See what the man behind Kaspersky thinks about SOPA

Dec 7, 2011 07:38 GMT  ·  By

After a Russian news agency informed the world on the fact that Kaspersky is about to withdraw its membership from Business Software Alliance (BSA), Eugene Kaspersky, the man behind the renowned security solutions provider, came forward with a statement confirming the fact that his company doesn’t approve of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

BSA supports SOPA to a certain degree, but Kaspersky doesn’t support it at all, and to make sure they’re not affiliated in any way with the controversial bill, they decided to break any connection to the Alliance.

“Authors and creative teams should be cherished, protected and encouraged to create more masterpieces. As a result, US lawmakers have made it clear that SOPA s a priority for them, and many special-interest groups have come out in support of the bill, including BSA,” said Eugene Kaspersky.

While the intentions of this law may sound fair to the copyright holders, Kaspersky believes that the whole concept tries too much to “Americanize” the Internet law. In other words, SOPA is protecting only the works of American creators, but in order to achieve this, they’re asking for the power to go after copyright infringers all over the world.

He states that the Stop Online Piracy Act is looking at the problem from the wrong perspective as instead of trying to find new business models, adapted to the times we live in, it tries to enforce old laws that aren’t based on the realities out there.

“The world has changed and the old rules do not work anymore. We need to find new models of creative content distribution, which, by the way, Apple/Google have already done and even tested it for us.

“Lobbying for a return to Jurassic copyright laws is like giving a blood transfusion to an already dead patient, risking the donor’s life. Governments should think about stimulating and developing new business models, rather than protecting old ones,” he adds.

Eugene Kaspersky even proposes a new way in which content should be distributed. More precisely, low quality content should be free, medium quality materials should be cheap, and only professional services and content should be expensive.

Finally, he lets everyone know how he feels about the fact that some people are downloading his products.

“Antivirus is not a product but a service. It is viable due to updates and for that reason I’m not really bothered how a user acquires our software – on a CD in a cardboard box or downloaded from the web.”