Anti-Piracy legislation in Congress found itself back in the spotlight today as sites like Wikipedia, Reddit, and others shutdown in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA).  If Congress approves these acts, critics on both sides of the aisle say the US will step toward Chinese government-like censorship of the web.  Of course, proponents of the bill say that those criticisms are overblown and that SOPA and PIPA will only serve to bolster the entertainment industry and create jobs.  Here’s a look at the over-simplified pros and cons of both SOPA and PIPA:

Pros

• The government is more capable of pursuing copyright violations that occur on the web.
• It gives the government more authority in prosecuting those who produce counterfeit goods and sell them online.
• In theory, it will boost revenues for the entertainment industry, which has suffered greatly from online content theft in recent years.

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Cons

• Major websites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube will be forced to patrol user content to ensure it doesn’t contain links to pirated content.
• New internet start-ups will be more reluctant to locate in the US when they can choose countries with less restriction.
• Could potentially push jobs overseas when US internet companies relocate to avoid strict regulation.
• The three cons above are important, but the main protest point is that SOPA and PIPA represent the government extending its reach into our lives at a previously unseen level.  Basically, it starts the US on a slippery slop of censorship with the question being: if they can control our internet, what can’t they do?

Of course, the pieces of legislation are much more complicated, but that’s them in a nutshell.  To me, it seems that the two acts, while well intentioned, won’t solve the real problem of internet piracy while still creating excessive hoops for website owners to jump through to ensure they’re in compliance.  Internet piracy is a real problem that drains hundreds of millions of dollars from the entertainment industry, but this form of government meddling is not the solution.

Further Reading

• Pros and Cons of the Keystone Pipeline
• Why is Andrew Sullivan so Dumb?
• The Legacy of Margaret Thatcher
• Governor Haley Barbour Defends 215 Pardons
• A Conservative Look at The Non-Existent War On Christmas

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