I don’t know if you guys have seen the news on SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act), but I have taken notice of this proposed bill after seeing multiple posts on Facebook about it. To my understanding from Facebook posts I have read, this bill would lead to mass censoring on the Internet—I didn’t really understand it. So, I decided to do a little bit of reading on SOPA, and what it really entails.
I found an article on CNN that was very helpful in understanding what SOPA is really all about. The Stop Online Piracy Act has been proposed with the goal of cracking down on copyright violation. This “cracking down” would occur through the restriction of access to sites that host the “trading of pirated content”. For instance, YouTube would most likely shut down immediately due to this bill. Google searches would find substantially less search results. This seems like the “Napster” issue all over again. Even after Napster was shut down, more websites with the same intentions popped up all over the Internet.
Tech companies, who are largely against this bill, mobilized their users to speak up for their beliefs on January 18. For example, Wikipedia launched a site blackout. Protesters “hit the streets” in New York, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. A petition has been passed around via the Internet as well.
This article states that the SOPA (and PIPA bill) lost some of their Congressional backers because of the rebellion experienced. Both of these bills were postponed today, January 20.
I still don’t know all there is to know about the SOPA bill, and have not gotten into the PIPA bill yet. Do any of you have any more understandable information on these proposed bills? What are your thoughts? How do you think bills like these will affect the Internet as we know it in the future?
http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/17/technology/sopa_explained/index.htm
This seems like a pretty intense issue at the moment and I don't think these particular bills will go anywhere at this time. However, I do think that people will create new bills in a way to accommodate both sides of the issue. The bigger internet companies seem to have an issue with how broadly the bill describes "facilitating copyright infringement". Ultimately, I think at some point these search engines will have to take more responsibility in what they are allowing their users to access. And perhaps this constant supervision will provide more Americans with jobs in the future.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Kelly in that I believe this issue or bills will go away anytime soon. I also haven't read much on SOPA or PIPA other than what has been trending on Facebook and Twitter and what I have periodically clicked on when taking a break at work. I would say that yes, another bill in relation to copyright infringement will come along that will either be completely 180 from the original bill(s) and/or provide some pro's and con's for both sides. However, I don't think these restrictions will be enacted any time soon because of the amount of resistance coming from the public. However, I think a lot of the resistance comes with misunderstanding. What specifically would we lose as a result of the passing of the bills? How much would this affect employees at Google or Wikipedia? What would that mean? I'm interested on seeing where this goes.
ReplyDeleteWhoops - meant will NOT be going away anytime soon!
ReplyDeleteThe more I've heard and read about this issue leads me to believe that this is just the beginning. There are many wrinkles that need to be ironed out when it comes to copyright laws and the internet. Although the idea behind it is to protect music and film companies, primarily, from people illegally sharing their products, this could explode. Let's say you have created a top that you made and wanted to sell them on Craigslist... if Wal-Mart thinks that your top looks like one of theirs, they could make the claim that your little internet business is infringing on Wal-Mart's business, and you and Craigslist could be shut down. This is a virtual Pandora's Box. I am not for government regulation, so I think they really just need to leave it alone. The companies need to adapt to the changing technological environment. Photographers have done so... professional photographers now offer digital versions of photos taken so that we can share them on FB, etc. without copyright infringement.
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