Hey, team — I just wanted to fire off a quick, earnest appeal, urging all of you to reach out to your senators to voice your opposition to the Protect Intellectual Property Act, or “PIPA.” You’ve probably heard a lot about this bill already, thanks to famous Internet players like Wikipedia blacking out their site for a day to protest the draconian means by which the US government proposes to restrict access to “pirated” content.

I won’t bore you with all the specific, tech-y reasons why PIPA is a horrible bill — and I won’t irritate you by bloviating about how it would mean the breaking of the seventh seal of the free speech apocalypse, ushering in a new dark age of e-fascism in the name of corporate greed, etc., etc. What I will tell you is that if this bill passes, Rock Town Hall as we know it will, in all likelihood, eventually cease to exist.

All those so-awful-that-they’re-hilarious videos will be taken down at the source, under threat of legal action. All the unauthorized screen caps from JaBo’s “Dancing in the Streets” video will be replaced with black boxes. No more Mystery Date. No music-rich Insta-Reviews or histories of obscure rock bands. In fact, there’s a good chance that the site as a whole would be taken down, if the wrong people find us and threaten the RTH web host with legal action because they’re “facilitating copyright theft” by keeping us on their servers.

Many of you know me as a fun-loving, studio-owning, underemployed composer of music — but my “day job” is as a marketing executive at one of America’s leading web hosting companies, and we’re neck-deep in a fierce battle to kill PIPA and other bills like it. PIPA is coming up for a key cloture vote on January 24, and we need to make sure it doesn’t pass that vote. (If it does, it will be hurried onto the floor for a yes/no vote, and chances are good it would pass.) What we need is more time, so we can explain to ignorant lawmakers just why this bill makes no practical sense. You can help us get the time we need.

If I could impose on you, by January 23, to take a moment to write a brief note to your senators outlining your concerns about PIPA’s effect on Internet innovation and small businesses — small-business innovations like a certain free-wheeling, fun-loving communi-blog devoted to the world’s aging rock nerd community, for example — I would appreciate it. And I know our Moderator and The Back Office would, too.

I mean it more than ever when I say:

I look forward to your responses.

HVB