What is SOPA

SOPA stands for "stop online piracy act" it is a bill currently being negotiated by the US government. It is also known as hr3261.

The bill if passed will effectively authorise the blocking of websites that either promote piracy, or engage in piracy. The bill is aimed at websites that are involved in and/or make money from counterfeit or pirated goods such as movies or music.

This bill is not aimed at the general public, although it would have the effect of making it harder for people to obtain copyrighted material illegally.

There are many critics of the bill including some major corporations such as Google. There are also a lot of scaremongerers who belive this is just another way to censor the internet.  I agree with freedom of speech, but I also belive in copyright. If someone invests the time and money into producing something then why should others profit from it.

SOPA doesn't change anything. If a website breaks the law it can be shut down already. To an extent this law doesn't go much further than the digital millenium copyright act (dmca)

The major difference with SOPA is they can block a website without even needing to take it offline. Web traffic will simply be blocked from the website address or domain name.

Its now just a waiting game to see if the bill is passed. If it is, then it will be a victory for the entertainment industry.

Even although this is a US bill it will have global effects. If a site is blocked and that site is hosted on a server within the USA it will not be availabile to anyone world wide. It is rumored that global blocking would only work with domain extensions managed by US root servers (.com .net .org) for example if a site is using a .uk domain and is hosted on a US server SOPA could block it within the US, but outsite the US it would be available.

The method SOPA is using to block sites shows how little thought has been given to its deployment. It is entirely based on domain names, so technically websites blocked by SOPA will still be publicaly available via their IP address.

I honestly think the UK had the right idea by monitoring download packets. Every piece downloaded has a fingerprint. It's easy to see what a user has downloaded and its also possible to determine if its a pirate copy based on source. Manu UK ISP's have now adopted a "three strikes and your out" policy, although it does suit them if they can save bandwidth.

If the SOPA bill is passed it won't make a great difference to the web as a whole. Anyone who tells you a different story is either a pirate or his parrot.

Mack