S.O.P.A Project’s Conflict

"S.O.P.A. Project's Conflict"

1. Introduction: 

In the 90’s, the internet begun its domestic use amongst US households. In 1993, the US prohibition was eliminated and the internet boom begun. In 1995, the net expanded to other continents like Europe and Oceania. In the 2000’s, the massification of the domestic use of internet opened a whole new world of options. Now, 2012, the StopOnline Piracy Act was proposed in the US congress. According to James H. Clark, it’s the possible second prohibition of internet. For some, it has the advantage of protecting copyrights. For others, this bill is a censorship for sharing liberty. Specially, Internet Surfers find hard to believe that SOPA could limit all info and archives sharing. As a consequence, it has caused a large conflict ofpositions amongst politicians, companies and people. 

2. Body: 

A. Politicians Stances:

SOPA created a dispute amongst politicians from different countries. Some consider that the project is a way to stop piracy. On the other hand, senior officials of the EU believe that the project is unnecessary.

US Senator Lamar Smith introduced this project in the US congress last year. However, as aresult of the debate generated by this project, Smith withdrew the proposal until the US congress reached an agreement in a statement on January 20 this year (Newspaper Milenio).

According to Mexican Senator Francisco Castellón Fonseca:  “The intent to approve SOPA and the decision of closing websites like Megaupload is only a pretext to control the internet information flux and it affects alsoin the economic and political context”.

In addition to the statements of Castellón, European politics expressed through their Twitter accounts their strong disagreement with the project. Such as Cecilia Malmström, EU Commissioner for Home Affairs, and Neelie Kroes, Vice President of the European Commision responsible for the Digital Agenda of Europe.

Plus the fact important politiciansstopped supporting SOPA. This decision was apparently taken as a result of the Blackout Day. As reported by Reuters, Roy Blunt (Missouri), Chuck Grassley (Iowa), Orrin Hatch (Utah), John Boozman (Arkansas) and Marco Rubio (Florida) announced that they withdrew their support to SOPA.

 



B. Companies Stance:

Companies’ stance towards SOPA is also important since, according to ScottTannembaum, they influence people point of view throughout their economic power and their pressure on labor policies. We can divide companies’ stance in 2 large groups: The ones in favor of it and the ones against it.

Companies’ in favor of SOPA, according to Lamar Smith’s official web page, are related mostly to music, TV and movies industry. Smith said: “Companies’ promoting the Stop Online Piracy Acthave logic as reason; they lose income because of the indiscriminate ’sharing’ of their contents, and this force them to take a stand”.

Moreover there are renowned companies in favor of SOPA such as ESPN, Dolce & Gabbana, Ford Motor Company, Sony, Marvel, Nike and many others. As well there are some impacting examples such as the WWE and EA games.

Companies’ against it are mostly video gamesproducers, social networks and search engines. On November 15, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Zynga, eBay, Mozilla, Yahoo, AOL, and LinkedIn wrote a letter to key members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, saying SOPA poses "a serious risk to our industry's continued track record of innovation and job creation, as well as to our nation's cyber security." Yahoo has reportedly quit theU.S. Chamber of Commerce over the organization's enthusiastic support for SOPA.



C. People Stance:

Much of the Internet industry and a large percentage of Internet users are against SOPA.  According to Google, 4.5 million people have added their signatures to the SOPA/PIPA petition since January 18h (Blackout day).

On the other hand, the renowned Hacktivist group Anonymous is one of...