Dear Andy Olson (of District 15) and all other representatives of Oregon,

I wish to express to you my opposition for the SOPA/PIPA bills currently threatening my freedom, and to share with you how deeply it affects myself and my friends.

I am a resident of this beautiful state and a free lance artist. Due to epilepsy and lack of health care, I am ineligible for state assistance, unmedicated, and unemployable. I therefore must make a living of my own, and I have just recently been able to kick off my own photography business.

Through open information websites such as Google, Facebook, YouTube, and Craigslist I have been able to promote and share my work with the entire world! Because of sites like this, I have become a PUBLISHED photographer. My work has been featured in blogs nation wide! My work is hanging in GALLERIES! My world is just now opening up to me because of the hard work I have invested into the tools that the internet has provided for me. I am afraid that if SOPA/PIPA is passed, my reach will be severely limited, my business ruined and the last 3 years of my life burnt to ashes.

As an artist, I understand the need for a sort of regulation for piracy…however, these bills are NOT the answer. It may seem like the obvious answer to someone who has no idea how the internet actually works however that sort of innocent naivety only looks cute on small children, NOT members of the House.

Others keep speaking for me, saying that these bills are FOR ME, and will BENEFIT ME…but these bills will only destroy ME and several of MY FELLOW ARTISTS. Even Lamar Smith, the member who proposed SOPA has violated copyright infringement and unlawfully used the work of another photographer without his permission and without credit. He clearly disregards us, the artists who SOPA is supposedly protecting: http://twitpic.com/88ueqz . Here is also the open letter from the photographer that Lamar stole from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/oxherder/4189641199/

I urge you to do what you were voted to do. REPRESENT US. Speak for US. And if I am the only one writing you today about my opposition to SOPA/PIPA then by all means, ignore me. But if this message is one of thousands…tens or hundreds of thousands…need I say more?

Thank you very much for your time. I hope you do the right thing, because other than writing and calling you, there is nothing that WE can do to stop these heinous bills.

I would very much appreciate a reply! Thank you again,

Sarah Page
Albany, Oregon
541.730.1342
www.sarahpagephotography.com