SOPA and PIPA is not an act on Broadway. They are actually fatally worse than the worst flop of shows. SOPA, Stop Online Piracy Act, and PIPA, Protect Intellectual Property Act, are two bills the US House of Representatives and US Senate are looking to pass to stop copyright infringement from foreign web sites. In theory, in sounds like a worthwhile act, right? Yes, their initial intents are from a good place, but it allows the government to regulate what is still a free, open Internet.
If this act is passed, they will shut down websites that they “deem improper.” It’s like having big brother as your tech support nightmare. Like the drunk ruler who is trigger happy. You get the slippery slope here, but if passed, the Internet may be severely restricted as the government chooses. Websites, such as Wikipedia, are opposed to SOPA and PIPA. SOPA puts the onus on sites, such as Wikipedia, to actively monitor every site they link to and ensure it doesn’t host infringing content. That means if there’s duplicate content on another site, Wikipedia’s site could be potentially shut down as well as the other infringing site. Is that really fair? It’s one thing to come up with such an Act, but another to put the responsibility on the site that is being infringed upon.
How can you protect your website from SOPA? You can go to Copyscape, enter your website, and see if any other sites have copied your content. Then, make it a point to get in technical support contact with the infringing website to remove the copied content. You can also go a step above and sign a petition to go against SOPA and PIPA.
