We have been seeing it everywhere lately: SOPA this, PIPA that. Websites shutting down in protest. Petitions created in an attempt to curb Senators’ desires to get these pieces of legislature passed and eventually enacted into our society. Now, there is a lot of information floating around cyberspace; some accurate, and some not so accurate.
You might be thinking that there is already a law in place to prevent pirated material from being displayed on the Internet. You would be correct. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act or DMCA was enacted in 1998, and bans copyrighted material from being used on websites as accessible media. The difference between DMCA and SOPA/PIPA is twofold. First, the actual providers of the content themselves (Internet Providers or their users) were not liable (under DMCA) for the illegal material they were providing/using. Second, once the illegal material was located, owners of that material could only demand the material be taken down. Only after the ultimatum was given and ignored could copyright owners go after those individual sites or even the users themselves with lawsuits.
So the main question becomes how, if these bills pass, will they affect me or my business? SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) would definitely have an impact on your Internet experience. The key legislators are pushing for a stop to the piracy of illegal material like movies, music and general media. If enacted, websites, search engines, Internet service providers and even payment facilities (i.e. paypal) would have to block access to infringing material on their sites, as well as monitor continuous user content activity on their websites or networks. The idea is there, I agree, but there will be backfire from these bills if enacted. Websites such as Etsy, Flickr and Vimeo have already divulged the fact that if these bills pass, their websites will very likely shut down. So would they affect a start-up or small business? Essentially, yes. Each independent website that has user provided content or even hyperlinks to pirated material of any type would be at risk to be shut down. Completely.
A Turn in the Tides.
On January 20, 2012, around 7:30 AM the voice of the masses was heard. U.S Representative Lamar Smith (R-Texas) put the bill on the backburner, as millions of Americans protested in anger over the legislation. “It is clear that we need to revisit the approach on how best to address the problem of foreign thieves that steal and sell American inventions and products,” Smith said in a statement. SOPA is not gone altogether, by any means. The senators that initially composed the bill are revamping the act, which always takes time. So for now, the issue of SOPA and PIPA has been curbed.
By: Rob Lombardi
