Mediarun Search Marketing News

The Internet Goes on Strike Against SOPA

By Matthew Kynaston

January 19th 2012

Search Engine Optimisation News

On the 18th January, the world’s largest online hub of knowledge, Wikipedia shut down its English site for 24 hours in protest of the possible passing of the SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act) bills in the United States.

The site states that the acts infringe on “free expression while harming the Internet”, and will be joined in a “black-out” by other major sites such as news sharing site Reddit, browser pioneer Mozilla, Wordpress and photo-sharing favourite Twitpic.

What is SOPA and PIPA?

Essentially both acts are to be passed as a way of cutting down on illegal copyrighting on the internet. Combined, the laws will mean stricter regulations and faster, harsher punishments for websites and domains which contain illegally produced content.

The acts basically enable the US government and major corporations to shutdown sites accused of copyright infringement, and prosecute the site owners, even if it is the case that the site owners have not produced the content themselves (i.e. user generated content). The acts have a lot of corporate backing from the likes of Hollywood Movie Studios and Fox News.

Needless to say, the implications of these acts are potentially catastrophic for freedom of speech on the internet. It supports a movement towards total censorship on a scale not seen before.

"The solutions are draconian. There’s a bill that would require [Internet service providers] to remove URLs from the Web, which is also known as censorship last time I checked," said Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt back in November 2011.

If passed, competition (specifically smaller and foreign sites) will be defenceless against the large corporations. Although not necessarily being shut down, they will be blacklisted in the US, literally knocking them off the Google rankings. Google will be forced to “play ball” as if they are linking to illegal or accused sites they could be susceptible to legal proceedings.

What next?

The debate is set to continue over the weekend and go to the Senate floor on Monday next week. The general feeling in the US is that the bill will not be passed, especially as the Obama administration has opposed the passing of the acts.

Illegal copyrighting is a big issue, and one that needs to be dealt with, but enforcing international censorship and shifting complete legal responsibility to site owners is not necessarily the answer.

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