Online piracy has become a hotly contested topic since the conception of the Internet. Our virtual realm is perceived as a cyber playground where information roams free, mingling from continent to continent and spreading to complete strangers all around the world. Moviemakers and musical artists witnessed their material circulating through cyberspace uninhibited by price or regulation. Aiming to rectify these copyright violations, the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) would place power in the government’s hands to shut down entire websites without any concrete justification. Tackling online piracy in this manner could open the door for another conflict: the question of information censorship.
In protest of this act, some websites are aiming to “go dark” according to an article on CNN. Wikipedia and Reddit are two of the more well-known names that will temporarily go offline today. Should SOPA pass, search engines will be required by law to censor suspected websites from their search results. Websites that are unaware of a random individual posting illegal content could be held responsible for a crime they did not intentionally commit.
Thankfully, the backlash toward the radical move has intensified. The White House finally commented on the issue, declaring they would not be in favor of legislation that would be “tamper[ing] with the technical architecture of the Internet through the manipulation of the Domain Name System (DNS).” While it is by no means outright condemnation, the lack of support is clear. The bill will have to transform dramatically in order to gain acceptance from many who celebrate the free flow of information sharing unique to the Internet.
Even if the bill is successfully passed, no one can be certain it will provide a viable solution to online piracy. If one website shuts down for pirated content, it will only be a matter of time before another one goes online. This legislation will only serve to intensify the cat-and-mouse chase currently occurring between web regulators and pirated content. No one wants to see movies or music being circulated unlawfully, yet this bill may only aggravate the issue at hand as opposed to solving it. If the government has the power to censor the web for piracy, who can say censorship won’t grow to encompass a whole host of other web content the government may deem unsuitable? Here’s hoping these websites going offline today don’t encapsulate a worrying future for our virtual domain.
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I thought this was interesting in lieu of reading this on the day of the blackout. I find it necessary to stress my disappointment in the reference to CNN, primarily due to the lack of national attention of SOPA/PIPA in major news outlets. Does this also refer to the fact they signed on as SOPA/PIPA supporters? Perhaps. Perhaps not. In any case, as one who kept nudging reddit threads and, LJing, tumblin’, diasporin’ and tweeting about the blackout, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, et. al are late bloomers who finally caught wind of the black-out now good enough to qualify as sensational to cover. I don’t intend to accuse the authors of crediting CNN with SOPA/PIPA’s coverage, but the less popular news outlets that provide immediate respite from our exhausting media system deserve props for sharing information over a week ago: The Atlantic, Time, the Verge, CNET, Opensource, etc.