Before I get started with this eye-opening post, let me take a quick second to introduce myself. My name is Charlie Joslin and I'm a political science senior as well as the Social Media Marketing Manager for ASU Student Media. I've decided to start this tech blog so I can better inform students and other readers about the fast paced and ever-changing world of technology. So now that you know why I'm here, let's get going.
If you've been paying attention to any news over the last few weeks, and more specifically, Jan. 18, you have probably seen this thing called "SOPA" and wondered why so many people were up in arms about it. The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and it's Senate counterpart, the Protect IP Act (PIPA) were two bills that had good intentions of giving the federal government the power to go after online piracy by foreign websites and protect U.S. jobs and intellectual property. Our friends at the Khan Academy explain the bills as simply as anyone can. But like the video shows, there are many unintended consequences which could have done serious irreparable damage to the Internet as we know it.
Like they explained in the Khan Academy video, the wording of the bill was so vague that almost any site, including a U.S.-based site such as, say, YouTube or Facebook, could be taken down if someone felt that their copyright had been infringed upon. Now this situation would have been an extreme one, but nonetheless possible if SOPA had passed. This threat to free speech and the Internet was taken seriously by major tech companies such as Google and Facebook, who came out in opposition to SOPA/PIPA. Wikipedia, Reddit and many other sites blacked out last Wednesday in protest. I personally believe the web should be free and open, as cliché as that sounds, because it still has so much potential left for being one of the greatest inventions in human history.
While the main supporters included big-name publishing companies and even the NFL, the ones who put the most time and effort into trying to get these bills passed were the movie and music industries, or as they've been commonly referred to in this debate, Hollywood. Former Senator Chris Dodd, who is now the CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), led Hollywood in spending millions of dollars in lobbying to get these bills introduced and authored.
Piracy is an issue and trying to control and regulate the Internet is the wrong way to deal with it. The main reason why online piracy exists is because those online pirates have found a way to provide a better service than Hollywood. They’ve hit a point where they must innovate or collapse. Once Hollywood provides a better service than the online pirates, things like SOPA won't even cross people's minds. MG Siegler said it best.
As of writing this, SOPA and PIPA have been pulled by their sponsors and will probably be scrapped. SOPA could be rewritten, given a different name, and reintroduced within the next few years. So we can celebrate this small victory, but the war will continue.
