Online Piracy (SOPA)

It is a commonly known fact that in the People’s Republic of China, the Internet is subject to heavy censorship through the Golden Shield project, known outside of China as the Great Firewall of China, a reference to the similarly named Chinese landmark. It is less commonly known that the United States recently nearly came to implement similar measures.

These measures came in the form of the Stop Online Piracy and PROTECT IP Acts, generally referred to by their respective acronyms of SOPA and PIPA.

Both pieces of legislature, backed by the MPAA, the RIAA, and the US Chamber of Commerce, were created with the intention of curbing piracy. While there is nothing wrong with the goal itself, SOPA and PIPA go far overboard in attempting to achieve it.

To begin with, a website can be blocked in its entirety for but a single instance of copyright infringement, meaning that any website allowing user-provided content will be at risk for being banned unless they take draconian measures. Furthermore, the burden of proof of innocence lies with the website. The legislation assumes websites to be guilty until proven innocent.

SOPA also makes streaming infringing content illegal and fines those who take part in it thousands of dollars.

Of course, one could bypass these restrictions with proxies. Which, along with anything else that can circumvent the ban, will be made illegal.

Then, of course, there is the fact that pirate sites can simply engineer themselves out of these blocks, meaning that the bills are completely pointless measures that take out the majority of the Internet as collateral damage.

It should be no surprise to the reader that these bills have faced massive opposition from all fronts. Google, Yahoo!, Facebook, Twitter, AOL, Zynga, LinkedIn, eBay, the Mozilla Corporation, Reddit, Tumblr, the Wikimedia Foundation, Reporters Without Borders, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the ACLU and the Human Rights watch have protested the bills. Public sentiment towards them has been overwhelmingly negative, while the white house declared it would not pass measures such as those proposed.

“SOPA is a bad idea and should never be passed,” said Freshman Joseph Wachtel, echoing the sentiment of the public.

“[SOPA] will ruin the Internet and must be vetoed,” said Freshman Benjamin Lambeth.

The issue rose into the public eye on Wednesday January 18, when Wikipedia blacked out and Google ‘censored’ their banner with a link encouraging readers to oppose the bills, bringing the issue into mainstream awareness for the first time. The response was a massive campaign of phone calls and emails to legislators and the government, with over 13 million people participating.

Many legislators who had previously supported the bill dropped their support in wake of the public outcry. 18 senators, 11 of whom were previously PIPA sponsors, declared their opposition to PIPA following the protest. Both bills have been delayed, and SOPA has been placed on hold indefinitely. For the moment, it would appear that the Internet would be safe.