You must have been hearing the recent legislations now being presented in the US Senate. What this bill is and what is it about, we shall try to describe here with all the details in a simple manner.
An Introduction:
SOPA stands for Stop Online Piracy Act. PIPA stands for Protection of Internet Protocol(IP) Act. These Two bills were presented in the US House of Representatives on October 26 2011. The initiater of SOPA was Lamar Seeligson Smith who hails from the state of Texas. He now has the support of about 30 legislators. PIPA was initiated by Patrick Joseph Leahy who hails from Vermont. It has the support of almost 40 legislators. The total representatives against these bills are about 123 congressmen.
The Content:
The bills authorizes the United States Department of Justice to seek court orders against the sites outside of USA which are allegedly or reportedly involved in copyright infringement, piracy, selling illegal goods, distributing military artifacts, counterfeit drugs, etc. When the court delivers the orders and declares such aforementioned sites as violators, then the Internet Service Providers, Advertisement Networks and Payment Processors are directed to cut of their ties with these criminals infringing on intellectual property rights. The search engines displaying the links of these sites would also be penalised.
Aims:
- To provide protection to the inventors and authors so that only they can get the credit for the hard work done by them. This will in turn effect the flow of revenue and economy within the US.
- To curtail the distribution of Counterfeit and Unbranded medications and drugs.
- To stop the advertisement of illegal materials including military equipment, intoxicated drugs, etc.
Impacts:
- The US First Amendment guarentees the basic fundamental human rights to its citizens, whereas this legislation would badly effect the freedom of speech by cutting down on the information exchange.
- It would open the door to such laws in future by other countries as well. Very soon maybe some European countries would be placing a ban on the objectionable American sites.
- Online Communities that host the content updated by users would be effected the worst of all. YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo, Flickr, Etsy, etc would be bearing the brunt on behalf of the actions of few of its users.
- E-Commerce would virtually come to a standstill. The advertisements of brands displayed on the sites would disappear with a big blow on their part. Similarly, businesses of the payment processors like PayPal would be in doldrums too.
- The service providers would have to stop rendering their services to such sites. Users in US would be forced to switch over to the DNS servers located in other countries.
- Major stakeholders and the most affected would be compelled to shift their head offices and infrastructures out of USA. This would backfire on the initiaters of the bill having the original purpose to strengthen the economic edifice.
Reaction:
The majority of the Internet Community came down hard upon the legislation terming it as a heinous and draconian bill. Wikipedia, Google, eBay, Reddit, AOL, LinkedIn, Facebook, Flickr, Mozilla, Wired, Vimeo, Tumblr, WordPress, Scribd, Microsoft, Twitter, Yahoo!, NVIDIA and many others have came out with official stances against the bill. They term it as innovation killer and abridging freedom of speech. On the other hand, some organizations and lobbyists are in favor of the legislation. Most prominent include US,Chamber of Commerce, Motion Pictures Association, American Bankers Association, Pfizer, Visa Incorporation, etc. They think that the law really protects the copyright laws and would be helpful in protecting the intellectual properties. The Obama led administration has sought to file a petition against the bill stating the intolerance to internet censorship and infringement of freedom of speech. Many of the politicians are against it and a good number are in favor too.
The Latest
Both bills have been tabled now. Wide Spread Protest are going on. The hearing on SOPA have been cancelled and PIPA is yet to be voted upon. Senator Harry Reid, a sponsor of the bill, tweeted this morning that the vote on PIPA has been postponed till Tuesday in the light of the recent events. So lets wait what becomes of these bills……. And keep your fingers crossed.
Thanks to: Wikipedia TechCrunch Twitter TheVerge
