As you are well aware, Google, Reddit, Wikipedia, and many smaller sites across the internet are staging protests against the controversial SOPA and PIPA bills that could, if enacted, entirely destroy the free exchange of information we enjoy today.

The proposed bills have, predictably, divided industries into two factions passionately battling it out; Internet companies that thrive (and possibly profit) on free exchange of information are against, while many in the entertainment industry are pushing hard for it. Call it Silicon Valley vs. Hollywood.

Google, for their part, has put up a call-to-action page with the header, “End Piracy, Not Liberty,” and Sascha Meinrath, director of the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Initiative, perhaps put it best:

“[If the bills pass], we would end up in a situation where we’re trying to do needlepoint with harpoons… You can’t target only pirated information, content or media without getting tons of collateral damage that removes entirely legal content.”

Or as your grandma might have said: Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

One would not expect that taking a level-headed, common-sense approach to curbing piracy would appeal to the Disneys or the Viacoms — profit margins dictate their business models and their political stances alike.

But I can’t help but be surprised about the silence — and, perhaps, support — coming from the vast majority of the indie music world. You might not be surprised at all — after all, smaller labels have to profit too, and piracy (as well as the difficulty of adjusting to a rapidly changing industry) can have a disastrous effect on those who suddenly see the albums they’ve released pop up on Mediafire when they’ve only moved a few thousand paid units.

Still, there’s something about seeing the American Association of Independent Music (A2IM) — specifically, the labels that are due-paying members — fighting to see SOPA and PIPA passed. Suddenly, labels such as Epitaph, Sub Pop, and Century Media are standing with this guy. So are labels of slightly smaller stature, like Kill Rock Stars and Jagjaguwar. The board of directors includes, among others, executives from KRS, Sub Pop, Yep Roc, Razor & Tie, Beggars Group (Matador, XL, 4AD, Rough Trade), and Epitaph. Many labels you support and who we cover on a regular basis.

A2IM was founded in 2005. I’ll allow that, perhaps, some of the member labels who’ve been a part of A2IM for far longer than SOPA has been a hot topic do not agree with it, and that A2IM’s misguided stance does not represent them.

However, with the exception of a few tiny punk labels, the response from the indie record label community — for or against — has been nil.

In a way, I understand where they are coming from. Losing revenue is not a pleasant experience; having your very livelihood threatened, perhaps to the point where you may go out of business, is awful. Remember 2005 to 2008, when just about every single mid-scale, professionally printed music zine died? Yeah, we’ve been there.

My appeal to all indie labels is this: Take a stand for the free exchange of ideas. Realize that SOPA and PIPA are not the answers to your problems, and that the weight of their long-term consequences far outweigh your short-term profits. Dismantling and damaging the internet on a worldwide scale benefits no one. We need a solution to piracy, but this is not it. And the more time the Senate wastes bickering over these nonsense bills, the more time we waste to actually come up with a real, actionable solution that specifically targets internet piracy.

Here is the alphabetized list of the members of A2IM. I hope that, today, you will stand with millions of people worldwide who believe in freedom over easy solutions to complex problems. –Jackson Ellis