What is SOPA?

The following information taken graciously from /r/sopa.

The Title of the bill is: H. R. 3261 -- To promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation by combating the theft of U.S. property, and for other purposes.

It was introduced into the US House of Representatives on October 26, 2011 by Lamar Smith (R-TX) and a bi-partisan group of twelve co-sponsors.

It is known as The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and is before the House Judiciary Committee. The bill is designed to expand the ability of the Department of Justice to fight online copyright infringement and counterfeit trafficking. It builds on the Senate bills, the PROTECT IP Act of 2011 and the Commercial Felony Streaming Act of 2011.

It is intended to give the DoJ, or a copyright holder, the ability to take legal action and seek court orders against websites accused of having limited purpose or use other than enabling or facilitating copyright infringement. Actions taken can include demanding that search engines and social networking sites block access to the targeted site, that payment services and advertisers cease doing business with the accused site, and that internet service providers block access to the site through the domain name system. There is a section designed to increase penalties for selling counterfeit drugs, military materials or consumer goods, and the bill makes unauthorized streaming of copyright material a felony punishable by five years in prison. There is also a provision to grant immunity to internet service providers that volunteer to take action against sites accused of copyright offenses, and makes a claimant liable for damages for knowingly misrepresenting that a website is dedicated to infringing.

The bill had an initial hearing on November 16, 2011. There was a markup hearing on December 15 and 16, 2011 that ended inconclusively with a request for expert advice and was initially postponed until after the holiday break, but was later rescheduled to continue on Wednesday, December 21 at 7:00 AM.

Full Text of H.R.3261 -- Stop Online Piracy Act

Wikipedia page on SOPA

Information on SOPA at OpenCongress



Are there some multimedia materials available that explain SOPA?

American Censorship has created an infographic and a video that will help in understanding the issue.

Free Speech is Only as Strong as the Weakest Link Infographic from Electronic Frontier Foundation

Public Knowledge preserves the openness of the Internet and the public's access to knowledge, promotes creativity through balanced copyright, and upholds and protects the rights of consumers to use innovative technology lawfully.

Behind SOPA: What It Means for Business and Innovation --Infographic

What are some of the arguments against SOPA?

The language of the bill demonstrates a lack of understanding of the way the internet functions and disregards fundamental technological principles of the internet. It also contains ambiguous language that could lead to violations of the bill of rights and thus result in legal challenges. House SOPA Hearings Reveal Anti-internet Bias on Committee, Witness List

It has been called an internet blacklist bill that will grant the power to the US government to attempt to shutdown any website in the world once one US citizen has visited the site.

SOPA could have adverse consequences to internet security by forcing internet users to use private and foreign DNS servers. The functionality of the internet could be disrupted as users look for private DNS servers, and criminals would likely find ways to capitalize on the fracturing of the DNS hierarchy that has provided a basic level of security.

There is language in the bill that may result in attacks against open source software. The bill enables software vendors to go after sites that host software that can be used to enable piracy. This includes software such as:

VPN, proxy, privacy, or anonymization software--including SSH; software that works with zone files for generic top-level domains; or "client-side DNSSEC resolver that uses multiple servers until it finds a valid signed entry. Piracy Bill Could Waylay FLOSS Projects

The technical method of creating a blacklist with the domain name system is similar to the method that China uses to censor the internet with the Great Firewall of China. As the US government funds ongoing projects that are designed to allow internet users behind repressive firewalls such as China's to freely access the internet, then it is likely that those projects would need to be stopped or else the government would be in the position of funding projects that could enable American internet users to evade the restrictions imposed by SOPA.

Dr. Leonard Napolitano, the Director of the Sandia National Laboratories’ Center for Computer Sciences and Information Technologies released a letter reporting that SOPA and PIPA would fail to combat piracy and would negatively effect global internet security. Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) had this to say regarding the letter:

This analysis from one of our nation’s top cybersecurity experts is the definitive word that this legislation would undermine Internet security efforts and would harm the Internet. Dr. Napolitano and his team are tasked with securing our cyber infrastructure. Their assessment as experts at our national lab gives us the final answer as to whether these bills would endanger our security. They would.

Click here for a full copy of the Sandia Labs letter. [PDF]

The site-wide censorship of SOPA is overbroad and will have a negative impact on ordinary, non-infringing internet users, according to former Google attorney, Alec Macgillivray

A study of 200 venture capitalists found that more than 80% would be more willing to invest with the current internet regulations and a in a risky economy, than they would be in an improved economy with SOPA enacted. Angel Investors and Venture Capitalists Say They Will Stop Funding Some Internet Start-Up Business Models if Tough New Rules Are Enacted

Who opposes SOPA?

The Center for Democracy and Technology has a regularly updated and comprehensive list of individuals and groups that have expressed concern with SOPA and PIPA.

American Censorship is a coalition of groups and individuals opposing SOPA.

Opponents of the bill from OpenCongress.org:

reddit

NetCoalition

Consumer Electronics Association

Computer and Communications Industry Association

Public Knowledge

Electronic Frontier Foundation

EDUCAUSE

Center for Democracy & Technology

Open Internet Coalition

Bloomberg

Google

Yahoo

Business Software Alliance

Facebook

AOL

Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape and Andreessen Horowitz

Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google

Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter and Square

Caterina Fake, co-founder of Flickr and Hunch

David Filo, co-founder of Yahoo!

Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn

Arianna Huffington, co-founder of The Huffington Post

Chad Hurley, co-founder of YouTube

Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive and co-founder of Alexa Internet

Elon Musk, co-founder of PayPal

Craig Newmark, founder of craigslist

Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay

Biz Stone, co-founder of Obvious and Twitter

Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation

Evan Williams, co-founder of Blogger and Twitter

Jerry Yang, co-founder of Yahoo!

Progressive Change Campaign Committee

Tumblr

Mozilla

Union Square Ventures

MoveOn

Wikimedia Foundation

eBay

What are some of the arguments for SOPA?

Proponents of the bill argue that jobs are threatened by rogue websites and copyright infringement and the bill is crucial to protecting key American industries.

“Rogue websites that steal and sell American innovations have operated with impunity. The online thieves who run these foreign websites are out of the reach of U.S. law enforcement agencies and profit from selling pirated goods without any legal consequences. According to estimates, IP theft costs the U.S. economy more than $100 billion annually and results in the loss of thousands of American jobs." Congressman Lamar Smith

The bill has broad support throughout the film and music industries, and those that rely on copyrights and trademarks including large corporations such as Mike, Viacom, Pfizer, and Ford. Several large unions and business organizations also support the bill, including the AFL-CIO, the Fraternal Order OF Police, the Chamber of Commerce, and the the Better Business Bureau.

Who supports SOPA?

Fight Online Theft

Supporters of the bill from OpenCongress.org:

Motion Picture Association of America

Independent Film & Television Alliance

National Association of Theatre Owners

Deluxe Entertainment Services Group Inc.

National Music Publishers' Association

American Federation of Musicians

Directors Guild of America

International Brotherhood of Teamsters

Screen Actors Guild

National Cable & Telecommunications Association

Recording Industry Association of America

Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies

Comcast

NBC Universal

Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America

National Association of Manufacturers

Concerned Women for America

Viacom

National Criminal Justice Association

National District Attorneys Association

Council of State Governments

International Trademark Association

International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers

International Association of Fire Fighters

U. S. Chamber of Commerce

Americans for Tax Reform

Let Freedom Ring

The Capitol Switchboard number is (202) 224-3121

Directory of Representatives

Senators of the 112th Congress

American Censorship has a Take Action Checklist with a variety of methods to contact others and spread the word.

Stop Censorship Urge your lawmakers to oppose censorship – and ask Senator Wyden to read your name during the filibuster.

Daily Kos has a widget that you can enter your zip and get your rep's contact info.