Well...if I were one of those sites, and I really believed that SOPA was an existential threat--which I think is a very reasonable position for any of those sites--then a day's loss of revenue is absolutely worth it, because the alternative is no, or greatly reduced, revenue. I'd take a known loss of ~1/365th (~.3%) of revenues over a probable loss of 100% of revenues any day of the week.
Actually, when you think about it like a Googler, you don't even need to lose 1/365th of your revenue. You only need to hit districts where those representatives are voting for SOPA. You can also hit people once, then resume normal business. Maybe do it for an hour or two at a time. You can feather out the carpet bombs.
[Edit] I meant targeting the reps that are voting for SOPA, not against it.
Alternatively, they just spend more money to reelect those politicians until their positions switch. It's not like SOPA proponents won over those constituents to win the support of their reps. Or is this supposed to be a principled stand?
I hate SOPA, but I've got to wonder how much of this is actually driven by concern for the bottom line. Hollywood and Big Media are very happy to work with established, institutional partners. Indeed, the types of partnerships that'd be formed, backed up by federal force, would serve to drive off potential competitors.
Would it really damage advertising revenues that much? If the fear is that Google would be hit by large lawsuits from some twelve year old posting a music video on YouTube, or that Facebook would be liable for a link to it, I expect that media conglomerates would be happy to give de facto immunity, so long as Google or whoever is willing to put Viacom's commissars in charge of which content is allowed and which isn't.
Obviously it's good that Google is on the side of angels on this, but if it's actually in their best interest is a relevant angle for analysis. It also would tell us how hard they're actually willing to fight to block SOPA.
The law doesn't say, Viacom may make a claim on your content, so make a deal with Viacom and you're golden. It says that any rights-holder can make a claim on your content.
There's a big problem with patent trolls right now making totally frivolous claims based on patents that they bought up, right? And yet many companies are paying oodles of dollars to pay them off and to try to avoid future trouble from essentially ridiculous patents. I would expect exactly the same thing to arise under SOPA, but with ridiculous copyright claims instead of ridiculous patents. Entities with no actual concern about their IP will start knocking at the door looking for shakedown money when it allegedly gets posted on Youtube.
I think concern for us(the bottom line) isn't indeed the real drive. Roughly speaking the business of Google is the Internet. If the internet thrives, they thrive. That's one of the reasons why they don't need to treat Mozilla as a competitor.
So, this bill could hurt their business model, at least here in the US.
Even if you're right and Google et al can establish institutional partnerships that minimize the impact of SOPA on their current services and business (and, hence, their current bottom line)...
SOPA would dramatically (and negatively) reshape the environment in which new services and business are developed (by startups, individuals, teams within larger companies, etc.). In the long run, that will matter more for the bottom line than anything else.
