The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), Essay Example

Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) was introduced with the intention of protecting copyright on the internet. SOPA has been especially backed by the entertainment industry (Simone) as they claim piracy costs them billions of dollars of losses each year. SOPA has been faced with an intense opposition and it is not difficult to understand the reasons. First of all, the bill is too general in nature. Second, the nature of the internet as well as the users’ browsing habits would make violations too common an occurrence.

It is no surprise that some of the internet giants such as Facebook and Google have come out against the bill. There are hundreds of millions internet users and violation by even a single customer may have legal implications for the websites in question (Simone). Policing of internet users is very costly in terms of time and money if not impossible. SOPA should also not become a law because it may punish innocent offenders such as those who didn’t post any copyright material but their website was used by others else to post a copyright material. A just law should establish a relationship between the crime and the criminal and one cannot be responsible for the irresponsible behavior of others. Prosecuting a website owner whose website might have been used to post copyright material will be akin to punishing the gun manufacturer because its product was used by a third party to commit a murder.

Another problem with SOPA is that it is not possible for content websites to know every single user of their websites (Patriot-News). Internet provides anonymity and data can be easily faked. In addition, users come from all over the world and each country had different laws while SOPA’s jurisdiction will be only within the U.S. SOPA can only work if websites publish their own content but that is not a reality for a significant number of websites. Even if content companies can force U.S. users to register they may not be able to do so in case of international users. So the other option is to ban international users which will only hurt the websites themselves and may even drive them out of business. Thus, SOPA is impractical and will primarily damage U.S. internet companies.

SOPA may also hurt the internet’s capability to spread democratic values around the world. Facebook and Twitter have been applauded for their roles in Arab revolution and many users shared videos and news articles that they could not have gad SOPA already been in place. In other words, SOPA may hurt the very principles on which the internet was founded.

The potential solutions may be for content websites to centralize content uploading which means only their staff will be able to upload content and not the users. Other solution may be for internet companies to move their operations overseas in order to escape SOPA requirements which will only hurt the U.S. Thus, SOPA is not only impractical but will also have huge economic consequences for the future of internet companies in the U.S. It may even drive away future internet entrepreneurs away from the country.

References

Patriot-News. Raising the alarm: Proposed cure to halt Web piracy hurts entire social media revolution. 19 January 2012. 21 February 2012 <http://www.pennlive.com/editorials/index.ssf/2012/01/raising_the_alarm_proposed_cur.html>.

Simone, Sonia. The Problem with SOPA (And How to Stop It). 21 February 2012 <http://www.copyblogger.com/sopa/>.