Censorship Becomes Real

The PIPA (PROTECT IP Act) and SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) legislation is coming to a vote soon in in the House and Senate. These are proposals before Congress that give incredibly aggressive censorship controls to our government (acting on behalf of rights holders). The way copyright is currently protected on the web in the U.S.A. was established by the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act). The DMCA created the principle of ‘safe harbor’ for ‘service providers’ (like Google, Facebook, and Twitter). What ‘safe harbor’ means is that a site with content from its users doesn’t have to censor everything that is posted, so long as it acts in good faith to remove infringing content and links as they’re alerted to them. The PIPA and SOPA proposals turn that model on its head, restricting openness and imposing preemptive censorship. So if a users post links with copyrighted material on a site like Facebook, Google, or Twitter, the government could shut them down. Protecting copyright is a fantastic goal, but this legislation is a huge step in the wrong direction.