SOPA
January 25th, 2012 by MarinaI don’t usually like writing serious stuff, but this needs some serious attention.
You’re on the Internet right now, so you’ve probably already heard of SOPA and PIPA. That is, the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act. And you probably know that many major Internet companies/groups have been opposing this bill. Wiki blacked out for a day to draw awareness, along with Reddit and other information-sharing sites. Google, Facebook, and Mozilla are opposed too, just to name a few.
- Google’s protest of SOPA
In short: This bill, if passed by the US congress, will give big companies an advantage in suing non-US companies for copyright infringement. It will most notably not allow sites to have links to pirated material or to other sites that break copyright laws. In a way, it will censor a lot of the Internet. Considering that the Internet has become THE place to share files and information and, considering today’s global community, well… not the greatest idea from the US congress.
Basically, any site that links to pirated information is a target for this new bill, regardless of whether or not the site was responsible for the pirating in the first place. This is censoring the Internet of almost anything that is copyrighted. And it almost sounds legit until you consider that many people use the Internet as a way to share files that they legitimately own. YouTube videos can be taken down… hell, YouTube itself can be taken down. Going to share a link on Facebook? It better not link to a site that links to a pirating site. Even Google will have to watch out for what it shows in its results. Does this not go completely against the idea of the Internet?
I don’t know about you, but I’ve always thought that the Internet would be humankind’s way to connect with other people. It’s a global community – a place for us to share our ideas, interests, and, yes our music, videos, and other copyrighted things. I mean, I’ve shared the Harry Potters movies in real life, so why am I not allowed to do so on the Internet? If they ban sharing of copyrighted materials on sites, then are they going to stop us from EMAILING files to each other too? What’s next? No more USBs because, clearly, we can copy and paste files and share with those as well!
As a student, I feel like this could have major effects on our lives. I mentioned the Wiki blackout – what if it got permanently banned for linking to copyrighted information? Sure, we can’t cite Wiki, but that’s always the first place I look when I start doing research because it’s a wonderful background information resource. And YouTube – there are a lot of good, educational videos that I would really like to stay there.
- Just to be on the safe side, this looks like a good investment
It’s unfortunate that, as Canadians, we can’t exactly call up a congress member and protest the bill… well, we could, but I doubt it would sway them much. But you should know that SOPA will have the ability to shut down Canadian-run sites, even if no Canadian laws were broken. Piracy certainly is a major issue, but there’s always the issue of when a law would do justice and when it would go completely against what’s fair.
The worst part is, SOPA seems unnecessary. The bill’s actually on hold now due to the Internet blackout a few days ago but, regardless of that, Megaupload’s founder was still arrested and Megaupload remains down. This is exactly the form of legal action that SOPA seeks to bring… but the US authorities managed to do this based on current copyright laws. The action was drastic, of course. Megaupload has been a big help to many of us, and few avid internet users are happy to see it go, but the point is that piracy has been thwarted without the need to censor 90% of the Internet.
But, really, growing up in the Information Age, I think we’ve all learned to appreciate the wonders of the Internet in all its file-sharing glory. And, in all honestly, I don’t think that SOPA, even if passed, would be able to stop the millions of people who use the Internet from finding a way to continue to share. It’s called the World Wide Web for a reason, and severing the threads that link things together will tear the whole thing apart.
Sites threatened by SOPA: http://www.thisblogrules.com/2012/01/top-13-endangered-websites-if-sopa-passes.html
How it could affect Canadians: http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/What+SOPA+means+Canada/6019152/story.html
Google’s Anti-SOPA Petition information: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2012/01/google-anti-sopa-petition.html
Jan. 23, 2012: UPDATE! IT’S BEEN STOPPED!
I wish I had something more to say now, but I think I got my ranting done with. Opinions and thoughts in Comments, please!
January 25th, 2012 at 11:51 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Counterfeiting_Trade_Agreement
January 27th, 2012 at 10:57 am
Thanks for the run down and your thoughts!
I agree. Even if SOPA gets passed, the internet has constantly proven that, when it has a will, it’ll find a way.
In response to Louis’s link there, which is about ACTA, they are saying that it will be even more serious SOPA/PIPA. I’m actually going to take the time next week and give it a read, but the quick scan I did on the wiki page (irony! hah!) tells me that it is basically going to act as the enforcing arm and extension of the TRIPS agreement. But you’re right… All the acts and treaties are designed so that large companies, companies that honestly have other ways to make money, can sue and take down smaller, indie sites and companies.
I actually had this same discussion with my high school Theory of Knowledge class in high school. We were discussing piracy that, really, we found that some of the smaller artists (hell, even the big ones, sometimes) uses free mp3 as was of promotion. 9 inch nails, Ke$ha (for TikTok) and many others use it as a way to spread their music and name. Just look at Grooveshark and Noisetrade, sites that offer these kinds of “free albums” for indie artists. Sure, they are spreading legal and copyrighted music, but eventually, it’ll be hard to tell what file is what without digitally “marking” it (don’t quote me on the science). And of course, a normal person won’t be able to tell what is marked without some sort of signal in the song itself, but that would compromise the quality of music, which is what the artist /is not/ trying to do. My question is this: How would law enforcers be able to tell if a digital file is copyrighted or not without wasted huge amounts of resources (read:money) in order to do so?
You did a great job explaining how it would affect students. Wiki, USB keys… Services like Dropbox, GoogleDocs, and even the Skydrive that comes with UTmail+ (and other hotmail/outlook) services would potentially fall under this. Personally, I would hate to see that my ability to file and and collaborate remotely. Besides, aren’t these acts a bit unrealistic? Sure, they can take down public sites. But what about private filesharing functions like the ones I just mentioned? That is an invasion of privacy, and we all know how touchy /that/ can get.
I would like to see some discussion going on here too. Keep on commenting, people!
January 27th, 2012 at 11:30 am
http://youtu.be/UVw-MH2O6d4
January 27th, 2012 at 10:41 pm
WHY ARE THEY DOING THIS?!?
I feel that as a cultured society we have now the ability to share ideas so much more efficiently and yet they decide to censor it?
The stealing of ideas I understand, certainly to present another’s idea as your own is horribly insensitive and generally unethical. But in the case of the internet, we aren’t portraying songs by famous artists as our own, we’re just sharing it. I mean SOMEONE had to buy it to start the sharing in the first place. Whatever happened to sharing is caring? Where do we draw the borders for this?
I mean, we can agree I suppose that radio stations need to get copyright permission to play a song, so I suppose the “sharing” definition doesn’t carry on there? Really, before we start putting all these anti-piracy laws to work I think we have to, as a society, define what the borders are. And some compromise between the big copyright holders and the internet users has to be reached.
I heard ACTA was signed a while ago by the Canadian government, it was just not well publicized… The thing is though, Canada doesn’t really have any big internet company presence. In fact I think only Blackberry would be the major Canadian tech company on the world market, and it doesn’t really do much internet file sharing stuff. Also, ACTA’s a trade agreement, not really a “law” per say… but potential SOPA/PIPA like laws might come around as a result of it…
In regards to that video: GREAT POINT RAISED! Is it right for companies to essentially “copy” another company’s game but change it in a way to make it more appealing? To add on little minor details that may (or may not) make the new game a hell lot more entertaining than the old?