What are PIPA and SOPA you might ask?
Well, you’ve come to the right place. PIPA and SOPA are anti-piracy bills
inspired by Hollywood. (Piracy is the unauthorized use or reproduction of
another’s work.) SOPA is an acronym for Stop Online Piracy Act and PIPA stands for Protect IP Act.
PIPA and SOPA are two different
bills that were written to help block and prevent acts of media piracy. The
laws were directed towards foreign websites and aimed to lower the number of
stolen copies of movies, music, apps, and software downloads. The most infamous
illegal website was the Pirate Bay and one of the reasons Hollywood began to
promote the PIPA and SOPA laws.
Technically these laws sound like
they could really do well on the Internet, but they could also be misused. If
the government doesn’t like a website for some reason, theoretically, they
could close that website down. It would also give them the power to control
searched items that pop-up and what can’t. If these laws had passed, however,
then large numbers of websites could have been blocked or taken down just
because the government didn’t like the information provided on the site.
Even though I don’t think the government should be able to
take websites down at will. Media piracy should be located, the creator
determined, and even possibly the website deleted. I also believe that
individuals caught pirating should be sued for restitution and provided a fair
trial.
Without PIPA and SOPA, Internet
companies and Hollywood are always trying to invent new ways to fight media
piracy. Companies have tried suing individual users, getting Internet providers
to take action against subscribers, and even having the U.S government shut
down fraudulent media domains. PIPA and SOPA would have meant possible shutting
down of websites like Google and YouTube, because they allow users to add their
own creations and possibly pirated material. It was estimated that 7 million
people signed the Google petition against PIPA and SOPA, even though these
bills were promoted by Hollywood and use to create a blacklist for websites.
Many people believe that the world
has not seen the last of PIPA and SOPA. I agree also that these bills will come
back and strike again. The bills are meant for sites that foreign organizations
use to allow citizens to illegally stream or download movies, music, videos
etc. There is no reason to fight over the bills, but instead we should have
legitimate discussion about how best to prove that preventing piracy is a
worthy objective, although, this is not the best route to resolve the problems
with the online piracy act.
In conclusion, I chose to be against PIPA and SOPA. If these laws
had passed then you would probably not be reading this right now. The
government does not have the power to block websites in a foreign country. In
protest of PIPA and SOPA Google, Wikipedia, YouTube, and other websites blacked
out and asked Internet users to fight against the bills.
http://lifehacker.com/5860205/all-about-sopa-the-bill-thats-going-to-cripple-your-internet
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