There was an internet protest last Wednesday to protest the newly proposed laws, SOPA and PIPA. They were introduced on October 26th, 2011.
SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) is a new bill that has been created to stop copyright infringement by restricting access to sites that host pirated content. PIPA (Protect IP Act) is a proposed bill with the goal of giving the U.S. government and copyright holders additional tools to curb access to piracy sites most of which are outside the U.S. Basically, this means the entertainment company can sue a site for having anything that is already copyrighted without permission. They would be able to block sites they thought were violating the new law.
Well- known sites like Google, Wikipedia, and Reddit blacked out to raise awareness and challenge the new bills. Even the CyChron blacked out in support of the demonstration. As a result of the great blackout, 25 senators now oppose PIPA.
Wikipedia had a search engine on their blackout page that looked up the representatives in your area. Of the 162 million people that saw Wikipedia, 8 million looked up their representatives.
Google had a SOPA/PIPA petition that 4.5 million people signed. But how does this affect the average student? First, these bills are unnecessary. The United States already has laws that can stop piracy and protect copyright. The 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act is effective enough. It makes YouTube videos and other sites that have violated copyright to take this material down within a reasonable amount of time.
The government needs to take into account that no matter what they try to pass, piracy is not going away. Even under PIPA’s terms, web-users can type in the IP address and access anything they try to block.
Also, a government’s job is to protect and serve its country, not limit free speech and abuse power. They have stepped over the fine line between serving the people and controlling the people. Piracy is a crime and it should be stopped. Entertainment businesses have a right to be mad but these bills are going to cause much more harm than good.
Let’s say a web user puts a YouTube video up and there is a song playing in the background. Under this law, the company behind the song can sue the user as long as they have a “good belief” the material had been stolen.
YouTube would slowly die from the large amount of content that would have to be blocked. People would be scared to post anything to Facebook. Google would have to remove links to certain websites. This would destroy the interweb as we know it. Not to mention the large amount of money that comes from the internet. Many people who work for internet sites would lose their jobs if these sites went under.
Are we really going to risk all this just to stop someone from downloading a movie? The government is abusing their power and we can’t let them bring down their hammer on the beauty of free speech. They will vote on PIPA on January 24th, 2012. The voting for SOPA hasn’t been announced but will be sometime in February. For now, all we can do is protest and try to make our voice heard. The government is only as powerful as the people allow it to be.
