SOPA, PIPA, CISPA, What?

Recently a plethora of piracy bills have surfaced. SOPA and PIPA were initially designed for companies to block the domain names of web sites that are capable of, or seem to encourage copyright infringement (but there is still a way to access them through a numerical code) and to allow rights holders to cut off the source of funding of any potentially infringing web site (i.e. advertisements, search engines). The difference between these two bills is that SOPA targets all sites that may have copyrighted material, while PIPA only targets those that are solely copyrighted. What I don't understand is why these bills are needed when we have the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) to allow right holders to request the legal removal of their content. Also, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has the ability to sue perpetrators for copyright violations (e.g. illegally downloading music). The newest bill called CISPA provides a mean for companies and the government to share information with one another to fight against cyber threats. This bill has gained many supporters in Congress and in the corporate world. CISPA transfers the burdensome task of regulating its user's content and activity to a government entity and this makes a company's job more simple. The reason why companies like Facebook and Microsoft are supporting CISPA rather than the other piracy bills is because it is beneficial for them to do so where SOPA could have potentially harmed their business. The opposition is against it because they worry that the bill could be used as a simple way to spy on people. Many are concerned about the ambiguity of the term "cybersecurity threat". What constitutes such a threat?

Containment is obviously inherent in these bills because they are trying to censor what is on the internet and the bills are too broad that they can be interpreted in many ways and therefore they can be abused. The main problem is that the piracy bills censor the tool that provides a means for the infringing content to exist on the internet rather than the content itself. If we were to create another bill (on top of these three...), the most logical way would be to create one that targets a specific type/genre of content. Will another one surface? Another reason why it's an example of containment is because the bills place power in the hands of rights holders and the government, and it has the potential for abuse. The rest of the population is being contained from information, and we would not know why because they would have dealt with it before we are even aware of it.


The author is someone that works for the i09 blogs, which focus on the subjects of science fiction, futurism, and advancements in science and technology, so I am assuming that they have credible knowledge on the topic (ethos). The audience is for anyone that uses the internet because these bills will affect them and their free internet viewing pleasure. The purpose is to inform the general public, and to persuade them to take action for what the law is trying to do whether you agree with them or not. A popular backlash that occurred was the blackout of Wikipedia, which caused quite an uproar by the general public. The persuasion is effective because it informs, but also encourages the readers to think for themselves on these issues.

In order for a legitimate privacy bill to arise, these ideas need major revision and specificity needs to be added.

Do you find the piracy bills helpful to society? Censorship is the other major issue. Free speech is being contained, and many would argue that it violates the first amendment. For me, censorship is great for substance on the web that does more harm than good. Examples are pornography and illegitimate sites that portray false information. I can see why many are worried about censorship because we are giving the government more power, and who knows what they might do next if we let them censor.

http://io9.com/5900962/why-microsoft-and-facebook-are-pro+cispa-but-anti+sopa?tag=censorship