Blog #6 - Internet Censorship

The Internet, which began to be publicly accessed only about twenty years ago, has become more embedded within our present culture, nonetheless, our everyday lives. Serving conveniency to our society on a variety of levels, the Internet has undeniably been a major innovation of our time. As a form of media, the Internet, just like television, video games, and music, has received many criticisms regarding to the censorship and regulation of their content. On a more particular level, the Internet, which has lubricated accessibility to copyrighted materials (movies, CD's, books, etc.) has been more recently criticized for the rise of internet piracy, which can be defined as "unlawfully transmitting software or other copyrighted material; or providing infringing material that enables users to violate copyright protection mechanism in software over the Internet" (Student SAT Glossary). 

Noticeably, it seems safe to assume the entertainment industry especially falls victim to the actions of Internet piracy, which has been difficult to regulate without infringing upon the First Amendment and it's protection from censorship. After the unforgettable attack of Napster as a contributory infringer and proceeding another decade of file sharing over the internet, the Stop Internet Piracy Act, or SOPA was introduced to "give more power to the U.S. law enforcement to fight the online selling of copyrighted materials (movies, music) and counterfeit goods..." (Crabtree). Introduced on October 26, 2011 by Texas’ Republican United States Representative Lamar Smith, Smith believes that “online piracy is damaging the United States economy and putting American lives at risk” by accusing “foreign web sites that distribute American-made entertainment and counterfeit products… [for] ‘stealing our profits… our jobs, and… endangering the health of Americans’” (Aaronson).

Although SOPA would enable government to become “more capable of pursuing copyright violations that occur on the web,” and allow “ government more authority in prosecuting those who produce counterfeit goods and sell them online,” which would in turn “boost revenues for the entertainment industry” (McCarty), SOPA would still seem to be more detrimental than helpful to our economy as a whole, especially to "Texas' growing technology sector" (Aaronson).  To exaggerate “the bill will prevent innovations, move Internet sites and services offshore, scare away investors, and make it difficult for sites as common as Google and Twitter to operate,” (Crabtree) but in turn, at least we would make Hollywood more wealthy. 
        While cyber crimes such as internet piracy are undeniably becoming more of an issue that needs to be addressed, I believe the restrictions under SOPA and other such acts, if passed by legislation, would then bump heads with our civil liberties as respected under the First Amendment by censoring "search engines from listing [sites] and [forcing] Internet Service Providers to block access to [sites]" that have been "accused of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement" (Crabtree). After an"Internet Blackout" which attracted attention all over the nation, Congress halted debate and post-poned SOPA. Have we seen the last of it? I doubt it, especially when Internet piracy "drains hundreds of millions of dollars from the entertainment industry, but this form of government meddling is not the solution" (McCarty).

Citations

Aaronson, Becca. "Texan's Anti Piracy Bill Gets Home State Pushback." Nytimes.com. The New York TImes, 12 Jan. 2012. Web. 26 Apr. 2012. <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/us/anti-piracy-bill-sopa-by-lamar-smith-gets-texas-pushback.html?pagewanted=all>.

Crabtree, Travis. "SOPA: The Debate in Plain English." Emedialaw.com. EMedia Law Insider, 14 Dec. 2011. Web. 26 Apr. 2012. <http://www.emedialaw.com/sopa-the-debate-in-plain-english/>.

McCarty, Kent. "Pros and Cons of SOPA and PIPA." Thedysfunctionjunction.com. The Dysfunction Junction, 18 Jan. 2012. Web. 26 Apr. 2012. <http://www.thedysfunctionjunction.com/2012/01/18/pros-and-cons-of-sopa-and-pipa/>.

"Student SAT Glossary." Infosat.tamu.edu. TAMU Information Technology Issues Management. Web. 26 Apr. 2012. <http://infosat.tamu.edu/students/glossary.htm>.