What Is SOPA and Do You Think It Won’t Affect You? Think Again…
What We Think Of SOPA Proposed Legislation
In the coming weeks United States Congress are going to be voting on a piece of legislation that may
Stop SOPA
or may not change the way we see the Internet forever. If you are an Internet entrepreneur, have a website or blog then you’re most likely aware of SOPA, which stands for “stop online piracy act”.
if you are like the many of millions of Internet users who only use it for Facebook or twitter, YouTube and even Google you may not know a lot about what SOPA is, and you may not know how it will affect you if this bill is passed into law. Basically, if this bill is passed in the current condition as it stands it will give copyright holders the power to stop and delete websites off of search engines and Internet in general, and owners of websites that either knowingly or unknowingly have copyrighted material published on their site could be subjected to criminal prosecution, without due process as the government sees fit.
The goal of sopa is basically to fight online piracy such as websites that post links to download movies,music, software and pretty much anything else that’s copyrighted material illegally. in this sense this is a good thing because their intended targets are offshore torrent sites like pirate Bay, file share and any other media software download sites. The big problem of course is the way the bill is proposed rate now would give the government absolute power over the Internet and most likely would lead to censorship that’s on par with the likes of North Korea, Iran and others. a lot of people thought that this legislation would not affect them since they don’t own websites or have an e-commerce business, but are coming to realize that not only would it threatened businesses, but could have a major impact on the average user is well. As it stands if this bill goes through in its current proposal it could effectively mean the end of all those great websites that you and I use every single day like Facebook and twitter and YouTube not to mention Google, and countless thousands of other entertainment and information websites that we use every day. Today in protest Wikipedia which is one of the most popular online Encyclopedia sites that exist, they have blacked out their homepage to show what sopa could actually do. Other big industry sites are following suit by placing censorship blacked out bars across their logos to raise awareness about this dangerous bill.
SOPA Is a Warning Sign
The thing about the current draft of this bill is that it is absolutely unnecessary to blanket everyone under this law if the current intentions of the government are to stop offshore pirate websites. let’s say that you are a legitimate business owner and you run few websites and you’re making decent money from the revenue of the sites. Now let’s say that you have an article with a free to use commercially stock photo on your site that is there to add interest for the reader, and of course before you posted the photo you make sure that you weren’t infringing on anybody’s copyrighted material.Now let’s say that SOPA law is in effect and one day you go to check your website stats and your website is gone or blacked out completely from search engines and the Internet in general. Without notice or any kind of forwarded warnings or even the benefit of the doubt your money making website has been shut down permanently and you will most likely be facing criminal charges under these new copyright laws.
Just like the controversial Patriot Act that the United States government passed several years back after September 11 terrorist attack this sopa law is quite similar like being arrested and thrown in jail without a court hearing or an appeal, you have been given no due process whatsoever. this is exactly what we are facing.
Now the good news is, the opposition to sopa has been increasing by the day and even Barack Obama president of the United States of America has raised concerns. There is no doubt that some type of law will be passed to stop offshore websites engaging in criminal piracy will be dealt with blocked in some capacity and that’s fine. we had no problem with that whatsoever, the problem is when you have people making laws about things they do not know or understand or don’t even really care about so long as it gets them voted back in, this ends up creating more harm than good.
Hollywood and SOPA Versus Us
we like to watch movies just like everyone else, and there’s no doubt that Hollywood and the music industry are an incredible economic juggernaut in America, every single week new films come out and generate millions of dollars and all this provides thousands of jobs to people in the industry. Same is said for the music industry,and that’s good because job creation is what drives the economic engine. The problem I believe, and this is just a personal opinion is that the general attitude of public or at least the ones who download the latest films and music illegally are doing so because of a few different reasons. One of the main reasons that I’ve heard the argument for this is people are sick and tired of paying 12 or $13 for a movie that sucks. Think about how many times you’ve gone to see a movie maybe with family or friends and pay out $30-$50 only to watch a movie that you wouldn’t even watch for free on TV because it is so painfully awful or maybe actually walked out halfway through a film feeling ripped off. This I believe is why piracy truly exists, and people are sick of paying for music CDs that have one good song and the rest are all so-called “fillers”. So the entertainment industry should not be too surprised of why online piracy exists. Another thing that bothers me about Hollywood is this pretentious notion that we should all go out and see the new block buster film because the studios put hundreds of millions of dollars into it and overpay their actors, but I don’t care if what they are putting out is actually quality. Don’t get me wrong I understand why actors such as Tom Cruise and Will Smith get paid $20 million per picture because they bring the audience but they also put out a decent films that people want to watch. But to keep paying some actors who clearly do not deserve a $10 million paycheck in my opinion, should not be lecturing the world about why sopa should exist. Honestly, my question to the entertainment industry is, do you really think that a stop online piracy act law will actually stop online piracy? Do you really believe that ticket sales will suddenly go up because people will not be able to access free movies any longer online? Because if this is what they think, then go ahead and pass the law and we’lll see what really happens.
Our Conclusion For SOPA
our standard with this legislation is that it must not go through in its current form. Come up with a more intelligent way to stop online piracy without censoring the Internet to death because if they don’t figure this out and come up with a decent solution that suits everyone fairly problems that you can even imagine will happen. Hackers all over the world right now are already engaging in planning their cyber war against establishment and as sci-fi funny as it sounds, hackers such as “Anonymous” who are virtually invisible are very serious about their threats and that makes them dangerous to the lawmakers who should really use their heads and consider the consequences of SOPA.
