SOPA?

When I first heard the word SOPA the first thing that came to my mind was that it was a disease I hadn’t heard of before like HIV or AIDS. Then I started hearing people talking about it and realized that I was wrong. I was so curious to know what this abbreviation meant so I immediately started searching.

What is SOPA?  To my surprise ,it is not a disease or anything strange as its sound leads us to believe. In fact, SOPA is a “Stop Online Piracy Act “ . It is an anti-piracy bill introduced by the U.S. congress on October 2011 which grants movie studios and record labels the right to remove foreign sites against whom they have a copyright claim.

How will SOPA actually affect us if it passes? IP owners can take action simply by notifying Google or PayPal who have five days only to abide to this blockade. This will lead to sites being blacklisted on the internet. The potential for abuse is also high. For example, Google could remove any rival domains claiming that they are hosting copyright material. SOPA gives them this right without getting permission.

This is appalling . We have to do something about this. We have to support and advocate the anti- SOPA movement. We, the children, rely on the internet everyday and for everything: our homework, movies, YouTube , and facebook. The internet was built on the principles of freedom. These principles will be marred and diverted by SOPA. We have to continue defending the ant-SOPA movement, but at the same time, regulations should be put to prevent the theft of other people’s work.   

Well, now that you finally know what SOPA is , how do you feel about it ?