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SOPA: Stop Internet Privacy Act Proposes Internet Censorship To Protect Movie Studios

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SOPA — the Stop Internet Piracy Act — has been presented on the floor of the House of Representatives as a way to protect movie studios and record labels from having their intellectual property stolen or copied online. The Senate counterpart  of the new bill is called the Protect IP Act.  Hearings are currently being held on the proposed legislation.

The idea, however, has come under fierce criticism with many saying that it would lead to the type of  internet censorship found in countries like China. China’s use of internet censorship historically has been vehemently  denounced by the U.S. government.  Those in opposition of the bill have quickly become vocal.

The microblogging website Tumblr  voiced its opposition to the bills with a page called “Protect the Net.”

“As written, they would betray more than a decade of US policy and advocacy of Internet freedom,” said a statement on Tumblr, “by establishing a censorship system using the same domain blacklisting technologies pioneered by China and Iran.”

Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, said the bills would overdo it — giving copyright holders and government the power to unreasonably shut down websites. Furthermore, search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo could be prohibited from linking to them.

“The solutions are draconian,” Schmidt said Tuesday at the MIT Sloan School of Management. “There’s a bill that would require ISPs [Internet Service Providers] to remove URLs from the Web, which is also known as censorship last time I checked.”

On the other hand, Schmidt conceded that piracy is a real problem that Hollywood studios have to deal with.  The Motion Picture Association of America has posted promos on YouTube to plead its case and some have heard its call.

House Judiciary Committee Chair  Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), who sponsored SOPA, claims this bill will help “stop the flow of revenue to rogue websites and ensures that the profits from American innovations go to American innovators.”

Do you feel the Stop Internet Piracy Act will lead to internet censorship?


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