SOPA Sings of Censorship

On the surface, it looks like a blanketing solution to protect the intellectual property of media companies that was taken straight from the script of communist China. H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act, a 78-page bill, is a frightening reminder of how far the entertainment industry and the legislative branch have fallen behind the digital age.

H.R. 3261 has been the biggest fuss among digital junkies, bloggers and internet titans, since it was first introduced before the House of Representatives by Congressman Lamar Smith on Oct. 26.

If passed, SOPA will give the Department of Justice power to force internet service providers to block access to foreign domains that host copyrighted material, requiring search engines to make flagged websites undiscoverable, and cut off monetary transactions with infringing websites from customers or internet advertisers within the United States.

According to the Institute for Policy Innovation, and stated in a letter from the Motion Picture Association of America to Congress, "$58 billion is lost to the U.S. economy annually due to content theft."

But the theft of entertainment media is not the only thing that SOPA aims to cut the head off of. In a letter to the editor of The New York Times, Smith explained that the bill only targets foreign websites that are dedicated to illegal activity such as "medicine, automotive parts and even baby food."

Smith criticizes search engines like Google, claiming that the internet giant makes exorbitant profits by "directing" consumers to illegal websites and calls Google's opposition to the bill "self-serving".

Internet giants Google, Facebook, Twitter and eBay, along with a total of 83 other major websites, made it clear in a letter to Congress that SOPA was a larger threat to innovation and free speech than piracy.

The letter states, "all censorship schemes impact speech beyond the category they were intended to restrict. This is true in China, Iran and other countries that censor the network today."

Popular websites like Reddit and Cheezburger are participating in a blackout protest today, during which the sites will be shut down and replaced with links to resources on the legislation. The founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, hopes to get Wikipedia on board with the growing-list participants.

Any Internet-savvy consumer born in the ‘80s or ‘90s will tell you that piracy is a very real and common reality. Foreign websites, such as The Pirate Bay and Demonoid, make it extremely easy for anyone with a high-speed connection to download virtually any movie, music album, or game in a matter of minutes or hours via peer to peer sharing system. Since these domains are hosted overseas, outside of United States jurisdiction, they are not subject to any current copyright laws.

To the generation that has grown up largely socialized by the information superhighway and witnessed its emergence from AOL to Google Chrome, from HTML to YouTube and Adobe Flash, equating Internet piracy with physical theft and loss of profits seems far-fetched.

One has to wonder why it's suddenly more convenient to slap a piece of legislation on what is ultimately the burden of the industry in a capitalist society to provide a convenient and affordable service. When did it become more desirable to buy prescription medications from across the globe instead of down the street? Why is our government more concerned with protecting economic interests than preserving freedoms to the fullest extent?

There is no question that intellectual property should be protected. But, as written, the potential harm of SOPA to the integrity and future of the internet outweighs what it is trying to protect. Unlike the entertainment industry that opposed the DVD, pirates, just as any other "criminals," will always find ways to adapt to the current climate while industries will find ways to tailor the world to fit their interests.