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| Image by Kristie Wells |
Below is a short video provided by CNN which elaborates on the basics behind the SOPA bill. It explains who SOPA will affect, who supports SOPA and what will happen if the bill is passed.
What is SOPA?
SOPA stands for ‘Stop Online Piracy Act’ and is one of two bills which are designed to eradicate websites which provide or sell pirated media, including images, music and movies; this applied to media which is downloaded or streamed. The second bill involved is known as ‘PIPA’, which stands for ‘Protect Intellectual Property Act’.
Under federal law, law enforcement can shut down websites that offer pirated content, however this only applies to websites which are based in the United States, and is therefore not applicable to websites which are hosted or situated abroad. In order to tackle foreign based websites the two bills would grant the Justice Department prosecutors new powers to help prevent pirate websites from obtaining funding from the United States; additionally, the bills would also prevent those websites from gaining hits or visitors from the United States.
The powers in question include the ability to obtain a court order requiring internet providers within the United States to block access to pirate websites. Blocking access to certain websites could be achieved either by preventing users from typing a web address into an internet browser, and therefore preventing them from visiting websites such as Pirate Bay or Demonoid. The second method would require search engines, such as Google, Bing and Ask, to disable incoming links to the pirate websites. Essentially, this would cause the website to ‘disappear’ as people would no longer be able to reach it.
Furthermore, a court order could be issued which would require credit-card processors to prevent the processing of payments to websites which require premium or paid membership to download or view copyrighted content. Both of the proposed bills would give content creators and owners the right and ability to initiate private legal actions against websites or individuals that host pirated or stolen material.
The justification behind the two proposed bills, as claimed by supporters of the legislation, is that they will prevent copyright infringements. In turn the bills will assist copyright holders and content creators protect their content and intellectual property rights.
Why oppose SOPA and PIPA?
If the bills are passed by the Senate, the government of the United States could order any website to be blocked if it deems the website in question to be ‘providing pirated material’. Search engines could be forced to delete and remove websites from their search results, meaning that they would virtually no longer exist in cyberspace. These methods resemble the ones used by the Chinese authorities to keep their citizens in the dark with regard to government actions and world news.
“Scary Part - Even if a site is hosting completely legal content, it can be served copyright infringement notices under SOPA, claiming a "good faith belief" that the target site has infringed copyright. In an earlier version of the bill, the target site, Google, PayPal or the ISP had just five days to respond to the notice, either by taking down a portion of the site or by appealing in a U.S. court. However, now the 5-day clause has been softened, allowing any one to serve copyright notice, even a rival company, for the sole purpose of hurting its competitors.
RIP Internet, Almost - This may sound a bit extreme. However, it is almost certain that a good portion of the fun we now enjoy over the Internet will no longer be available under SOPA. No free movies, songs, games, software, streaming, videos, sharing and almost no free thinking - If this isn't the death of Internet what is?”
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