The Lady Geek's Topic of the Day: The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)

Tales of the Lady Geek:

Greetings dear readers from the wonderful City of Brotherly Love! As of this writing, I have just returned from an awesome walking tour of Philadelphia’s most historical sites.  Clad in my favorite winter gear of gray cashmere sweater paired with a black pencil skirt, bundled beneath a beautifully fitted black woolen coat, red chenille hat, scarf and mittens, and the loveliest suede Ferragamo riding boots, I am a lady brimming over with pride for her country's rich traditions and historical wealth. Sitting in this jovial coffee shop nestled in the heart of Philadelphia’s Olde City section, I am unusually contemplative of this country’s history and fearful for its future.

Sipping on the strong, rich and aromatic coffee I settle in to watch the many caffeine junkies around me enjoying the simple act of logging into their computers and booting up to their favorite websites and I am struck with the thought that at the time of our country’s enslavement to British law, just saying the simple phrase, “I wish America were free” within the wrong person’s hearing would be enough to have you sent off to the gallows in shackles and chains.  

We fought for our freedom and my city along with many people from my city were at the forefront of political change since the very beginning, bravely defiant while facing the constant threat of violence, prosecution and death just to stand up and fight an unjust system. We fought, first quietly in murmurs and secret meetings, then loudly and violently with an intense sense of fairness and the goal of Freedom and Justice for all. That makes me proud, not only to be an American but to be a Philadelphian. 

America is the land of the free and home of the brave, yet on January 24, 2012 we could potentially begin the long slide into a world where America and Communist China would have entirely too much in common for my taste, and our government would be happy about it! The worst part of this is that you’ve probably never even heard about it.

The Lady Geek’s Topic of the Day: The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)

On October 26, 2011, Representative Lamar Smith of Texas and a group of twelve bipartisan co-sponsors introduced the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). According to Wikipedia.com: “The bill expands the ability of U.S. law enforcement and copyright holders to fight online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit goods.”

What Is It?

According to Wikipedia: SOPA“...would allow the Department of Justice and copyright holders to get court orders against websites accused of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement...the actions could include barring online advertising networks and payment facilitators… barring search engines from linking to the sites as well as requiring ISP’s to block access to such sites…make unauthorized streaming of copyrighted content a crime…gives immunity to Internet services that voluntarily take action … while making liable … any copyright holder who knowingly misrepresents that a website is dedicated to infringement.”

The Proponents:

The ones who want to pass this bill say that it will protect the ‘intellectual property market and corresponding industry, jobs and revenue' and that SOPA is a necessary step in supporting copyright enforcement especially against foreign websites. They also say it protects the revenue for content creators, ensuring the encouragement of new writings, research, products and services to remain effective in the twenty-first century’s global marketplace and hopefully create more American jobs.

Finally, there is the aspect of protecting the American People against counterfeit drugs.  John Clark, a spokesman for Pfizer, testified that patients couldn’t always detect cleverly forged websites selling drugs that were either mis-branded or simply counterfeit.  

This means that the people who came up with this bill are saying that it’s only to protect the interests of those of us creators of unique and individual thought and idea’s from having these ideas and thought s stolen without full value recompensed Also that illegal drugs are bad, fake drugs coming in from around the world are even worse and the bill wants to stop that.

Those Against It:

Those against SOPA as it stands, say a lot. They say that it steps all over First Amendment rights, is Internet censorship and will threaten our surfing rights on the whole.  They say it’s a direct threat to online freedom of speech with the potential to have a negative impact on websites that host user content like YouTube, Etsy, Flickr and Vimeo.   

They also say that if SOPA passes, it will revoke the ‘safe harbor’ provision introduced in the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act of 1998, which states that websites hosting content that copyright owners felt infringed on their property would be given a certain amount of time to remove such material.  SOPA would override this by allowing judges to immediately block access to any website found guilty of hosting copyrighted material.

There is also the threat to users, like you and I, uploading content to sites such as YouTube. You know that cute video of your three year old properly reciting all of the words to Madonna's "Like a Prayer"? Imagine a world where not obtaining Madonna’s permission to use the song would result in you losing your freedom, paying outrageous fines and losing your job. 

Not to mention the threats to internal networks and to open source software in addition to the fact that SOPA will be totally ineffective against piracy.

Looked at from any tech savvy perspective, even if the bill gets passed, SOPA will not be able to stop piracy. Edward J. Black, the president and CEO of Computer & Communication Industry Association wrote in the Huffington Post that, “Ironically, it would do little to stop actual pirate websites..."

You see, all websites are accessible through their IP addresses. All any pirate needs in order to circumvent SOPA would be to have their IP address available to anyone who wanted to access their site. In fact some illegal game server hosts, pedophile sites and other real criminals with presences online they are already using this approach, thwarting our policing efforts daily. 

What SOPA Means to the U.S.:

The Stop Online Piracy Act, on the surface identifies two serious problems, counterfeit drugs infiltrating the country and online piracy and tries to solve them. On the very top-most surface of the bill it looks like a win in protecting America from thieves and criminals with nefarious intentions.  Yet when you look closer at it, something just doesn’t add up.

RxRights, a consumer advocacy group, issued a statement saying that  SOPA "fails to distinguish between counterfeit and genuine pharmacies" and would prevent American patients from ordering their medications from Canadian pharmacies online. 

The legislators say that they want to stop online piracy. Yet a recent study suggests that only 7% of all Americans use the internet to pirate, indicating that the rest of us are basically honest citizens willing to pony up a house payment in order to watch a movie or play the newest video game and even to listen to the “Weird” Al Yankovic album . 

Beyond that, if SOPA comes to be passed, the US government must be prepared for other governments to follow suit, creating a limitless blacklist of sites reminiscent of McCarthyism only worse because it would be on a global level. 

What SOPA Means To Us:

Vint Cerf, computer scientist and one of the founders of the Internet as well as Google vice president said it best, “Requiring search engines to delete a domain name begins a worldwide arms race of unprecedented ‘censorship’ of the Web.”

Catina Hyman, Independent Media Consultant based in San Diego, had this to say, “What originally grew out of the legitimate copyright concerns these industries had over illegal online trading and selling of music, movies and other associated intellectual property" has given rise to SOPA, a bill that "seeks to protect film and music copyrights by essentially removing the fun and sharing from our favorite websites and replacing them with...fear and sponsored ads..."

Here’s the deal, SOPA would target an entire website even if only a small portion hosts or links to some infringing content.  Open source software projects that under the terms of the bill could be determined to be aiding online piracy and may be shut down.  On a broader scale, think of all the things you like to share on your Facebook page: links to favored quotes from articles like this one, links to your YouTube playlist, a nifty piece of code someone had placed in Mozilla. All of that is currently in jeopardy as the bill is worded now. If your content and posts cheese off the right person, an entire piece of the internet could be forcibly shut down immediately by government watchdogs.

My Take Away:

I am a very simple woman who’s political views run along the lines of “I know who the current President is.” However, in my opinion, Americans have already given up too many liberties in the name of “Protection”. If passed, SOPA has the potential to do the one thing that Prohibition did not, divide the entire world. If we sit by and do nothing about it, we will be bowing down to the Emperor and pledging allegiance to the United Global Empire within a few short years.

As it now stands, we are currently fighting a mostly silent war in America. Between the "Occupy Movement", the people’s growing dissatisfaction with governmental dealings, and the current financial affairs of our country, I have to believe this bill, if passed, has the potential to ignite us into a fully fleshed out Civil War. Face it, we’ve fought for less and all it takes is a small group of people to start whispering, “Freedom” and that whisper will soon turn to a roar.   What price are you willing to pay in the name of “protection”? 

Written By: MaryAnn Paris 

                    Tech Editor