These sound like the names of cartoon characters in my opinion but nope. SOPA and PIPA are the two most hotly debated bills in Congress. SOPA, “Stop Online Piracy Act,” is the House of Representative‘s version of the bill and PIPA, “Protect IP Act,” is the Senate’s version of the bill. Now, these bills are not identical but they have some similar characteristics. Basically SOPA and PIPA are the federal government trying to protect the copyright owner’s interest in their material. These bills give legislative backing to law enforcement doing a number of things: blocking web content, blocking foreign IP addresses, and other things. There are a lot of critics and a lot of supporters of these bills, but the thing that bothers me most is the lack of oversight for these bills. Who’s job is it to decide what is a dangerous website, who is maliciously stealing, and who isn’t. These bills take away many creative outlets that are known and loved including many YouTube videos and websites like Reddit. Now I, like most of my generation have dabbled a bit in downloading, and heck I write a blog. I post links and photos that I try to give credit to, but sometimes I am forgetful. Not malicious about it though. I see these bills doing the opposite of their intended purpose. Instead of protecting businesses, they are going to stifle the creativity that America is known for and not allow it out. We are a 21st-century society, everything is online and available to see in minutes, the music and film industry should embrace the 21st century and move on, they have their own problems already.
