SOPA
On the heels of the major conflict SOPA brought regarding freedom on the internet is some sad news for many. Megaupload, everyone’s favorite file-sharing site was shut down by the federal government. Like a true soap opera, this only happened shortly after it was revealed that Megaupload’s CEO was none other than Swizz Beatz, successful producer, NYU professor, and husband to the talented and gorgeous Alicia Keys. This came out in a video advertising Megaupload with the backing of several major celebrities. The site’s founder, Kim "Dotcom" Schlitz, has been jailed along with many of Megaupload’s employees. While Schlitz has been known to have a shady past, many are in the dark about what Megaupload employees are to be charged with.
Protesting is so 2011, but that doesn't stop Wikipedia from blacking out their entire English-language site today to protest two pieces of proposed US legislation. Sue Gardner, Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director posted an open letter to the public on Monday claiming that these laws "would seriously damage the free and open Internet, including Wikipedia."
The first is circulating around the House of Representatives and is called the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Basically, the goal of this bill is to restrict access to sites hosting pirated content and therefore decrease copyright infringement on the web. It's hard for US companies to target our favorite foreign sites that host illegal movies, tv shows and music. So, SOPA aims to discourage advertisers from placing ads on the sites as well as flag certain links so they don't appear in search engine results on sites like Google, Yahoo and Bing. Opponents of the bill say it's essentially promoting censorship and becomes a slippery slope if we free-speech-loving Americans are denied access to even a single site on the web.
News about SOPA has been making its way across the internet in the last few weeks, with good reason. The passing of SOPA, or the Stop Online Piracy Act, would change the very face of the internet. The bill was introduced in the House of Representatives in October in an attempt to expand the ability of U.S. law enforcement and copyright holders to fight online trafficking of copyrighted intellectual property. While protecting copyrighted material seems fair, the act itself will allow federal law enforcement to seek court orders forcing ISPs and search engines to filter domain names and block websites accused of copyright infringement. This is dangerous territory because it not only makes censorship very easy to seek as a result, but something that could be widespread across the internet.
 |
 |
 |
 |
