With the advent of the internet, the World Wide Wide, and rise of broadband, users' ability to communicate and share information has drastically transformed. In 2012, a user can find music or movies online as easily as they can share files through email with friends and family. With such ease of accessibility, users all over the world can share any information they wish, with little time sacrificed. But this ease of access does not come without consequences. The government has taken witness, and attempted to stop online piracy with the push to enact strong copyright legislation. This gave birth to COICA in 2006, ICE in 2010, and PIPA and SOPA in 2011.
COICA and ICE caused controversy and had opposition from NGOs, scholars, technology press, and internet engineers. It was criticized for taking down websites that were merely linking to infringing content. But, no other piece of legislation received more criticism than SOPA. The criticism SOPA received not only showed the extent of how flawed the legislation was, but how much of a voice internet users had and the influence of their impact.
The Stop Online Piracy Act, SOPA, was first introduced on October 26, 2011. According to the Bill's summary, the goal of the bill was to authorize the Attorney General to seek a court order against websites that contained infringed content. This would take place in two steps. The service provider of the domain would receive written notification to suspend services to the domain, if the service provider failed to do so, the government had the right to commence action for limited injunctive relief against the owner. But this is easier said, than done. Because of advancement of technology and the fast moving pace of the internet, it is not so simple to keep track of what sites are legally abiding by the rules and what sites are not. There are too many sites out there to monitor. The actions of this bill were not thought out well. It also received tremendous opposition from majority of internet users. Clearly, this bill would cause more harm than good.
According to Mike Masnick, and statistics, a new study shows that majority of Americans are against SOPA. As Masnick explains in his article, "New Study Shows Majority od Americans Against SOPA; Believe Extreme Copyright Enforcement is Unreasonable," he states, "one of the talking points we've been hearing about SOPA from the lobbyists pushing to get it approved is that the majority of Americans are in favor of the bill, because they want to "protect" intellectual property of jobs. This has never made much sense, since SOPA doesn't protect jobs at all. It destroys them, by hindering one of the few parts our economy that has been creating jobs -- new and small businesses, particularly in the tech community." As the results of this study show, 56% of people surveyed oppose government involvement in blocking access to infringing material. This number is increased to 64% is the word censor is used. Regardless, this is still the opinion of more than half the survey sample. Masnick also argues that if ISPs, social media and search engines block access to infringing content, some legal content would also get blocked. He goes on to say that even SOPA defenders admit that this is true. Only 36% surveyed say this is acceptable form of copyright enforcement. By enacting SOPA, infringing content is not the only content lost, some legal content would be too. Cost and burden for legal services would also increase, making it harder for new businesses to have a chance. As the study also shows, if legal streaming services were available, there would be less piracy. There would be 55% less music downloads and 64% less movie downloading as numbers show. How could 55% less music downloading and 64% less movie downloading be bad for the economy if legal services were available?
If the statistics aren't "loud" enough, then the ringing of telephones should be. According to Bill Herman's article, "A Political History of DRM and Related Copyright Debates, 1987-2012," this is exactly what happened on January 18, 2012 when the fear of SOPA's enactment was steadily climbing. There were eight million attempted phone calls to Congress and four million emails written. Members phone lines were flooded and their sites crashed with citizens wanting to express their discontent with SOPA. But, phone calls play a lesser part in the SOPA Blackout. Tt was the censorship and blacking out popular visited sites that hit home. Websites such as Reddit, Tumblr, and Wikipedia, the 6th most visited site in the world, went dark, and encouraged users to do the same with their personal pages to display anti-SOPA/PIPA messages. The SOPA Blackout was loud and clear, and by January 20, 2012, Senator Majority Leader cancelled the scheduled cloture vote for the bill. This goes to show what a united effort from citizens can achieve.
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