If you have been active on the internet recently, or following any tech news then you have heard of SOPA.
SOPA stands for Stop Online Piracy Act. This is a bill in congress right now, that enacts wide sweeping changes to online copyright laws. While the people backing SOPA (groups like FOX and the RIAA) say this act will help them from the free spread of their copyrighted material, opponents say it goes too far and it could change the online landscape drastically. It could negatively effect innovation and freedom of expression.
Should Online Marketers Be Worried About SOPA
I think yes.
SOPA could put some really powerful laws in place and that could lead to a real loss of power for webmasters. For example, under the new proposed laws you could have hundreds of perfectly legal blog posts, but if you mistakenly included something copyrighted – your site could be shut down. Your whole site could cease to exist. Then it would be up to you to take legal action to get your site back up.
Seems pretty drastic to me, and very draconian.
The people who want this law to pass, do have a legitimate gripe with online piracy, but if they spent more time and money figuring out how to lucratively harness the internet, rather then battle it they would be better off.
The good news is that this law has attracted the attention of some huge online entities like Google, Wikipedia, and Reddit. They have been doing their best to spread the word abvout the potential damage this law could cause. The public had moved to make their voice heard, and now the White House and the Obama administration has stepped in to make sure changes are made to SOPA.
Continue the fight! If you’d like to learn more about this issue:
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