SOPA & PIPA Are Dead. Go Ask Your Kids What It Is.

SOPA is dead the news of the day says …and good riddance. Texas GOP representative Lamar Smith’s bill (originally co-sponsored by 31 representatives) was supposed to be designed to fight online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit goods. However, the powers to stop this type of piracy were so broad that the internet as we know would have ceased to exist. Anyone linking or in any way promoting a website that engaged in these crimes would be under the gun to be pulled off the web. Wholesalers, retailers and the general public – if they haven’t already – need to understand what SOPA is.

This is how SOPA was designed to work:

The intellectual property-rights holder must first notify, in writing, related payment facilitators (such as Paypal) and ad networks (such as Google Adsense) of the identity of the website, who, in turn, must then forward that notice and suspend their services to the identified website, unless the so-called violating web site provides a counter notification explaining how it is not in violation. The “rights: holder could then sue for relief against the website owber, if they receive counter notification, or if the payment or advertising services fail to suspend service in the absence of a counter notification.

The final section covers penalties for streaming video (such as Youtube) and for selling counterfeit drugs, military materials or consumer goods. It would have increased penalties and expand copyright offenses to include unauthorized streaming of copyrighted content and other intellectual property offenses. Criminalization of unauthorized streaming of copyrighted content would have a maximum penalty of five years in prison for ten such infringements within six months.

This bill would have effected more than just the big players like Google and Craigslist. Any website knowingly or unwittingly that contained links to outside websites – which may or may not have copy right infringing material – could be taken down. An ecommerce drop shipper could face charges for items their website displays. A website with a forum that anyone in the public and use to discuss topics could be done away with.

Are we not a country who believes in innocence until proven guilty? We treat corporations like people when it benefits Big Corpa to do so. Many smaller businesses operate websites that are used for ecommerce or contain outside user generated content. All of these businesses will be criminals …without the burden of proof being placed on the accuser.

PIPA is the Senate version of the bill. It was actually proposed months before SOPA was, however its language limits the websites that can be effected are those whose goal is only to support the intellectual property rights, anti-digital rights or counterfeit good violators. The goal being to stop websites such as ThePiratesBay from being viewed in the United States. However, PIPA could still be abused by large corporations choosing to hinder competition by smaller wholesalers and retailers. Wholesalers and retailers would need to provide detailed evidence that they do not infringe on any copyrighted material that the accuser may own. That burden of proof would be very difficult to manage for a small business with limited means to hire lawyers.

The difficulty if PIPA were to pass is quite similar to SOPA and includes language in its bill that would make it so domain name servers would be forced to stop a website from being seen by the public. All an accuser would need to do is make claim to the courts that they have made a diligent effort to contact a company they feel has infringed their copyright and that the accused company did not contact them back. Large media corporations – particularly the film and music industry – could hamstring innovation and start-ups of competing websites by making infringement claims with little basis.

These past several weeks have seen a rallying cry from a diverse range of internet users. Free speech advocates, e-commerce businesses with international contacts, large internet search and directory companies such as Google and Yahoo and others have come together to oppose both SOPA and PIPA. Many websites – including Wikipedia, Craigslist and others held an official day of protest on January 18th, 2012 blacking out their sites all together or at least their front pages. These and other efforts to reach out to the public have seemingly worked. US Congress was overwhelmed with the cry and hue from American citizens opposing these bills. But they are not actually dead yet. Merely shelved to be re-written and resurrected in the weeks to come when the public’s attention span has lapsed.

The American public – no matter their political stripe – has grown tired of the onslaught against their Freedom of Speech and other rights being watered down. We have seen the courts swing back to the side the general welfare of the public with the Federal Appeals Court ruling that video recording the police in a public place is a constitutional right for all U.S. citizens. American companies dependent on the internet can only hope that the courts will rule in the best interest of all … and not the lobbying groups of a few big moneyed industries.