Yes, “sopa” does mean soup in Spanish. But “soup” is clearly not the reason why the entire world wide web was up in arms last week. SOPA stands for the Stop Online Piracy Act: a bill introduced by legislators in Washington that was recently (quietly) disposed of in Congress. If you’re still unclear why this was such a huge issue, and what it all would have meant for internet users, sites, and the entertainment industry as a whole, we can clear it up for you right now.
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WHAT IS PIPA?
SOPA’s predecessor, PIPA, stands for Protect Intellectual Property Act and is targeted at rogue sites providing access to copyrighted material. These bills give the government the right to take legal action against sites seen as enablers for rogue engines.
Surely, you’ve seen plenty of anti-piracy ads before: in theatres, before your remote allows you to hit play on your DVD, and in your standard PSAs, but SOPA is much more than a finger-wagging ad accompanied by snazzy music. The idea behind the bill is to protect intellectual and creative rights holders from piracy by foreign sites (mainly bit torrent sites) that illegal distributing content.
HOW IS SOPA DIFFERENT THAN PIPA?
SOPA is much like PIPA, but would act as more of a blacklist for sites in question. The problem with SOPA is that it would give rights owners the ability to pull the plug on any sites affiliated with the perpetrator with nothing more than good faith that the target offender is infringing on copyrighted material, without having to consider whether or not the material in question is fair use. This gives copyright owners the right to shut anyone down, including small business websites that payment processors like PayPal rely on. In other words, SOPA’s effects would be wide-reaching. Furthermore, the bill’s guidelines are vague enough where popular social networks like Reddit and Youtube may have to undergo radical face-lifts, if not get eliminated altogether, simply out of fear that they may be harboring content that infringes on the bill.
STOPPING PIRACY WITHOUT INFRINGING ON OUR INTERNET RIGHTS
Obviously, piracy needs to stop. It is the number one reason why employees and creatives within the entertainment industry were desperate to see these bills passed, but we think there’s a way to penalize illegal use of content without (a) dismissing fair use or (b) threatening Silicon Valley. It seems like Congress is starting to agree. We look forward to informing you about Congress’s next proposal to eradicate piracy.
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