Silicon Valley v. Hollywood (SOPA)

In case you were living under a rock last week, crowd sourced sites such as Wikipedia and search engine giant Google vocalized their opposition to the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act better know by its acronym SOPA. It is a bill currently being considered by our elected officials that would target sites that traffic intellectual property and knock off goods. Critics say that the language in the bill is too vague and can sweep up unsuspecting internet sites and users. It requires that search engines stop linking to sites that are in violation of copyright laws and imposes fines and/or jail time for streaming copyrighted content. As an advertiser, if you are associated with such a site, you too can be dragged into a law suit. While getting appropriate compensation for producing work is a fair thing to ask, imposing rules such as the ones SOPA describes can be counter productive in the sharing of ideas and free speech on the internet. My fear is that SOPA can ultimately be misconstrued and be used a s a tool for censorship. There is also another interesting aspect of all this. Hollywood has been lobbying law makers to pass SOPA while Silicon Valley has taken to the masses to oppose it. It is interesting to see how all this is going to play out since both factions are strong financial supporters of the democratic party. Make no mistake my friends, it is no coincidence that this bill surfaced in an election year. Keep your eyes and ears open.