By Matt Wahlgren, Editor
The Stop Online Piracy Act was cancelled last month amid controversy.
The bill, introduced on Oct. 26, would have given the government greater authority to discipline sites that were distributing illegal content.
Several web sites like Wikipedia temporarily censored their content to raise awareness against the bill. On Jan. 18, numerous web sites, including Reddit, Flickr, Vimeo and others participated in a strike protesting SOPA. Google covered their main logo with a black box, which, if clicked on, took the user to a page explaining SOPA and asking people to oppose it.
Lamar S. Smith (R-TX) and a bipartisan group of twelve sponsors introduced the bill. It would give the government greater ability to discipline sites accused of copyright violation, like cutting off their advertising or taking over the site. It would also prevent search engines like Google from providing links to accused web sites.
“The consumer has a responsibility to follow the laws. The government doesn’t have the right to shut [sites that can link to illegal downloads] down,” Lynn McHenry, social sciences teacher, said.
The Senate version of SOPA, the Protect IP Act, was supposed to be voted on by the Senate on Jan. 24 but was cancelled due to the controversy.
Opponents of the bill believe it would have harmed web sites like Facebook and Tumblr even for innocent users, since it would be site-wide.
“It infringes upon your free speech rights and therefore it opens the door to mass censorship,” sophomore Daniel Berndt said.
A worldwide agreement known as the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is being debated by a number of politicians and has already been signed by Poland, Ireland and the European Union. ACTA would have a similar effect on the internet. The effect in the United States is somewhat unclear due to the international nature of the agreement.
Proponents of SOPA in the media industry are expected to push forward another version of the bill.