American government wants to propose a new bill to prevent internet privacy ,movies, music ,basically internet privacy has been a real head ach for most companies as theirs revenue are cut short cause most of the common people outside US aren’t buying enough stuff but downloading it off the internet .So some of the private corporation has intended to stop this and along with the help of the government they are focusing on passing a new bill witch gona be call as “protect IP” the bill will be passed as SOPA (Stop Online Privacy Act ) what it does is simple shuts down the websites which offers unauthorized stuff like movies, music, TV show, online books off the internet preventing these websites are completely accepted but there’s another problem most of the web sites are outside US jurisdiction so the bill cannot go on shutting down the web sites which are outside US jurisdiction so what the government has planed is to do is .One of which is allow access to US’s ISP providers to block out some the domain names which might share unauthorized content , The government can sue the web sites which include search engine ,blogs ,forums ,file sharing web sites if any link are found which leads to the unauthorized website finally the bill allows the government or the corporations to cut off the accounts of the web sites and funds and advertisements on those websites. On the whole this bill might work but what it also does is giving more power to the government which can intern encourage censorship and lota people will be affected in the name of censorship , watch the below video which explain the bill.
WHAT MIGHT GO WRONG:
Most of the website giants fears that a lot might go wrong if this is passed,everyone should be on a high alert cause anything might happen like sudden fine,law suites or ever lose their business altogether, if they continue to have the same formats for instant YouTube or Facebook cause the law doesn’t go along with it so lota companies should start to change their entire website in other words format that it works which may not fit this new Bill.
Google said: “We strongly support the goal of the bill – cracking down on offshore websites that profit from pirated and counterfeited goods – but we’re concerned the way it’s currently written would threaten innovation, jobs and free expression.”
Google chairman Eric Schmidt said ” There’s a bill that would require ISPs to remove URLs from the web which is also known as censorship last time I checked,”
Katherine Oyama, Google’s policy counsel said “As long as there is money to be made pushing pirated and counterfeit products, tech-savvy criminals around the world will find ways to sell these products online,” also added “Ordering ISPs and search engines to ‘disappear’ websites will not change this fundamental reality“
1cen 150x89 American Censorship DayGoogle, Twitter and eBay say controversial “Stop Online Piracy Act” would give US authorities too much power over websites
The main concerns for websites like YouTube , Facebook or any another such site is that if there users are posting any link or streams which are unauthorized then the websites are the responsible for their users action and the site could be penalized blocked or even compromised so to save the business the these site might exclude posting or sharing video or find another alternative to do it safe and authorized which could start a another whole bunch of problems. , it would make it harder for Internet entrepreneurs to grown as this ACT will restrict things.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the “Justice Department could ask for a court order to compel U.S. search engines and other sites to block domain names or search results.”
“The worst part of this bill is that the vast majority of the damage will be invisible – it will be all the companies that never start because this bill has effectively killed them.”
American Censorship Day:
Most of the internet giants like Google ,Mozilla, Tumblr are against this bill as the online piracy could create more problem and it will encourage censorship and blacklisting
Companies like Google, Yahoo!, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, AOL, LinkedIn, eBay, Mozilla Corporation, and Wikimedia Foundation, as well as human rights organizations such as Reporters Without Borders, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Human Rights Watch are against this Act
firefox censor1 300x234 American Censorship DayMozilla, parent company of the famous Firefox web browser, blacked out its name on its home page as it reads “STOP CENSORSHIP” against the Act from passing this was also done by most of the companies who are against the Act and this day was named as American censorship day , Tumblr launched a page against the Act, and companies like Google, eBay, Facebook, Twitter ,Wikimedia ,Yahoo are all trying hard to stop SOPA. They issued a formal letter to the lawmakers which said “The bill as drafted would expose law-abiding U.S. Internet and technology companies to new uncertain liabilities, private rights of action and technology mandates that would require monitoring of Web sites,” the letter stated.
The US Justice Department, under the bill, could also request court orders to compel U.S. search engines and other sites to block domain names or search results. But Google told lawmakers that too many innocent websites could fall victim to the legislation without due process. they would not invest in Internet start-ups if new laws allowed websites to be sued or fined for pirated digital content posted by users.
Pits Of the SOPA:
*The government or the organization can block any website at any point of time in the name of privacy or censorship.
*Risk of Jail for Ordinary Users
*One can be held as long as 5 yrs prison time for streaming or sharing anything without authorization and also could be fined up to $2,500. This could happen to anyone, just sing a song share it on YouTube, or Facebook there’s a lots of chance this law could applied on to it.
*It could mean legitimate sites are also blocked, posting can be banned ,sharing could be a different thing altogether. Thousands of sites would face new legal threats.
The Act may be focused on online piracy for now but given the US Justice Department has a powers to shut down any website in the name of censorship might start new issue. A vote on the bill would be decided next month,So tell us your opinion on the new so called SOPA.
