SOPA (Stop Online Piracy) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) are two anti-piracy
bills that were introduced by the U.S Representatives with the purpose of having
a more strict control over copyright infringement and Intellectual property
theft. They provide the right to request orders from the court to stop websites
such as advertising websites to have any business to do with infringing
websites. This also includes search engine websites like 'Google' to not include
links connecting to infringing websites.
However, SOPA and PIPA brought a lot of controversy because it had people
who were strongly opposing it while others were in support of the bills.
Opponents of these bills had claimed that it is a threat to freedom
of speech and Innovation in the sense that it would change the way people use
the internet. We do so many things on the internet today, and the internet
itself and the things that we have been able to achieve through it are all part
of innovation. That being said, some of our favorite websites could be taken
down at any time. YouTube is a great example of one of these
websites because most of us visit it often. YouTube is one of the biggest video
uploading and sharing websites which also deals with copyrighted videos often by
taken down the particular copyrighted video. But now, YouTube would stand the
risk of being taken down completely if any of its users uploads a copyrighted
video
Even though people who are in support of these bills are claiming that it
would provide a more stronger protection of the intellectual property market,
and also maximizes the effort of copyright laws, It is no question that our
right to freedom of speech is at risk and also the way we use the internet would
change.
Piracy is bad but people choose to do it every single day. There are very few people though that can say they've never downloaded a song illegally. I think that it's crazy that you could face jail time for piracy if these bills are passed. There are so many websites that would have to be taken down. It would be very hard to prove that intellectual property was stolen because if you type a subject into google, thousands of websites containing that subject appear. The government can already fine you for piracy if they find out. I think that these bills should be scrapped and the government should just do more frequent checks for offenders.
ReplyDeleteYes I agree with you too and I generally think the government shouldnot be involved at all in how we use the internet
ReplyDeleteI do not think that these bills will pass. Like you said, Jacob, so many sites would be shut down that it would cause a public uproar. Yes, the government should create a better way to check for piraters instead of passing these laws and shutting down the sites.
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