Learning More about SOPA & PIPA American Bills

Recently some of the biggest websites in the world have come together to show their disdain against the proposed American Bills. Called the SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and the PIPA (Protect IP Act), these two bills were proposed to prevent copyright infringement. Piracy is one of the biggest problems today because almost everything that can be shared digitally can be downloaded without proper credit or payment to the owner. The SOPA and PIPA will try to curtail these problems by expanding the power of the content owner or owners as well as stronger law enforcement.

At first glance, SOPA and PIPA are two very impressive bills because they can help the owners and producers of music, movies, books and anything with intellectual property to get the correct compensation for their effort. However, closer examination of the bill presents very daunting effects on the online community. The potential perils led to various types of online protests. One of the most popular types of protest was done by Wikipedia when their English version went offline for 24 hours.

The effect of SOPA and PIPA if enforced can be very devastating because almost anything can be considered as intellectual property. For example, a kid singing a song by Beyonce in YouTube could be sued for intellectual property infringement. A blog could be shut down simply because of a single post with incorrect attributes on a single picture. Any phrase or implication of illegal file sharing could also cause some legal problems.

SOPA and PIPA will practically curtail free speech and expression. Fortunately, the congress put a stop on the bill because of the overwhelming opposition of the online users. For now, people are safe online because their freedom is never curtailed in a virtual environment.