Notes and news, insights and inspiration from the autonomous collective mind of GS.

Today, major parts of the Internet went dark. Intentionally. This was done as a show of protest against proposed legislation that would threaten to break the Internet as we know it. What was being protested? Two pieces of legislation: SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, and PIPA, PROTECT IP Act (Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011).

But what are SOPA and PIPA, and why should you care? 

SOPA and PIPA represent pieces of American legislation that aim to give the Department of Justice direct tools to shut down websites on a basis of "reasonable belief of infringement" alone. This potentially can apply to many cases. Hosting of unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material seems like an obvious case. But even linking to copyrighted material could cause a site operator to be considered as infringing. For example, should your website have an open comment section for site visitors, commentors could, within their comment, link to material that is considered copyrighted. In such a case, the DoJ would have the power to remove your website’s domain name from the Internet, making it pretty much nonexistent. Site operators would have the full responsiblity of moderating ALL contributed content and comments to assure that someone didn't link to their Flickr account containing a scanned image of a professionally taken portrait of themselves (this isn’t always legal to do – really!).

Holding individual website operators responsible for making legal judgments for ALL contributed content could be more than any site operator would care to do. Some wouldn’t even take the risk; they would simply close their user-contributed content capabilities and be done with it. But then there are major sites that represent nothing BUT user-contributed material (like YouTube and Facebook) – which could cease to be. This opens the can of worms of a loss of free speech and the chilling effects that follow.

The fact is that SOPA represents a potential eroding of due process. It will be possible to shut down a website without a full review by a court of law to prove that a law has actually been broken. Should a website represent an online business, the impact could mean the end of that business regardless if there was an infringment or not. Clearly, such a scorched-earth policy is not a case of “let the punishment fit the crime.”

Finally, SOPA may not solve anything. Shutting down potentially offending sites could hurt the innocent and do little to curb online copyright infringement. Also, it has been argued that we have plenty of laws to govern blatant copyright law already. Why don’t we seek to more effectively work within existing parameters instead of seeking a harmful shortcut?

Intellectual property rights DO need to be protected, but it needs to be done better. SOPA and PIPA represent pieces of legislation that are still evolving. The opportunity to have one’s voice heard still remains. With this link you can contact your congressperson today.