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Wikipedia BlackoutToday, 18th January 2012, is a sad day for both the internet and for information seekers. In protest against tow internet privacy acts in the US, Wikipedia has gone offline for 24 hours. The acts in question are SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act – currently going through the US House of Representatives) and PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act ndash; currently going through the US Senate).

What are SOPA and PIPA?

pThe two bills currently circulating in the US are designed to protect intellectual property. They are supported by large media corporations including the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), and a number of manufacturing companies including Nike. They claim that these bills are needed to protect their intellectual property and trademarks.
The argument by supporters of the bills is that their intellectual property (films, songs, images, trademarks etc.) are spread across the internet for free without risk of punishment and want to bring in stricter controls to stop piracy and breach of copyright. That all sounds fair enough ndash; after all it is illegal to distribute copied goods both on the internet or in person ndash; however opponents of the bills claim a number of chilling side effects will occur including:

Loss of Free Speech

America is the lsquo;Land of the Freersquo; right? Well, many opponents of SOPA and PIPA (including Wikipedia) claim that if either bill is passed then the US will begin to resemble China and North Korea by restricting the flow of free information and deciding who sees what. Sites such as Wikipedia are not condoning copyright infringement (although many sites are) but are claiming that the bills will give legislators the power to shut down or bury sites that only spread licensed information. The main argument is that the internet should not silence free speech simply to gratify rightowners.

Harsh Measures for Small Crimes

At the time of writing this blog, a 23-year-old British student is fighting his extradition to the US to face piracy charges for running a website that linked to other sites offering pirated content. The student did not link to the pirated content himself and there is no proof he even watched or used any of it but even linking to other sites that link to pirated material is currently a crime in the U.S. Richard Orsquo;Dwyerrsquo;s defence is that he hasnrsquo;t broken any British law but this has been rejected and it is highly likely he will be extradited.

Opponents of SOPA and PIPA believe cases like this will increase dramatically if the bills are passed as the U.S. scours the globe trying to find people who are breaking their copyright laws and so costing the big media companies money. How far will they go to prosecute people for sharing links, images and content? It has also been claimed sites such as Wikipedia, Twitter and YouTube could be shut down if people are sharing copyrighted content. At the moment they are self-moderated and try to take down content as soon as possible, but this doesnrsquo;t seem enough for the backers of SOPA and PIPA who want to be able to use their own measures.

What do you think about SOPA and PIPA? Protecting against internet piracy and the illegal spread of intellectual property or is the U.S. Government considering bowing to the commercial interests of media corporations at the cost of free speech?

This article was written by Silicon Beach Training, lovers of the internet. Our SEO Training and Social Media Training courses in Brighton only teach ethical practices that won’t have you extradited to the U.S. on piracy charges.

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