Colin Quinn: comedian, curmudgeon, controversialist … and outspoken supporter of antipiracy legislation?
The former Saturday Night Live player took to Twitter this afternoon, announcing his support of the Stop Online Piracy Act to his roughly 135,700 followers.
“Can’t wait for the anti piracy laws to take effect!” he posted at 5:26 pm Eastern today. “Freedom of speech isn’t free. SOPA rocks.”
SOPA, proposed U.S. legislation championed by the movie and music industries to allow the shutdown of websites connected with unauthorized downloads of copyrighted materials, met strong resistance from Web communities like Reddit. A vote on the measure is currently on hold as a result.
The current status of the bill—even the fact that it wasn’t law yet—seemed to be lost on Quinn, from reading his tweet.
His declaration launched a number of heated replies and a healthy dose of confusion, as many of Quinn’s readers (understandably!) couldn’t figure out whether the comedian was being serious or deliberately provoking his followers for laughs.
Quinn retweeted many of the most vile responses:
“You need to educated [sic] yourself CQ,” wrote @ConsilienceDVO. “Bad fucking move to Support SOPA if that’s what you’re doing. I was a huge fan until now.”
“Wanting to get paid, is a narrow view,” posted Jade Richardson (@TheFuc). “How about inspire, change, and leave a lasting legacy. Glad MLK wasn’t all about $$.”
“You obviously have no idea how far-reaching the consequences of SOPA are,” wrote @celebswagfinder. “Seriously stop being ignorant.”
Despite the vitriol, Quinn’s half-hour long rant does raise a number of points that should be taken into consideration when forming an opinion on Internet copyright laws.
“If people look some of my old stand up, I want to get paid!” Quinn wrote. “I don’t want some Okinawan 10 year old twisting my words!
“SOPA simply means regulating and record keeping of everything we do online,” he followed. “Where’s the problem, right or wrong?”
Of course it’s possible that Quinn’s just out there looking for a quick buck:
“I should be getting paid for Twitter too!” he wrote towards the end of his rant. “And YouTube!”
Photo via Colin Quinn