8/2/2019 The soup on SOPA and PIPA by Brianna Owczarzak
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The Delta Collegiate Monday, January 30, 2012 3
Cartoon by Cameron MasseSopa
by brianna Owczarzak
Editor in Chief
There are two bills that aretrying to stop online piracyin
Congress right now.
The Stop Online Piracy
Act (SOPA) is the House ofRepresentatives version,and the
Protect IP Act (PIPA)is the Senates version.
In general, both billsare attempting to dealwith online piracy,
mainlyfocusing on sites thatare hosted outside of theU.S., thus
outside of U.S.legal jurisdiction, saidKimberly Klein,
assistantpolitical science professor.
Klein pointed out thata key difference betweenthe two bills is
the roll thatsearch engines play.
PIPA does not have a pro-vision that would requiresearch engines
like Googleor Bing to remove foreigninfringing site from
theirindexes, Klein said.
To express their views onthe bills, major online web-sites
created The Great In-ternet Blackout of 2012.
About 7,000 websites par-ticipated in the online pro-test on
Jan. 18.
Some of the more promi-nent websites were Wiki-pedia, Google,
WordPress
and Reddit.Some of the websites shutdown their page for theday,
while others displayedvisual statements about thebills urging
online users tocontact their state repre-sentatives.
The blackout was sucha success that PresidentBarack Obama told
theHouse that he would notsupport the SOPA bill.
The House agreed to re-vise the bill and revisit the
issue next month.The blackout not only af-fected the President,
butalso caused dozens of law-makers to abandon the twobills . In
result, the PIPAvote scheduled for Jan. 24was delayed as the
Senatetries to nd a compromise.
Im against the freedownloads but they havebeen trying to put a
stop tothat for years, said KyleLaDouce, an EMB studentat Delta. I
think they arejust taking it a little toofar these days. If we
allow
them to take away this free-dom, I cant imagine whatis next.
Klein agreed that the twobills violate the rights
ofAmericans.
Certainly, there are FirstAmendment rights thatcome into
question, Kleinsaid. The DNS blockingis a way in which the
in-ternet provider can blockusers from the ability toaccess certain
websites inconjunction with an anti-circumvention
provision,eliminating the user the
ability to access sites thatare blocked.
This piece of the legisla-tion may result in websitesthat
feature user-generatedcontent, such as Facebookor YouTube, the
responsi-
bility of making sure nocircumvention informationis posted on
their site, orthey could be held respon-sible, Klein said.
Klein also pointed out thebroad language of the bills.
Another alarming facetof this proposed legislationis the
language of in goodfaith without the benetof hard proof or a
judicialhearing which really opensthe door to an abuse ofpower,
Klein said.
LaDouce suggested thatanyone who wants to put astop to this act
should calltheir senator or representa-tive and tell them why
theyshould not pass these bills.
That is the only way wewill be able to get heardand have a say
in it, La-
Douce said.Klein expressed her con-
cerns of what could possi-bly happen if either of thebills were
to pass.
The level of responsibil-ity this would potentiallyplace on the
owner of thesite is mindboggling,Klein said. The ownerwould be
responsible foreverything placed on theirsite, including
commentsmade by visitors of thatsite.
Certainly, it appearsthat this would give pause
to any future innovators,given the stakes are sohigh. The ripple
effect maybe less invest ed in digita lmedia, and jobs may
moveoverseas to avoid litiga-tion in the U.S.
The soup on SOPA and PIPA
We asked students about theirview on the SOPA bill.
I think its okay how it is fornow.
I just think its asinine.
I signed against it. Its stupid.
Sarah Schenk, 18, Standish
Jessica Ruff, 18, Bay City
Rachel Gillis, 20, Bay City
Eric Sargent, 21, Peck
Danielle Brogen, 20, Bay Cit
I just feel like it takes ourfreedom.
I think that things are getting some-what out of hand. They
should be ableto control whats being accessed by,
like, age.
