard of. What’s worrisome is the giants, like Apple, Adobe, Microsoft and Intel. Companies who hypocritically thrive off the open nature of the internet — an internet where it’s not a felony to post an animated GIF from a tiny fraction of your favourite film, or record you and a friend lip-syncing Nicki Minaj. The internet has exploded because of these seemingly trivial freedoms — the freedom to mess around and create interesting stuff. Experimentation without fear of federal imprisonment leads to some pretty awesome stuff. Stuff that’s then used with the very software and equipment these SOPA backers sell. So it’s not just that they’re supporting an awful censorship law — these BSA cronies are biting our hands that feed them. [TNW]