Difference between revisions of "Stop Online Piracy Act"

Revision as of 09:33, 15 December 2011

An opinionated SOPA infographic

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Overview of the Act

The Stop Online Piracy Act works by blocking websites that enable or facilitate copyright infringement. With SOPA, rights-holders can demand that payment vendors and ad networks end relationships with infringing websites ^[2]. The U.S. Government may also seek a court order requiring ISPs and search engines to block consumer access ^[2].

Supporters of the Act

Supporters of the act primarily include those companies who deal with copyright, including the Motion Picture Association of America, the Recording Industry Association of America, Macmillian Publishers, and Viacom.

Opposition

Companies that have publicly opposed the bill include Facebook, Aol, Google, LinkedIn, eBay, and human rights groups including Reporters without Borders and Electric Frontier Foundation.

Justification for Opposition

Many companies that operate online have released statements detailing the specific implications that SOPA will have as well as the effects that SOPA would have had on the founding of their company had it been in effect. The founders of the online forum Reddit have stated that not only would the website, which sees over 30 million unique visitors per month ^[3], never have been founded, but that under SOPA it could be taken down if one user posted a sinlge link to any illegal download^[3].

From a non-corporate, legal perspective, both the ACLU^[4] and Harvard Law^[5] have released statements detailing their view that SOPA violates first amendment rights.

DNS Blocking

The SOPA bill would work by blocking DNS requests. A DNS request works by translating a URL into a numeric ip address, and the bill allow the government to redirect the URL to a different page, likely a page displaying a message from the government ^[1]. While the aim of DNS blocking is to block access to sites, there are ways to easily bypass DNS blocking. If the numeric ip address can be obtained, access to the site is still available, though it would be illegal. There also exist plug-ins for bypassing DNS blocking, such as the MAFIAAFire add-on for the Mozilla Firefox browser. Using a proxy server or a VPN are also ways to bypass the DNS block ^[6].

Potential Ethical Problems

Many problems are foreseen by those who oppose the bill, including problems with enforcing the bill as well as problems to those who are blocked for illegal activity. The first problem arises with DNS blocking which, as mentioned before, is relatively simple to bypass.

Another issue that opposition to the Act foresees is the potential implications to online businesses in the United States. If a vendor is seen selling counterfeit items, such as bags or movies, the site can be shut down with no notification necessary, losing their ad networks and payment processors as well as their reputation ^[2]. Businesses could lose time and money by researching each item to make sure it is not counterfeit or piracy.

See Also

• Digital Piracy

References

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} http://www.publicknowledge.org/blog/sopa-immunity-net-neutrality-violations
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2} http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/18/stop-online-privacy-act-small-business_n_1102322.html
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1} http://www.dailydot.com/politics/reddit-alexis-ohanian-stop-online-piracy-act/
4. ↑ http://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/urge-congress-stop-sopa
5. ↑ http://www.scribd.com/doc/75153093/Tribe-Legis-Memo-on-SOPA-12-6-11-1
6. ↑ http://blogjunkie.net/2011/06/get-around-dns-block-filter