Stop Online Piracy Act

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An opinionated SOPA infographic

The Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, is a proposed bill in the United States House of Representatives. The US Senate's version of SOPA is called The Protect IP Act, or PIPA. The bill targets websites that distribute infringing materials and would allow the Department of Justice (DoJ) to block those websites using DNS, or Domain Name System, blocking .

H.R.3261 - Stop Online Piracy Act

Overview of the Act

The Stop Online Piracy Act seeks to block websites that enable or facilitate copyright infringement. With SOPA, rights-holders can demand that payment vendors and ad networks end relationships with infringing websites . The U.S. Government may also seek a court order requiring ISPs and search engines to block consumer access . On December 16th, 2011, the House Judiciary Committee delayed the vote for the implementation of the Stop Online Privacy Act aimed at mandating internet service providers to alter records in the Domain Name System (DNS) so users cannot access a site to restrict copyright material and for the prevention of the sale of counterfeit goods.

If accused, it can block search engines from linking to unauthorized sites and requiring Internet service providers to close off access to such sites. Additionally, it makes it a felony offense to post a copyrighted song or video. This directly affects popular websites such as YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia, Twitter, blogs etc. whose main objective is to encourage user-generated data. Simply having a site feature that has the capability for a user to commit infringement is enough to brand it as an infringing site.

Supporters of the Act

Supporters of the act primarily include various companies that 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. Critics say the problem with DMCA is that has no authority against overseas sites and SOPA aims to bridge that gap. If overseas sites refuse to take down copyrighted work, at least the U.S. can control its companies from providing their services to those sites. SOPA can also make it harder for U.S. Internet users to find and access the sites. It puts site operators responsible for what their users upload.

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 , never have been founded, but that under SOPA it could be taken down if one user posted a sinlge link to any illegal download. Another reason why there are advocates opposing the SOPA is that many of its blacklisting policies and traffic restrictions are similar to the on-going internet censorship initiatives in place by the People's Republic of China. American citizens fear an attitude shift towards the censorship policies enacted in the People's Republic of China, and online government protesting limitations implemented will be like Internet Censorship in Hong Kong.

From a non-corporate, legal perspective, both the ACLU and Harvard Law 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 would allow the government to redirect the URL to a different page, likely a page displaying a message from the government . 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 .

Potential Ethical Problems

Those who oppose the bill foresee many problems, such as difficulty enforcing the bill as well as consequences for those who are blocked as a result of illegal activity. Other issues the opposition to the Act foresee are the potential disadvantages for 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 . Businesses would need to spend valuable resources in order to research each item to make sure it is not counterfeit or piracy.

Public Reactions (Blackout and Protests)

Talks of SOPA and PIPA immediately led to strong reactions from individuals and large organizations. On Wednesday Jan. 18th, thousands of sites went dark to protest SOPA & PIPA, stating that the bills threaten the state of prosperity, online security, and freedom of expression. An estimated 13 million people participated in the online protest and an estimated 50,000 websites went dark during the day . Most noticeable was the Wikipedia black out. The website temporary withheld all content and articles in protest, leaving open only an explainer and the corresponding Wikipedia articles on the two acts. Google blacked out the logo on its homepage and linked to a website that allows users to sign a petition against the two acts. The blackout was the largest and most extensive online protest in history.

Current State

While the protests were successful in stopping the progress of SOPA in the current state, efforts by proponents will still be taken to amend and push the bill through Congress. On January 20, 2012, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith postponed plans to draft the bill: "The committee remains committed to finding a solution to the problem of online piracy that protects American intellectual property and innovation ... The House Judiciary Committee will postpone consideration of the legislation until there is wider agreement on a solution." Smith is unwilling to cease the legislation and strongly pushes for online piracy laws. He reiterated that the theft of America's intellectual property costs the U.S. economy more than $100 billion annually and results in the loss of thousands of American jobs. Smith concluded by stating, "We welcome input from all organizations and individuals who have an honest difference of opinion about how best to address this widespread problem".

See Also

• Digital Piracy
• Protect IP Act
• Digital Piracy
• File Sharing
• BitTorrent
• Digital Rights Management

References

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