How SOPA May Affect You

If you haven’t already heard of SOPA or PITA, they are bills that have been presented to congress
that are designed to stop online piracy. In fact, SOPA stands for Stop Online Piracy Act (creative,
right?). Internet sites like Google and Wikipedia are protesting SOPA and PITA because of the
monumental effects those bills would have on the internet community.

The purpose of this article is to raise awareness of what the ramifications would be if SOPA and/or
PIPA were passed into law. First, we’ll explain the basics.

The Problem with SOPA

Since we’re established that online piracy is an issue that needs to be dealt with, why is there a
problem with SOPA? The problem is that SOPA punishes the wrong people.

With the current laws, any user can post content to a user-generated site, like YouTube, Facebook,
and Wikipedia. If the contend is considered illegal, that user is then reported and punished by the site
and the content is removed. This system allows for users to post freely unless they get caught and
the sites don’t get punished if action is taken ASAP.

SOPA would change the system by punishing user-generated sites for “facilitating copyright
infringement.” In extreme cases, the government can shut down the site. Other punishments include
taking the site off search engines and preventing other site from linking to it. Essentially, the bill would
be punishing the wrong people.

To make it simple, let’s compare this situation to a library. If an illegally written book is placed in a
library, according to SOPA laws removing the book and banning the supplier isn’t enough. The
government can actually take extreme action and essentially burn down the library if they decided the
library was facilitating copyright infringement. All the beneficial information would be destroyed
because of one book.

Take Action

If you are opposed to limiting free speech on the internet, take action now and join the protest. There
are numerous petitions you can sign and links to contact your local representative. Search around and
make a stand today.