The Wrong Way to Clean Up Piracy

Over the past decade, an increase in online piracy, in which copyright material is illegally downloaded and shared, has gained the attention of the federal government. Content creators outcries for help have led to government to respond to this growing issue by attempting to pass the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). With the passage of this act, the government along with content creators would have new powers to prevent online piracy by being able to shut down targeted websites. Although the prevention of online piracy is a serious issue, opponents to the bill argue that SOPA puts an unfair amount of power into the content creator’s hands since any website containing any amount of copyright material could be shut down. In a cartoon by Cathy Cochrane and Sherry Snowden, SOPA is depicted as a bill that could easily be taken advantage of to hurt the online community. SOPA is an ineffective bill due to the high potential for abuse in that; content would be unnecessarily censored at the government’s discretion, websites with legal content would be affected, and the overall functionality of internet intermediaries would be restricted.