SOPA Act

Introduction

In this paper, we are discussing the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) which is the United States Bill introduced by US Representative Lamar Smith. The bill extends the capabilities of U.S. law enforcement agencies and rights holders in the fight against illegal content on the Internet, trading of intellectual property, protected by copyright and counterfeiting. The bill provisions include the requesting the Court to take action against the payment facilities of the advertising networks from the infringing of websites and linking to the sites including search engines and court orders to block the access of these sites. This law also imposes criminal action against the unauthorized streaming of copyrighted content. This includes a penalty of 5 years (Brendan, pp. 56). The Internet sites such as search engine Google and Yahoo and social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, portals, eBay, YouTube, Wikipedia and Mozilla have showed their opposition towards this Act. On December 16, 2011, they held a joint protest against censorship. If we follow the letter of the law, then two thirds of the sites can be safely shut down, since they use the borrowed texts, movies, and most importantly photos and pictures.

History and background of SOPA

During the French Revolution in the late 1700s and early 1800s the Napoleonic wars held the economic times against the rough times due to the devastation and destruction. During the industrial revolution the workers were unhappy as their work was replaced by machines. It was when a group of angry workers organized into a paramilitary group and sustained the temper and tantrum which destroyed the machines like mills and looms which was destroying their right of doing labor. The end of this event took place when the British government smashed the movement by executing key participants. This movement and campaign was mainly ...