Last month the Stop Online Piracy Act or SOPA was brought forward in the US. The bill in essence would enable the banning of websites deemed to allow the sharing of intellectual property. This would be done through a combination of blocking the website through ISPs (internet service providers) and stopping interaction with those websites from companies like Paypal and Google AdSense, effectively cutting off their revenue.
The other side of the bill presents a change in who is liable for copyrighted materials. Currently websites which allow user generated content have a notification period after they have been informed of posted copyrighted materials to take it down; this bill however would make the website liable for the copyright as well as the user who posted it.
Obviously this would hit a number of popular sites, meaning they would no longer be able to function. This includes Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, but in reality, all blogging platforms and social media platforms would be wiped out as we know them; either sued into bankruptcy or blocked from all US traffic and search engines.
Worse than this though; for citizens within the US, posting something that breaches a copyright could land them in jail for over 5 years. The other unsuspecting victims of this bill include a huge number of websites; just one offending link on a website could get your site blacklisted from ISPs and search engines.
This whole proposal has been led almost entirely by the entertainment industry in their ever continuing battle to control all platforms their products can be viewed on and kill off anything they can’t control. Their latest push however will cost people far too much. The internet has brought us so far forward due to its open nature that, while the repercussions of this bill are unclear, it would likely cause years of regression. It simply cannot be allowed to pass.
Show your support by signing the petition to stop SOPA here.
