SOPA: The Bill That Takes Away Rights

By Hamze Mah and Alex Almedia

SOPA is as disastrous to the Internet as the terminator was to John Conner. The Stop Online Piracy Act is a bill that strives to demolish the right of Internet users.

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is a United States bill presented by U.S. Representative Lamar S. Smith to expand the ability of U.S. law enforcement to fight online trafficking in copyrighted and counterfeit goods. The law would extend existing criminal laws to include unauthorized streaming of copyright material, imposing a maximum penalty of five years in prison for ten pieces of music or movies downloaded.

At first glance the Government appears to have a positive aim for the protection of Internet users. However, in actuality, they have serious potential to negatively affect the Internet as its known today. SOPA was created in order to pit a stop for online piracy, with the entertainment industry having serious concern with how many people are illegally downloading their video and audio content without payment.

Gabe Newell the owner and founder of Steam, the largest PC game service has stated “Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem.” Newell’s plan to combat piracy is simple; provide a service superior to pirating. Newell exclaims that piracy is a non issue for their company and would even advocate piracy for people unable to afford certain games as he has done in the past.

The opponents, who consists of many anonymous Internet users and leading websites such as YouTube, Wikipedia, and Google state the proposed legislation threatens free speech and innovation, and enables law enforcement to block access to entire Internet domains due to infringing material posted on a single blog or webpage.

When asked on his opinion on the matter senior Matt Megenis proclaims “I thought it was a terrible idea because it’s invasive to people’s privacy.”

Many hundreds and thousands of websites have already fought to drive SOPA away. Facebook users and Sites across the Internet have already begun showing their protest of these bills by censoring their logos or either completely taking down their sites.

Wikipedia showed their protest by “blacking” out their webpage on January 18–19, 2012. In place of articles, Wikipedia showed only a message in protest of SOPA and PIPA asking visitors to "Imagine a world without free knowledge."

While the Obama administration has opposed SOPA for the time being, the incredibly similar bill PIPA is still waiting to be approved, and has plenty of support. No one knows how the future of the internet would look like after the election of 2012. Weather the future government would deny or approve these acts is unknown. However, judging by the consistent panic and uproar; we can expect horrendous outcomes happening if the bill is passes.