Piracy is A Problem, But the Stop Online Piracy Act is Not An Answer

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The internet is one of the few things in the world that is truly all over the world. Millions use the internet every day for more reasons than one person can think of; to connect with family and friends, find information for a research paper, or to achieve the perfect chicken marsala recipe. The internet is made up of a mass expanse of web content and copyright, which is where online piracy comes in. Online piracy is the illegal use or distribution of copyrighted content, such as music, films, and can even include pharmaceuticals. Millions of dollars are ripped off every year from the illegal downloading of just music. Millions of dollars that are stolen from the industries that make most of their money from copyright. There are already laws in place to fight piracy, including the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) that was enacted in 1998. Though it has made an impression on stopping online piracy there are a couple things that restrict the act; it only has jurisdiction on American websites and is outdated compared to our fast paced society.That is why in late 2011 the House of Representatives introduced the bill H.R.3261: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).
The goal of this bill is innocent: to stop online piracy and protect property on the internet. SOPA was designed to give the Department of Justice “the ability to require US-based internet service providers (ISPs) to prevent users from accessing foreign piracy websites and force payment companies or advertising companies to stop providing their services to piracy websites” (“Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)” 2). Those websites that do infringe copyright illegally would find themselves in court with fines from $200 to $150,000 per infringement. What makes the bill controversial is...

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...rity risks or disrupting the underlying architecture of the internet” (Phillips). If SOPA is ratified the Domain Name System (DNS) would have to be reprogrammed to filter through websites for infringement. Reprogrammed could be understood as writing some more code for the program, but on a major scale. It could leave the DNS vulnerable for cyber attack, at the same time also putting security policies outdated. It would also make users utilize DNS servers that are not guaranteed safe and reliable. SOPA is not guaranteed to work in the first place anyways according to Elmira Bayrasil, who wrote in a Forbes article that “Entrepreneurs in the developing world are faced with insurmountable obstacles that get in the way of operating their enterprises...Entrepreneurs in the developing world find ways around the roadblocks, which is the only things SOPA will be” (Bayrasil).

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