SOPA, PIPA and the Internet
It amazes me how many organisations and companies are fighting against two anti-piracy laws that might be passed in the US government - the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA).
You’ve probably seen the Wikipedia Blackout as a protest -
as well as Wordpress’ censorship -
If you’re still wondering what those two bills are about, both are bills which aim to strengthen intellectual property protection, by removing the sites which host the copyrighted material, instead of the content itself. While it is argued in favour of the bill that if passed, it will encourage innovation and content generation, this can potentially be devastating to the supposedly free nature of the Internet itself, and content-based sites like YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr etc.
While I personally do not agree with the censorship of the Internet, like what happened in China, the passing of the bill might be beneficial as Chinese companies like Baidu and Weibo started flourishing after the ban of Google and Twitter. Nevertheless, I believe that the Internet should be 100% free, and the freedom of the internet (like free speech) should be a right, not a privilege.
For now, torrents are going to get tougher.
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