The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)

Piracy is no longer just an occupation for swash-buckling men and women who have a thirst for bloodshed and adventure. Piracy in the modern era, is digitalized, but it still is pillaging and plundering. We must pass the online piracy act for 3 reasons that 1. protects the intellectual rights of businesses 2. protects the average online consumer 3. It is by no means a curtailment of first amendment rights But first i will address the opening statement of the negation. The negation would like you to believe that companies actually benefit from piracy, but that is simply mistaken. First we must look to why this bill has been put in congress in the first place. The bill was written and co-sponsored by 12 representatives, but why did they do this? Because they were lobbied to do so. The music/entertainment industry has lobbied tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars in support of this legislation. Why else would it be in congress. Now the negation may try to quote groups like Phish who actually encouraged people to pirate their music in the hopes to gain popularity. But you must understand that this is not the opinion of every music/entertainment corporation! These businesses make money through the sales of these products, and are entitled to the ability to sell them. This leads me to my first point SOPA protects the intellectual rights of businesses The main idea of this piece of legislation is to protect media companies and their rights to sell their products, and keep their intellectual rights. If you have watched the movie "Flash Of Genius" you are familiar with what happens when an idea is stolen. Yes, Mr. Kearns designed windshield wipers, but the thought is universal. He came up with the idea, and yet it was stolen from him, and sold. He lost millions to the big car corporations because they stole his idea. All that this legislation does is further protect the rights of businesses against illegal theft of intellectual property. How would you feel if you worked for months, even years on a painting, only to have an identical painting made, making yours worthless. It is far from fair to take another's intellectual property. This legislation protects against that. All that this does is give more power to corporations to file an injunction against a website that steals movies/songs and then have the possibility to stop that copyrighted material from appearing from that webpage or shutting down the webpage as a whole DEPENDING ON THE RULING OF A JUDGE OR THE ATTORNEY GENERAL. Even though some people are fine with piracy of their work it doesn't mean that everyone is. And businesses deserve to have the same rights as other corporations. Why is it illegal and punishable by law to steal blueprints of something and sell them, but legal and not punishable by law to steal music and profit off of the giving of such music (add space on websites who give away material). All this bill does is give music companies the same rights as other companies in other sectors of the economy. Protects the average consumer This legislation not only protects companies on the internet, but also the average consumer. The bill protects the average consumer on the internet by stopping fraudulent sales. What this means is that it stops internet scams. Web sites that are partially or completely purposed for the sale of fraudulent merchandise will be accountable for their actions. So the old deposed prince of Algeria scam is the thing of the past. Any website that has the sole goal of defrauding people will be shut down AFTER DUE PROCESS. Think of what this will do. No more annoying pop up adds saying that you have won a free ipad, no more of those spam emails, and no more suspicion if a deal is to good to be true. Furthermore it protects our fighting men and women. The bill also specifies an increased sentence on people who try to sell goods to the US military, the department of defense, or any form of US law forces. So this bill protects all of us from fraudulent websites, and also our bravest from fraudulent websites. Does not Curtail First Amendment rights There has been a large amount of outrage about this piece of legislation. And I have found that it is mainly due to misinterpretation of the legislation itself. Please when arguing this issue, actually read the legislation. I have had hours worth of arguments about this bill all due to misinformation. The legislation does not curtail first amendment rights, it simply protects the rights of all Americans. The bill can, admittedly, stop someone from posting anything they want on a webpage, but only if it is copy righted. This is in the same train of thought as murder, I know it sounds like a stretch but here is what I mean. All people have free will, the right to do whatever they want whenever they want, but only if it doesn't curtail rights of others, meaning that it curtails the rights of people to kill people, but it protects the right to life for everyone else. The same can be said for this bill. Yes It does curtail the rights of someone to post anything on the internet, but it protects the rights of the person who owns the copyrighted material. http://thomas.loc.gov...; http://judiciary.house.gov...