Will the Internet Be a Victim of SOPA or Vice Versa?

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog post about an onslaught of attacks against the Internet that would have the Web become a victim of various laws to regulate published content – a situation that, to a certain extent, was inevitable. (To continue, I will cover myself with the cloak of morality.) It is a fact that the Internet is a paradise of sins: illegal downloads of music, books and movies; child pornography; infidelity; fraud and defamation. But at the same time (shaking off the morality cloak), it is an impressive source of knowledge, real-time information and connections to resources, social networks and social encounters. In truth, does the little regulation there is of the Internet really do us good, or should something be done? SOPA is a proposed law that would like to answer this question, though it may perhaps end up buried under billions of dollars.

SOPA, or the Stop Online Piracy Act, is a Republican attempt (wrapped in the cloak of morality) in the United States to regulate the abuse of copyrighted content. Its aim is not evil; the objective is to credit the owners of commercial or artistic property. The law contains valuable proposals such as requiring web pages to list contact details for authors (the majority of pages don’t list this information or even mention when content is replicated), which would permit authors and copyright holders to report misuse of their content, which is also valid (various websites fire off content from my blog and what hurts most is that they don’t even credit me). However, the main problem has to do with sanctions and the way the law is applied: Since SOPA places responsibility on sites with user-submitted content, if a Twitter user publishes a photograph that violates copyright, a good lawyer could take Twitter down for its “criminal activity.” On the issue of sanctions, these range from blocking pages so that they don’t show up in results on search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo!, to other sites disabling links to “criminal” sites, to the permanent removal or freezing of financial accounts, profits or donations (look at the WikiLeaks case). This means, with the law’s protection, sites could lose all their money in a matter of minutes. If you think this law is unjust already, there’s still much more to learn, because in addition to the economic sanctions, it proposes jail time – up to five years for downloading songs, books, or movies – and furthermore enables the government to spy on users under the pretext of enforcing the law.

The onslaught didn’t come out of nowhere. It was spurred by support from businesses like Warner, EMI, Sony, Pfizer, etc. They were worried about piracy acts that are strongly hurting their profits, but they didn’t count on the existence of relatively new businesses that are more powerful, such as Facebook – worth more than $5 billion – Google, Amazon, Wikipedia or Yahoo!, corporations that would have more financial worries if the SOPA law were approved. The difference is that a giant like Google has more green to assure the elimination of SOPA – and make it seem like an accident – than a record label does to put pressure on members of Congress to approve the law. The other option is media pressure, with sites like Wikipedia in English or WordPress going on strike on Jan. 18 by blacking out their Web pages for a complete day in protest against the discussed law.

The day of truth will arrive on Jan. 23, when the law is voted on. Let’s not forget that the pressure will increase in coming days from social networks, and that the Internet stands to lose more money than record producers. Because of this I have no doubt that the proposed SOPA will fall short, but it will leave behind the remains for a new law initiative.