Notes:
- I saw a lot more reasons than just 2 for being against SOPA, I’ll probably make a new post/Rant on SOPA without the constraints from the school later when I feel like it (and maybe extend it to Protect IP).
- This is #2 because this *is* the 2nd assignment that my teacher has given to me about Intellectual Property (First one: http://zhurai.kaihouinc.com/posts/644-school-assignment-on-intellectual-property which is just some random prompt about old copyright infringment cases in the last decade like by Napster/Grokster, which is different to this assignment)
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Discussion on SOPA
The discussion on Intellectual property is a very real discussion – even in the current news very recently with the SOPA and Protect IP Acts. I will be mainly focusing on SOPA. SOPA stands for “Stop Online Privacy Act” which is a law proposed in the House to combat piracy of Intellectual Property. This Act grants copyright holders (the people with Intellectual property) the controls and ability to cut off funding of essentially any website by contacting the advertising and financial companies without the intervention of any sort such as contacting the actual copyright infringer (who might not be actually infringing), as well as without due process of law.
There are several arguments for and against SOPA. SOPA supporters have called people against SOPA as “pirates” when this is a logical fallacy – There are quite a few serious issues in SOPA’s text that the whole technology industry is worried about, that the content industry has failed to look over, even making such companies like Microsoft and AT&T to be against SOPA. Even in the physical sphere, librarians have been noted to be against SOPA for certain clauses within SOPA’s legal text. Defenders of SOPA have been noted to say that the bill is only for the “worst of the worst” of the offenders, however the definitions on the bill would’ve been more tighter and specific, instead of being as broad as it is on the bill currently. On the other hand, people against SOPA have had many different comments, such as SOPA actually tries to change the definition of “Willful” infringement, by making it that every infringement is actually considered willful (even those that you didn’t mean to infringe, you are now somehow “willfully infringing” on their content). Other reasons include the fact that even Universal Music included the personal website of one of their top artists, 50Cent, as a site “infringing on their Intellectual property”. Personally I dislike this law because it not only tries to censor the Internet (which is almost impossible in the first place), but is actually trying to regulate the Internet as a whole.
References
Masnick, M. M. (2011, November 23). Microsoft’s cold feet over sopa behind bsa’s ‘rethinking’ its views. Retrieved from http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111123/11042416888/microsofts-cold-feet-over-sopa-behind-bsas-rethinking-its-views.shtml
Masnick, M. M. (2011, November 23). When even the strongest copyright defenders recognize that sopa goes too far... Retrieved from http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111121/00275816849/when-even-strongest-copyright-defenders-recognize-that-sopa-goes-too-far.shtml
Masnick, M. M. (2011, November 22). The definitive post on why sopa and protect ip are bad, bad ideas. Retrieved from http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111122/04254316872/definitive-post-why-sopa-protect-ip-are-bad-bad-ideas.shtml
Parham, D. P. (2011, November 15). Sopa gives me powers that i don’t want. Retrieved from http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111115/01142516772/sopa-gives-me-powers-that-i-dont-want.shtml
Masnick, M. M. (2011, November 21). Sopa is not about copyright, it’s about regulating the internet. Retrieved from http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111121/00475016851/sopa-is-not-about-copyright-its-about-regulating-internet.shtml
Masnick, M. M. (2011, November 21). How other parts of the world view sopa. Retrieved from http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111120/22021716846/how-other-parts-world-view-sopa.shtml
Sopa protect ip act breaks the internetme powers that i don. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://fightforthefuture.org/pipa/
Masnick, M. M. (2011, November 18). Sandia national labs: Dns filtering in sopa/pipa won’t stop piracy, but will hurt online security. Retrieved from http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111118/03163416812/sandia-national-labs-dns-filtering-sopapipa-wont-stop-piracy-will-hurt-online-security.shtml
What is protect ip and sopa? [Web]. (2011). Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxPQ320jBLc
