SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (PROTECT-IP Act) are very similar pieces of legislation proposed by the United States Congress that both want to stop illegal file sharing and music downloading.

But it’s widely thought that this power to prosecute ordinary internet users and shut-down entire websites, would be abused. Many people feel very uncomfortable granting such incredible power to movie studios and music companies based on how they’ve tried to tackle piracy in the past, for example; suing children and trying to block the introduction of the video recorder.

Real-World Implications of SOPA and/or PIPA
The real-world implications of SOPA and/or PIPA are frightening. Ordinary people like you and I could actually be sent to prison for uploading something as simple as a party video in which a movie is playing in the background or our friends are singing along to a song on the radio!

Check out this great video on the dangerous implications of SOPA and PIPA:

Power to the press!?
Frightening isn’t it, giving the profit-driven, unscrupulous entertainment industry to power to censor free speech and creativity! It will come as no surprise that the hated media mogul and all-round enemy of freedom, Rupert Murdoch, fully supports the SOPA and PIPA bills as it would allow many of his business interests to censor the internet. Consider for a moment all the unlawful journalistic wrongs perpetrated by his newspapers and the biased, lazy, unsustainable opinions broadcast by his news networks – is this the kind of man you want censoring the internet? Fuck no.

The Great Internet Blackout: Opposition to SOPA and PIPA

Google's anti SOPA/PIPA homepage

Blacked out sites included: English Wikipedia, Reddit, Boing Boing, Google, twitpic, The Oatmeal, Mozilla (makers of Firefox), WordPress, Wired, Minecraft, 4chan and Tumblr.

Wikipedia's anti SOPA/PIPA blackout page

Pretty much every website and corporation involved in The Great Internet Blackout issued a statement on their stance against the SOPA ad PIPA bills, but my favourite is this one from twitpic, the image sharing and micro-blogging service for twitter:

We would not be participating in these protests if we did not think they were for a worthy cause; one that can, and will, harm the innovation and freedom of information upon which the Internet was built.

Facebook did not blackout (preferring shameless greed to a noble loss in advertising revenues), however Facebook founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg did have this to say on the subject of SOPA and PIPA:

We can’t let poorly thought out laws get in the way of the Internet’s development.

US President Barack Obama is against SOPA in its current form, but that thought that SOPA will return in February 2012. PIPA is also still being discussed in the US Congress, and is just as potentially damaging to the free and open internet as SOPA.

What are your thoughts on SOPA and PIPA? Feel free to comment using the form below:

Ta ta!