Besides weird sounding acronyms, Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA) are two proposed bills in the USA started in 2011 that would make the web a darker place to be because of the threat of litigation from old big media companies.

The is the breakdown of what SOPA is all about according to Wikipedia:

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is a law (bill) of the United States proposed in 2011 to fight online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit goods. Proposals include barring advertising networks and payment facilities from conducting business with allegedly infringing websites, barring search engines from linking to the sites, and requiring Internet service providers (ISP) to block access to the sites. The bill would criminalize the streaming of such content, with a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

User-content websites such as YouTube would be greatly affected, and concern has been expressed that they may be shut down if the bill becomes law. Opponents state the legislation would enable law enforcement to remove an entire internet domain due to something posted on a single blog, arguing that an entire online community could be punished for the actions of a tiny minority. In a 1998 law, copyright owners are required to request the site to remove the infringing material within a certain amount of time. SOPA would bypass this "safe harbor" provision by placing the responsibility for detecting and policing infringement onto the site itself.

Source: Wikipedia. (2012, Jan 19).  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act

And here is the breakdown of what PIPA is all about, again according to Wikipedia:

The PROTECT IP Act (Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011 or PIPA), also known as Senate Bill 968 or S. 968, is a proposed law with the stated goal of giving the US government and copyright holders additional tools to curb access to "rogue websites dedicated to infringing or counterfeit goods", especially those registered outside the U.S.[1] The bill was introduced on May 12, 2011, by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT)[2] and 11 bipartisan co-sponsors. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that implementation of the bill would cost the federal government $47 million through 2016, to cover enforcement costs and the hiring and training of 22 new special agents and 26 support staff.[3] The Senate Judiciary Committee passed the bill, but Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) placed a hold on it.[4]

Source: Wikipedia (2012, Jan 19). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PROTECT_IP_Act

With respect to SOPA, it the same old story of traditional media companies who are out of touch with the new way of doing things and bleeding revenues because they can't get a hold on how to stop new media companies such as Yahoo, Google, Wikepedia, Facebook, Youtube and smaller independent content publishers from profiting at the expense of old media.  The old media way of stopping this bleeding is to seek to introduce laws that would effectively work in their favor.  However what old media do not realize is that they can no longer bully their way into getting what they want because the people have a voice now.  It is a collective voice through social media that says we disagree with the ways things have been done in the past.  The people now can self organize and let their government representatives know that it is not just the voice of a selected few group that traditionally would have been painted by old media  as whackos or special interest groups, but many people who do not want to be bullied by old media.

And with the help of new media companies, the government is starting to listen including the President of the United States, Barack Obama.  President Obama said that, the bill in its current version, he would veto it if it goes through.  What old media has to come to grip with is that they must realize that the current law that is in place is good enough and should not be changed.  And besides it being an election year in the US, we have found similar situation in Canada too with the Stop the Meter by OpenMedia.ca http://openmedia.ca/meter  The situation in Canada has also caused the former Industry Minister, Tony Clement, to issue a rare refute of the CRTC to reconsider their ruling that was in favor of the old media companies in Canada charging too an exorbitant amount for Internet use.

However, although there has been success with regards to SOPA, PIPA is not faring so well; the PIPA bill is moving to final vote on Tuesday, January 24th, 2012, but opponents to the bill vow to keep on fighting against them until both bills are dead.

Link:

Center for Democracy & Technology http://www.cdt.org/#

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