World Wide War

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Preventing Real Online Threats

to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act (PROTECT IP Act or PIPA) are two proposed pieces of legislation currently before Congress that aim to fight theft and trafficking of copyrighted information, intellectual property, and counterfeit goods. The bills, introduced in the House and Senate, respectively seek to curb piracy and online trafficking by expanding the powers of the federal government and enabling it to restrict access to and delete content from websites deemed to be in violation of copyright laws. The bills have provoked various demonstrations, both physical and virtual by those who believe that the legislation will undermine freedom of speech and expression and believe it to pose a threat to the very nature of the Internet itself.

PIPA was introduced in the Senate by Patrick Leahy (D-VT) on May 12, 2011.

SOPA, essentially a House version of the bill, was introduced by Lamar Smith (R-TX) on October 26, 2011. The entertainment industry has long railed against peer-to-peer file sharing networks, BitTorrent sites, and streaming websites which give millions of people access to various forms of copyrighted media. Proponents of both bills claim that successful passage of the legislation will help protect the rights of the entertainment industry and allow copyright laws to be enforced more effectively.

SOPA and PIPA would facilitate the persecution of peer-to-peer websites

by increasing the power of U.S. law enforcement. If passed, the legislation will allow both copyright holders such as the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) or the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) to seek court orders against foreign websites suspected of infringement. As the U.S. government does not have jurisdiction over foreign websites, it will use domestic websites and institutions to combat piracy. The legislation will be able to restrict online advertising networks or payment facilities (such as PayPal) from conducting business with certain websites deemed to be in violation. It also gives the Department of Justice jurisdiction of search engines and Internet Service Providers (ISP); search engine results can be manipulated to restrict or omit results from blacklisted websites, and ISPs can be ordered by the federal government to block certain sites. SOPA would, if passed undermine the provisions of an earlier piece of legislation, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Enacted in 1998, the DMCA contains the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act (OCILLA), a vital piece of protection for websites accused of hosting copyright information. OCILLA creates for websites and ISPs a “safe harbor” conditional that reduces liability for those sites and ISPs that adhere to guidelines and cooperate with requests from copyright holders or the federal government. Under DMCA and OCILLA, websites that unknowingly hosted pirated information were protected from full liability but SOPA would leave these sites vulnerable to the full extent of the law.

On Wednesday, January 18, approximately 7,000 websites including Wikipedia,

Reddit and Craigslist temporarily shut off access to users to show citizenry what it would be like if Congress passed these pieces of legislation. Open source websites with huge amounts of user-submitted content like Wikipedia or Reddit would almost certainly come under fire if the bill were passed. The virtual protest, dubbed a “blackout” by participants and observers, sparked an undeniable response. While not shutting down the site completely, Google’s homepage contained a reference to the legislation and a link to a petition signed by 4.5 million people that same day. 18 U.S. Senators who had espoused PIPA changed their positions in the wake of the blackout.

SOPA and PIPA are still being protested heavily both on and offline. Opponents

of the bill worry that the bills with their vague wording and failure to define essential terms such as “intellectual property” will open the floodgates for Internet censorship and First Amendment violations of an unprecedented magnitude. They also worry that the Internet itself will be less secure and steady after constant government intervention.

“People who didn’t create the Internet shouldn’t get to regulate it,” said

Kristen Squibbs (SEAS ‘14). “The whole point is for it to remain open source.”