Earlier in the week The Ultimate Fighting Championship publicly supported the SOPA Bill which was probably one of the worst pieces of legislation in the twenty first century.

I don’t think the UFC realized that there would be so much backlash. A part of me wants to believe that Lorenzo Fertitta and the UFC threw their support blindly at a bill they thought was only about killing online piracy. Unfortunately, it has caused another week of UFC public relations clean up. When you line yourself up with corporate bad guy like Walmart there should be enough alarm bells going off to think it might be a bad decision.

UFC Supporting SOPA Was Bad Form

If you are not familiar with SOPA or PIPA I recommend reading this great piece written by Miranda Miller. It will help you understand in simple terms what certain members of the US Government and the entertainment industry are trying to do. It also explains that there are other ways to fight piracy without government having control of the internet.

Luckily SOPA’s recent attempt at becoming law failed miserably, largely due to the protest of online giants like Google, Microsoft, Wikipedia, EA, Twitter, Facebook, to name a few. How the UFC thought the SOPA bill was a good idea when so many were against it is beyond me. However, for those of you who think that it’s over, it’s not. The bill will be rewritten and the powers that be will pretend that they have been compromising. It’s all part of the master plan.

Now let me make something clear, just because you don’t support SOPA or PIPA, doesn’t mean you support piracy or theft. The bigger issue with the proposed bills was the infringement on the rights and freedoms of people online. Giving the US Government control over the internet is a slippery slope. That kind of power would be a huge knife in the heart of the so called “democracy” or freedom of speech that Unites States, Canada and many other free countries were built on. You have to ask yourself how that sort of control over online content is any different than what Communist China currently does. The idea that this kind of power would only be used to fight international online pirates is a red herring. Giving any Government control of what you see online would be a complete travesty.

Now I won’t go on a rant about how North America as a whole is not a true democracy. It’s a well known fact that true democracy is dead. Sorry to break that news to you. I want to believe the last thing the UFC wanted to do was to back something that infringed on democracy and promoted censorship. There is no depth to the amount of hypocrisy I think that would stir up.  Isn’t the UFC fighting a similar battle in New York?

Like many entertainment companies before, the UFC has shouted to the heavens that they are at war with online piracy. They have sunk millions of dollars to try and fight it. What they don’t understand is it’s a futile war. Most of the entertainment industry is so behind the times that they will never catch up. In fact a lot of the piracy that is going on today was because these corporate giants never changed with the times. Unfortunately SOPA was and is not the answer. If anything it is a giant step backwards.

I’m not going to sit here on my high horse and write about how I don’t condone online piracy. I know many people who download torrents but also purchase media too. I’m not a pessimist, I’m just a realist when I say that it will always be around and it will never go away. Especially when there are millions of people around the world who access it.

Downloading media has become a regular thing among the masses. For anyone who is currently reading this don’t pretend that it’s not a fact. Let’s be honest we live in a day and age where we have access to free media. I’m not seeing Lady GaGa taking the bus to work and hoping she has enough money to pay her mortgage.

Just recently Megaupload (major international file sharing conglomerate) got their assets seized by the US government for breaking US piracy laws. What is really scary is the precedent that has taken place. If the United States can seize a Dutch citizen in New Zealand over a copyright claim, what is next? Funny how all of that happened just as the SOPA bill was trying to be passed…but I digress. However, somebody else will come along and continue where Megaupload left off.  I read a great quote the other day that I think puts everything in perspective.

“I am concerned about the corruption of government by media companies particularly,” according to Susanowa. “I have worked for a major label and also as a musician and band promoter and I know exactly how the entertainment business screws artists, suppresses product, bungles distribution and promotion and basically is actually bad for musicians and artists. The fact that a law like SOPA or PIPA can be fast-tracked with no mention on the nightly news, no debate, in closed sessions & the rest of it is alarming and indicates the power of corruption that the entertainment industry has to suppress information and produce, push or alter legislation that harms almost everyone in their pursuit of a trumped-up reason (pirates!) for their own business-model failures of the last 20 years.” -Miso Susanowa-

The UFC supporting SOPA was a bad PR decision. Instead, they should just focus on continuing to put on entertaining fights but keep those fights in the Octagon. This letter written by the UFC about their support for SOPA only makes them look silly.  If anything all of the backlash has probably been a slap in the face to UFC executives when it comes to throwing their support to any political agenda. Maybe this will be a hard lesson learned or maybe not. Let’s hope the UFC is really not this out of touch. I’ve always been told not to talk about religion and politics at the dinner table. It’s best to keep these sort of dealings in the back room.

The entertainment business needs to realize that they are fighting a losing battle. Instead of spending millions of dollars to try and fight piracy, why not try to find ways that make their product more accessible and, hate to say it, affordable. To be fair though, the UFC does do a good job of making their shows available in different formats. I don’t blame them for wanting to make as much money as possible, but to support SOPA was just bad form. There are other avenues to take that could help combat illegal streaming of their live events.

For now, the UFC needs to stay behind the scenes instead of issuing public statements against American rights and freedoms. Somebody needs to remind them that it wasn’t too long ago that there were bills trying to be passed to outlaw the sport of professional mixed martial arts.

Below is a very interesting video of how some of the major networks who are trying to pass bills like SOPA or PIPA had a hand in the piracy phenomenon. Feel free to voice your comments while you still can.

-Corner Man-

@tdueckmania