The
words SOPA and PIPA have been everywhere on the internet lately . For those who
don’t know what they are , SOPA and PIPA are drafts for two laws that will
allow the American government to shut down any website containing or linking to
copyrighted materials without prior notice and fine them , maybe even
put the people responsible for the website and copyright infringements in jail
. PIPA is a law that forces ISP’s to block certain websites from their users, and
even before mentioning any more details, this is screaming "POLICE STATE ". In
other words , if the American government or a copyright holder deems a website
as a copyright violators it reports it to the American Justice Department , and
if the website domain is within the USA it is immediately shut down , if it’s
not it’s reported to the ISP’s so that they would block it from their users (
of course proxy servers like the ones used during the Arab spring to bypass government
censorship will be blocked too ). SOPA and PIPA have been supported by major
copyright holders ( Microsoft , Apple , Universal Studios etc… ) and opposed by
companies like Google, Mozilla , The Wikimedia Foundation, Facebook etc… most of the general public and the internet
community ( Anonyms , Wikileaks , The Pirate Bay , Whited00r etc…) .
There are four main points of objection to this projects ( four
since people who want SOPA and PIPA not to pass as laws so that they could use
pirated materiel don’t count ):
1. 1. This is
censuring the internet , hence heavily censoring free speech and the freedom of
expression to exaggerated extent ( for example : if a political figure uses a flyer
to campaign it’s agenda, and you edit what’s written on the flyer to use that
flyer in a blog post were you explain what you believe is their true agenda,
the political figure is free to accuse you of copyright violation and shut down
your whole blog and force you to pay a fine for violating their copyrights, it
can also be used by the US government as an excuse to censer all sites they
deem inappropriate for US citizens , such powers could be abused by any corrupted
regime to come ).
2. 2. The US government
has been heavily criticizing the Chinese internet censorship ( all thought it’s
also primarily with the agenda of stopping online piracy ) for years . Also if
the US government does it , and considering its current superpower state , then
all governments will be censoring the internet if they want to without any real
international objection because it will have to be a strong objection against
both the US government ( the one that is so zealous about “freedom” that it
will destroy it’s own economy in a long destructive war “just” to bring freedom
to a middle eastern country ) , and the other government .
3. 3. SOPA is punishing
the whole internet community for the act of one , for example if one
copyrighted video is illegally posted or
was linked to by a video on YouTube , the whole site with all the useful and legal
videos on it will be shut down , or if a blog on blogger contains copyrighted materiel
illegally then the whole domain ( in that case blogger including all its blogs ) get’s shut down or blocked .
4. 4. There is no
prior notice before taking down the “guilty” website .
In the mean
time SOPA and PIPA seem to be pose no real threat to internet freedom because
thanks to the worldwide protests ( online and in the streets ) the draft is almost cancelled ( well postponed but is likely
to be withdrawn or modified ). Some of the most important factors that led to
what is considered today as the internet and free speech victory over the monopolies
are:
1. The White House
objection : president Barrack Obama announced the White House won’t agree on
any law that limits freedom of speech
2. . The online
“peaceful” protests of Wikipedia , Google , Mozilla etc… : Where tens of the
most used websites in the world either blacked out their websites or posted
anti-censorship logos on the “American censorship day”.
3. Anonyms: The lax group of hacktivists who have been
relatively calm since the first quarter of the Arab spring except for some NATO
websites attacked, have threatened to respond if SOPA and PIPA were passed by
the congress . The Megaupload shut down by the American department of justice
got them furious and responded by taking down websites belonging to the
Department Of Justice , the FBI , the copyright.gov website and several key
entertainment websites ( the RIAA foe example ) in an attaq considered the
biggest ( by targets and number of Anons participating ) in history .
Hopefully , the
congress will get the message and the bill won’t be passed .
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