SOPA Explained

If you haven’t heard of SOPA before, you probably have now.

What is SOPA? SOPA is an acronym for the Stop Online Piracy Act.  Also known as also known as H.R. 3261 it’s a proposed bill aiming to crack down on copyright infringement.  SOPA’s sibling act is the Protect IP Act (PIPA).  Proposed in the House of Representatives in late October, SOPA and PIPA would give the U.S. government unprecedented power to order block, take-down, or restriction notices to foreign websites found to hosting pirated content, such as movies and music.

Many popular sites including Wikipedia, Reddit, WordPress, Google, Craigslist and others protested SOPA by blacking out some of their site content.  SOPA supporters say the bill is meant to revamp archaic laws that don’t adequately prevent criminal behavior in our 2.0 world.  SOPA critics say it’s writers don’t understand the Internet to appreciate the ramifications the legislation will have.

Presently, sites have been required to remove specific copyrighted content if presented with a properly filled out DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) take-down request. The notices are required to indicate exactly what pages the content is on, and prove that the filer is indeed the owner of the content.  SOPA and PIPA don’t contain provisions to actually remove copyrighted content, but rather censor the links to the entire domain.

219 clients should be aware that we are monitoring SOPA very closely and any possible effects on the day-to-day operations of our websites.  At this time, clients should not see any difference in their service or how their website operates.

For more information, we recommend reading Reddit’s blog linked here.

If you have questions about SOPA or PIPA and how it may effect your website, please contact the 219 Group by clicking here.