SOPA/PIPA bills rejected

An anti-piracy bill that was expected to pass easily through the committees of the House of Representatives is now dead after an online petition to Congress collected nearly seven million signatures. The House's Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Senate's Protect IP Act (PIPA) were both introduced last year (May and October).

Both acts faced controversy from tech companies and Internet lovers everywhere, but recently gained widespread attention after popular websites like Google and Wikipedia were blacked out to protest the pending legislation.

If enacted, major media companies would have had the ability to shut down any site that is making commercial gain off of copied material without explicit consent of the content owner. The legislation was aimed to protect movie and music industries, which have cited substantial financial losses—an estimated $58 billion annually, according to the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI)—due to piracy and online trafficking.

"Intellectual property (IP) is a huge source of revenue for this country," said Jacob Furst, professor in the College of Computing and Digital Media at DePaul. "I don't know the actual numbers, but I'm guessing our only significant exports are movies, television, games and music. There is some concern that online trafficking and piracy are costing the United States money because the IP is now available for free. It is extremely hard to actually measure that loss, but it's not hard to believe that there is some effect."

What makes the loss so difficult to measure is determining whether an illegally downloaded movie or song is a legitimately lost transaction. In some cases, a person pirating a movie or song would never have bought it; therefore, it is perceived to be a financial loss when it technically is not.

The biggest concern and question about SOPA was how it would have been executed. Something as vast as the World Wide Web, intangible and internationally utilized cyberspace, makes it very difficult to regulate and monitor illegal activity.

"(Music and movie) industries have some very compelling arguments concerning the value of IP, and protecting IP is clearly something that is valued in this country," said Furst. "Unfortunately, these laws are probably not the answer -- they attempt to punish bad uses of technology, rather than punishing bad behavior. The main problem here is that people will just find new ways to abuse technology to circumvent the laws."

Additionally, what is exactly considered to be illegal is not clearly defined, a key objection of many tech and web giants. Sites like Twitter and YouTube could even be penalized for some of their content due to copyright issues.

"I believe the two bills have the right intentions in terms of combating piracy on the World Wide Web but, if not enacted correctly, could lead to violations of people's freedom of speech," said sophomore Douglas Henry III, a media and cinema studies major. "They have the potential to infringe on my rights as an American citizen. Along with the possibility of infringement, the Internet would be a much duller place. These restrictions would definitely impact the innovation available on the web."

The impacts of the laws and how they would affect the daily lives of Americans everywhere is unclear; there are those who say that the Internet would completely shut down, eliminating access to free knowledge and opinions. Others contend that such legislation is necessary to protect vital economic and property interests.

"I think that it would most likely result in censorship, but not necessarily the kind that leads to a dystopian future" said sophomore Thomas Korabik. "As for freedom of speech, I think that's more open to interpretation. I define free speech as freedom of opinion and freedom of original content, not freedom of regurgitating someone else's words."

Due to the negative attention SOPA and PIPA attracted, the SOPA bill will be redrafted, while the Senate postponed a key vote on the PIPA bill, calling for consensus before Congress progresses with further actions against online piracy.

"Very likely, most people wouldn't notice much change," said Furst. "I believe that if there were significant changes, there would be little enforcement of the law. It would be just another bad law that no one pays attention to."

The Internet has evolved and become a necessary tool for nearly every single person to use as a means of research, communication, protest, entertainment and more. It is very much regarded as a form of free speech that may remain untouchable by the government forever.

"The Internet was designed around access, not restriction," said Furst. "Regulating technology is essentially a silly thing to do. It changes so fast; you just can't make laws quickly enough."