On Wednesday, Jan. 18, many websites plan to protest the MPAA’s efforts to get anti-piracy bills passed. The main site that will black out for the day will be Wikipedia, the largest encyclopedia site on the Internet. The Hollywood lobby groups pushing for the passing of the bills recently spoke out against Wikipedia and other sites that plan to blackout the Internet on Jan. 18 with a statement.
Highlights of the statement include claims that “some technology business interests are resorting to stunts that punish their users or turn them into their corporate pawns, rather than coming to the table to find solutions to a problem that all now seem to agree is very real and damaging.”
The statement concludes with the group stating that a “so-called ‘blackout’ is yet another gimmick, albeit a dangerous one, designed to punish elected and administration officials who are working diligently to protect American jobs from foreign criminals.” They then called on the White House and Congress to tell the websites to stop the “hyperbole and PR stunts and engage in meaningful efforts to combat piracy.”
SOPA
SOPA stands for the “Stop Online Piracy Act.” The bill was presented to Congress in October 2011. The purpose of the act is to allow the U.S. government to stop copyright infringement from rogue sites located outside of the United States. There is a real danger from these sites, located on foreign shores, that steal everything from articles written by journalists to movies and music and face no danger for their actions. This costs writers, musicians, and Hollywood a lot of income.
Therefore, the basis of the bill is good will to protect people who find their hard work stolen and money taken from their pockets. However, “SOPA” is considered too broad by many individuals and websites. According to the Washington Post, Google made threats to quit the U.S. Chamber of Commerce because that organization backed the SOPA bill.
Dangers of SOPA
SOPA would give the U.S. attorney general the power to ask courts to kill websites by ordering service providers to prevent access to subscribers located within the United States, making these sites disappear from the Internet. This is a good example of censorship, although for a good cause. However, the law also demands that the censorship of the site take place immediately, limiting a site’s opportunity to defend itself.
One danger of SOPA is it could undercut Homeland Security. According to CNet, Rep. Dan Lungren said “an ‘unintended consequence’ of the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, would be to ‘undercut the real effort that would practically help us secure the Internet through DNSSEC.’” DNSSEC was designed to protect the Internet from certain attacks, such as DNS cache poisoning. The wording of the law would also make encrypting domains difficult.
Another big problem with SOPA comes in the small print. The wording of the law could require Internet providers to monitor customers’ traffic and block websites suspected of copyright infringement. This could include blocking Internet users from sites like Amazon, Google, eBay, and various other sites if they are accused of copyright infringement. With the way the law is worded, the sites could be blocked immediately and then have to go to battle to defend themselves or go out of business.
Thanks to the wording, Wikipedia has charged that the act is an “Internet Blacklist Bill” that can be used to “allow any government or corporation to block a website, remove it from a search engine, and/or cut it off from payment processors or advertisers.” While the original thought going into SOPA was well-meaning, the wording became dangerous. That is why, on Jan. 18, Wikipedia, among other websites, will be blacked out in protest of the bill.
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