Reactions vary to SOPA and PIPA

The online community rose in protest to the government's attempt to end Internet piracy, but students, teachers and entrepreneurs question the long-term effects.

The Stop Online Piracy Act, recognized as SOPA, was introduced in the House of Representatives on October 26, 2011. The bill was created "to promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation by combating theft of US property and for other purposes," according to govtrack.us.

SOPA is currently in the first step in legislative process. Introduced bills go to committees to deliberate, investigate and revise them before they proceed to general debate.

The Protect IP Act, known as PIPA, was introduced May 12, 2011, and is described by govtrack.us as "a bill to prevent online threats to economic creativity and theft of intellectual property, and for other purposes."

PIPA was considered in committee, which recommended it be considered by the Senate as a whole.

Samantha Quist, founder of TaskHatch, a Silicon Valley startup and former Google product manager, is in favor of SOPA and PIPA fighting online piracy. Despite her agreement with their main goal, Quist said the bills are doing more than fighting piracy and is instead limiting freedom of speech.

As she understands it, SOPA and PIPA not only make it illegal for pirates to distribute illegal content, but they also make it illegal for any website to assist in distributing that content. Finding it "unreasonably vague," Quist said Google could be in violation to linking to a site that distributes illegal content.

"The day we limit the information that it's legal for Google to disseminate to us is the day we adopt the same kind of Internet censorship policies that countries like China and Iran use, and the day we abandon freedom of speech," Quist said.

Charles Davis, Associate Professor at the Missouri School of Journalism, is also opposed to the proposed bills. "They are essentially firing nuclear weapons at mole hills," he said.

Davis said the bills would be a serious and direct threat to freedom of speech, which is the reason why the Internet community rose up as a whole.

Taylor Shaw, second year technical theatre major, said SOPA and PIPA are "poor choices" for our country further ruining the economy, invading privacy, and threatening free speech.

Alexandria Zylstra, coordinator of legal studies at Stephens, said because the U.S. already has criminal laws that address the problems of domestic and foreign companies hosting illegal websites, these laws, focus on choking off funding.

Zylstra said that the bills do not pose a free speech problem, but do invite litigation, tying up the courts.

She heard criticism that because both laws allow private copyright holders to sue to stop funding, there's a fear it's going to lead to huge numbers of lawsuits being filed by television networks, music labels and movie houses that want to protect their copyrights. Payment providers and Internet advertising companies would be forced to shut down funding to foreign companies, creating a "flood of litigation."

The effectiveness of the bills to end piracy is apparent, but the implications of SOPA and PIPA have some in fear of unintended consequences of the legislation.

Davis, a "prolific blogger," immediately said he wouldn't be directly affected by the bills was unsure how it would affect his blogging. Posting photos and videos on his blog as well as Facebook comes naturally to Davis, but he said he could have posted pirated content and not even known.

Davis has the same fear for students because music and videos are posted, and material is constantly forwarded.

Shaw fears that if the bills were passed, it would affect what material she could print for assignments and what resources teachers could show in class to further illustrate points.

"This is frightening stuff for Internet entrepreneurs like me," Quist said. "We can't afford to face the wrath of the federal government."

Quist said entrepreneurs who are trying to build something from scratch often start in a garage with no money or legal resources. Launching new websites would no longer happen unless a big legal team would be needed to prevent accidentally linking to a page that might just appear to promote piracy.

Google would also have to alter its business to adhere to SOPA and PIPA.

Quist said they could try to censor just the illegal sites and none of the legal sites, but accidentally linking to a site that can be seen as promoting piracy would leave them in "big trouble."

"For fear of breaking the law, Google will have to be overly cautious and censor more websites than necessary," Quist said. "This could lead to much more web censorship than the laws ever intended in the first place."

Zylstra, in contrast, doesn't think the bills will have any affect on anyone at Stephens.

"They only target foreign copyright violators so unless someone here is accessing illegal websites to begin with, that's the only people it's going to affect," Zylstra said.

She said the only other people they should affect are those who own an Internet payment provision company or an Internet advertising company. She said there have been criticisms that companies that provide legal and illegal content will be shut down from too much litigation.

Alternative solutions for ending piracy have been introduced and have gained media attention.

Zylstra said a representative from California has proposed a law in the house called OPEN that tries to address some of the complaints about "what's left of SOPA and PIPA."

OPEN, the Online Protection and ENforcement of Digital Trade Act, is said by govtrack.us to "amend the Tariff Act of 1930 to address unfair trade practices relating to infringement of copyrights and trademarks by certain Internet sites, and for other purposes."