home

= = =SOPA and its implications to education=

First of all, let start by defining what these acts are all about.
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) are two bills that sound like they have a mildly positive aim but, in reality, have serious potential to negatively change the internet as we know it. While the [|Obama administration has come out against SOPA], effectively shelving it indefinitely, the very similar PIPA bill is still alive and well. Both SOPA and PIPA put power in the hands of the entertainment industry to censor sites that allegedly "engage in, enable or facilitate" copyright infringement. This language is vague enough to target sites you use every day, like Facebook and Google, making these bills a serious problem. Here's what you need to know about the bills and what you can do about them.

Media companies are always looking for new ways to fight piracy. They've tried [|suing individual users], getting Internet service providers to [|take action against subscribers], and working with the U.S. government to [|shut down domains] based in the United States. But none of those actions can stop overseas websites such as The Pirate Bay and MegaUpload from infringing copyrights, or prevent Internet users from accessing those sites. Enter SOPA, in the U.S. House of Representatives, and PIPA, in the U.S. Senate. Both bills are aimed at foreign websites that infringe copyrighted material. The bills are commonly associated with media piracy, but [|may also apply to counterfeit consumer goods and medication]. Originally, both bills provided two methods for fighting copyright infringement on foreign websites. In one method, the U.S. Department of Justice could seek court orders requiring Internet service providers to block the domain names of infringing sites. For example, Comcast could prevent its customers from accessing thepiratebay.org, although the underlying IP address would still be reachable. This [|ISP-blocking provision] was a major concern among Internet security experts, and both SOPA and PIPA have dropped it.

media type="youtube" key="tzqMoOk9NWc" width="425" height="350" The other tool would allow rights holders to seek court orders requiring payment providers, advertisers, and search engines to stop doing business with an infringing site. In other words, rights holders would be able to request that funding be cut off from an infringing site, and that search links to that site be removed. The site in question would have five days to appeal any action taken. Although the House and Senate bills are similar, SOPA is the more extreme of the two. It defines a "foreign infringing site" as any site that is "committing or facilitating" copyright infringement, whereas PIPA is limited to sites with "no significant use other than" copyright infringement. More details on SOPA and PIPA are available through the Library of Congress website.