SOPA Protest Day

January 18^th. SOPA protest day. If you don't know what SOPA is, that's partially why I'm here. Partially.

Why only partially? Because, to my shame, I must admit I really don't know that much about SOPA and PIPA. Up until this morning I had a vague idea about what the bills were and what they would do. I also got the feeling that much of the internet-using world didn't think it was a good idea. This morning I found out a lot more. Let me share what I know.

First, if you're really out of the loop, let me explain what SOPA and PIPA actually mean. SOPA is the Stop Online Piracy Act and PIPA is the Protect IP Act. They generally sound good, don't they? And this is the whole problem. Almost anyone who supports these, SOPA in particular, likely don't have a clue. All they know is that it supposedly is going to stop online piracy, which, judging by amount of time and effort spent on such a project already, is more important to track down and stop than offline criminals. You know, the kind that pull out a knife or a gun and inflict bodily harm. The question is; have they been successful thus far? The answer is; no.

Let's face it folks; the internet is the internet. Trying to stop piracy, which admittedly runs rampant on the web (depending on how you define it), is like fighting a hydra. Cut off one head, two more grow. Which is where SOPA comes in. Basically up until now, websites could be yanked by US Government (provided they were run by something or someone under US jurisdiction) if they were blatantly infringing copyrights. One example I knew quite well was a website that provided streaming links of live, televised sports; my brother, dad, and I used this website quite extensively before we purchased a television. This year, at the beginning of the NFL season, we were not at home for the kickoff game, and the online package we had just purchased from NFL.com did not allow Canadian users to watch nationally televised games. Upon pulling up the URL of the website we were greeted with a small wall of text over a patriotic background explaining the site had been yanked due to copyright infringement. This allows me now to make two points; first, the site still exists at another URL now and, as far as I know, is still operational. Second, this is what will happen to the web with SOPA in effect, only on a much, much larger scale.

But why? Why will this happen? Basically, under SOPA the US Government has the right a DNS block any website with potential of copyright infringement. And not like a temporary ban or until removal of content in question. At least, as far as I understand. In addition, it need not even be posted, supported, or endorsed by the website; any user could post a comment with some questionable material (in regards to copyright infringement, of course) and boom, that's enough to incur the banhammer. Put it this way; I have never broken copyright rules on this blog, have I? But all it takes is one of you guys to post a comment with an image of copyrighted material and bye-bye blog. Sounds great, doesn't it?

Here's the real kicker, though. Admittedly this is a bit of a secondary/tertiary source here, but according to an informative video I watched (which is below), the people in Congress voting on this bill don't even know what they are doing. As in more so than usual. They don't know much about the internet, they don't realize what the fabric of the internet is like, they don't know the whole world and culture that has sprung up and thrived on the internet, spanning the whole globe. Those who do are voting against it. That basically tells you what you need to know about that.

That's all the time I have for now, I'll probably write about this again at another time.

 Disclaimer: I have not yet watched the full video.  There may or may not be language in it, but the first half at least I know is pretty clean, depending on where you draw the line.  All that to say, you have been warned.