SOPA: Where do you draw the line?

A lot has been made of the new SOPA and PIPA bills that are currently on the floor of Congress. But if you’re like me, you haven’t really figured out exactly what they are, or how they will affect our current internet use.

So I did some digging, and found out.

SOPA, or the Stop Online Piracy Act, basically is designed to tackle the problem of foreign-based websites that sell pirated movies, music and other products on the web. So, at its roots, it sounds like a good deal. According to the Motion Picture Association of America, hereafter the MPA, 13% of adults have watched pirated movies online, and this illegal action has cost Hollywood billions.



With the national debt rising by the day, billions of dollars shot into the economy sounds pretty good to me.
There is a flip side, however. SOPA allows private entities, such as the MPA, and government entities, such as anti-piracy groups, to monitor the use of these foreign sites. This will without a doubt reduce our privacy, and give the government more control over what we do online and how we do it. Not to mention, its the classic “where do you draw the line?” debate, if the government can control foreign-based websites, who’s to say they can’t start censoring what we post?

The supporters of this bill are, no surprises here, big businesses and the government who want to stop piracy, generate more revenue for the American people, and reduce the problem of copyright infringement online. The people against this bill are foreign based websites, also including social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, who allow their users to upload and create material that may be in direct violation of the new laws. Also, search engine giant Google, and the world’s largest encyclopedia Wikipedia, are in opposition to this bill due to the fact the most of their content is user-generated, and therefore potentially infringement material. Those two sites had a blackout yesterday, where their material was not available to the public for 24 hours.

So, what is the right answer here?

It’s a tough decision. You’re going to have people very passionate on both sides. Some of my friends have tweeted, started Facebook groups and signed petitions to send to Washington against this bill, and a few of my friends have told me that this is good for American business, and should be passed immediately. I myself am very torn.

I think if this bill was put on the Congress floor and I was voting on it, I would vote it into law.

The main reason I would agree to this is because I personally live within the framework of the law when it comes to downloading foreign sites and abusing copyright infringement. I have never once downloaded music illegally, all 7600 songs on my iPod are from CD’s, cassettes and yes, even records that I had converted to mp3′s. Not one song was downloaded illegally!

When it comes to watching videos online and TV shows, I typically only use sites sponsored by the show itself, or a network website. For example, I use southparkstudios.com to watch South Park, and tbs.com to watch Family Guy. If SOPA was enacted this very second, my internet usage would not change a lot.

Another interesting thing to think about. The only people who complain about mandatory drug tests at the work place are the people who take illegal drugs. Sure, drug tests are annoying, and potentially could be viewed as an invasion of privacy, but if you’re clean you don’t really care. If you don’t do illegal things online, you won’t have a problem following the “new” laws put in place by SOPA.

What I find very interesting is that some of the people who are concerned with privacy online are the very same people who post ridiculous thing about themselves that make one think they are not very concerned with privacy at all. For example, the world doesn’t need to know just how drunk you are on a Monday, and if you’re tweeting that you clearly don’t really care who knows. You’re telling the government doesn’t already check those things? And if not the government, prospective employers? You are not concerned with privacy, you just want to keep your ability to download movies, TV shows and music illegally.

So, in conclusion, where do you draw the line? Government entities might be able to control what you put on the web, but that isn’t going to stop me from using Facebook and Twitter exactly the same way I do now. Or Google, for that matter. I really don’t like the idea of censorship, but I don’t think it will get that far. If stopping illicit activities online can help save our economy, and open up the job market for me when I graduate from college, sign me up. What do you think about the bill?