What are SOPA / PIPA?

SOPA - Stop Online Piracy Act - (Bill full Title) -To promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation by combating the theft of U.S. property, and for other purposes - It is a US bill introduced into the House of Repersentaives on October 26, 2011. It was drafted so that US law enforcement would have more flexibility in fighting online piracy in the form of copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit goods.

PIPA - Protected IP Act - (Bill full Title) - Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011 - It is a US bill introduced to the Senate on May 12, 2011. This bill was rewritten, from the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) in 2010 that did not pass, so that the US Government would have more tools to prevent websites that sell counterfeit goods, primarily foreign registered sites.

  

Both Acts were to pursue this by way of courts order advertising agencies, payment facilities, search engines, and Internet Service Providers block links and access to sites that offer such illegal material or services.

As you would expect there were supporters and Opponents of these Acts. Among the many supporters of these Acts were :

www.Viacom.com

• National Cable & Telecommunications Association
• Independent Film & Television Alliance
• American Federation of Musicians
• Nashville Songwriters Association International
• Viacom
• NBCUniversal
• Pharmaceutical Companies
• and many others

                                                                                           

The supporters stated the following PRO's to these Acts:

• Protect
• Intellectual-Property Market and corresponding Industries
• Jobs and Revenue
• Conterfeit Drugs
• Bolster the enforcement of Copyright laws



www.americanexpress.com



 Among the Opponents of these Acts were:

• Facebook
• Ebay
• American Express
• English Wikipedia
• Reid Hoffman (founder of LinkedIn)
• and many others

The Opponents stated the following CON's to these Acts:

• Freedom of Speech
• Innovation
• Internet Integrity

Even though Both Bills have never been passed due to the outrage from the opponents on the grounds of Censorship, the government continues to try to come up with some kind of control that would assist with the prevention of Online Piracy.

Next time: Reaction to SOPA / PIPA