The Stop Online Piracy Act [SOPA] was proposed by Texas Congressman Lamar Smith. It sounds great when you hear “stop piracy” in the title, but it’s not as great as you may think.
Although the act, according to Smith, has been retracted temporarily until it gets more approval, it should not be passed in my opinion.
This act would allow copyright holders and the Justice Department to seek court orders against websites associated with copyright infringement, targeting both domestic and foreign websites. This means every website that provides copyrighted material and/or links to such things could be blocked from being accessed everywhere and anywhere. This means sites like Facebook, Wikipedia, Tumblr, YouTube, Flickr, Squidoo, etc. could be shut down.
Megaupload, a file sharing website, was shut down by the U.S. federal government, without SOPA being passed. While many people probably haven’t heard of this site, to millions this site was a fast, easy way to store massive files in a “locker” online and then share them with friends or colleagues. This has caused a huge uproar worldwide.
The news came only hours after thousands of sites repealed a temporary blackout in opposition to SOPA, which gained support from sites including Wikipedia, Reddit and Google.
If this law gets passed, copyright holders such as movie studios or record companies could invoke a “private right of action” against almost any company that does business with a website that copyright holders believe is involved in copyright infringement.
This could mean the shut down of many websites around the globe.
Many petitions were set up in retaliation against this act. Google says that their petition against SOPA got 4.5 million signatures.
The internet is a source of resources for kids and adults alike. This level of censorship and power would not only limit the access of information, but the freedom of it as well.
If a law like this gets proposed again, we can only hope that Congress will think about the consequences that the law will cause.
–By Morgan Yigdal