Sunday, February 19, 2012

SOPA: a case against online content

Sopa, the stop internet piracy act, has created an uproar amongst internet users and members of congress. its attempt to remove sites that link to or contain pirated content was a controversial discussion that many believed would result in far too many sites violating the bill.  If there were to be any trace of copyrighted content on a site where proper credit was not given, under the sopa law, it would be in violation.  in this case, copyright infringement is the area of concern, as supporters of sopa argue that proper credit isn't given on many sites, and there are far too many sites that link to pirated media. Sopa's aim was to combat against these pirating sites, and allow for proper credit to be given to material found on other sites.

In a world of shared content, and a largely accepted and positive outcome by doing so, sopa's issue revolves around the ability to remove sites that are not intending to distribute pirated material.  If sopa were to have been passed, many innocent websites would have to reevaluate their content to ensure they stay within sopa's regulations.  To protest, sites such as google and wikipedia "blacked out" their websites, to symbolize the loss of information that would have been created by passing sopa.  The chaos that the passing of sopa could have created would have turned the internet upside down, and many popular sites would have had to rethink the way in which they deliver content created by others.

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