Opposing SOPA and PIPA

What is SOPA, you ask? Isn't PIPA that girl in England?  If you are asking this, you must not be using the internet.  All day Tuesday many websites went black or had notices on them protesting SOPA and PIPA. 

SOPA stands for Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), also known as House Bill 3261.  The bill, if it became law, would expand the ability of U.S. law enforcement and copyright holders to fight online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit goods.  That sounds good right?  No, it doesn't.  It would also allow the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as copyright holders, to seek court orders against websites accused of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement.  This could include barring online advertisers and payment facilitators from doing business with alleged sites, barring search engines from linking to those sites and requiring internet service providers to block access to such sites.  Many opponents believe this violates the First Amendment and is internet censorship.  Today was a day of action by many websites including Wikipedia, Google and Boing Boing. Google has a petition for folks to sign.

The other part of the protest is 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.  It is a 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.  Trademark and copyright holders who have been harmed by the activities of a website dedicated to infringing activities would be able to apply for a court injunction against the domain name to compel financial transaction providers and Internet advertising services to stop processing transactions to and placing ads on the website but would not be able to obtain the domain name remedies available to the Attorney General.  Basically, this means any private corporation can shut down unauthorized sites especially from outside the US and the unauthorized site can be sued.  It can block access to infringing domain names and cut off funds to infringing websites.    This could include anywhere people express themselves such as social media sites, Youtube and blogs.  Do you trust the government to make decisions about what is acceptable for you to be able to see and read?

If these potential laws rub you the wrong way, sign a petition, call your Representative.