S.O.P.A

Lately there has been a lot of talk about S.O.P.A, but what is it really?


LOLJK :)

So back to all seriousness, what is this S.O.P.A everyone is freaking out about?

First of all, S.O.P.A stands for
Stop.
Online.
Piracy.
Act.

This is an anti-piracy law. This would shut down all illegal content on the internet. This basically means shutting down any websites that contains innapropriate and copyright infrigment. The main target would be any downloading websites and also websites such as youtube and others to watch movies.
Rumors have been spreading that breaking the laws put in place by S.O.P.A can lead to five years in jail. Lamar Smith is the mastermind and author of the bill S.O.P.A. He happens to be A U.S representative for Texas's 21st congressional district (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamar_S._Smith).

Rumors have been spreading that breaking the laws put in place by S.O.P.A can lead to five years in jail.

On January 18th, 2012 (just recently), many protests against the act were in motion. For example, many websitesincluded the English Wikipedia and Reddit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act). This protest instructed over eight million viewers to contact politicians, resulting in eight US lawmakers to withdraw their support (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16628143).

A letter sent to New York Times by the U.S Chamber of commerce said, "Rogue Web sites that steal America's innovative and creative products attract more than 53 billion visits a year and threaten more than 19 million American jobs" (http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57329001-281/how-sopa-would-affect-you-faq/). The illegal downloading of music attracts many, and for the reason of downloading movies and cds is causing many people to be put out of jobs. This could be looked at as a positive of passing S.O.P.A because it would create and keep more jobs in the United States.