Many of us may not have even known what was going on until Wednesday when the online industry responded to SOPA/PIPA, including many popular websites shutting down, or blacking out in protest.
These actions prompted many not directly involved to ask, what exactly is SOPA?
It’s not soup, as the Spanish translation indicates; nor is it a sopapilla, the delicious pastry dessert served at many of our favorite Mexican restaurants.
SOPA stands for the Stop Online Piracy Act, a bill on the United States Congressional floor to stop online piracy.
Okay, so what exactly is PIPA?
No, PIPA is not the Royal Princess’ younger sister; it is the Protect Intellectual Property Act, another bill for consideration on the United States Congressional floor to stop online piracy.
But will the SOPA and PIPA bills actually stop piracy? No. Pirates will always find a way to do what they do best, so why limit the Internet for the rest of us?
If these bills pass Congress, the Internet will change drastically from what users are accustomed to today. The Internet will be strictly censored and online economic growth fractured forever. Sites like YouTube may even become non-existent. The government would have the legal authority to swoop in to situations where, for example, the movie industry accuses a blogger of pirating, and the government would have the right to shut down the site and effectively put the blogger out of business – a blogger who was only reviewing said project.
It seems extreme, but it could happen.
The next obvious question when researching the SOPA/PIPA is who actually supports these bills? The answer is primarily “big business” with large or unlimited revenue streams that can support the lobbyists fighting on their behalf, including:
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)
The Music industry
Pharmaceutical companies
Which leads to the next question, who opposes SOPA/PIPA? Basically the Internet community that we have grown to love over the years opposes these bills; the websites we rely so very heavily on every single day for news stories, information, social networking, and laughs, including:
Google
Yahoo!
YouTube
Wikipedia
LinkedIn
eBay
AOL
Facebook
Congress plans to bring the SOPA and PIPA bills to a vote next week, January 24th.
Where do you stand? Have you contacted your Congressman or Congresswoman? We’d love to hear from you.
We’ve included a few other news articles and resources discussing the hot topic of SOPA/PIPA for our readers. Enjoy!
SOPA, PIPA: What you need to know via CBS News.
Google’s More About SOPA/PIPA.
CNN’s Lawmakers withdraw support of anti-piracy bills after online protest.
Mark Zuckerberg publically Talks Sopa, Pipa via zdnet.com.