Stop Online Piracy Act

1. Internet Censorship
Largest Online Strike in History : SOPA Bill
By Selen Taskin, Page Dormier and Root Debesay -march 2015

2. SOPA ?
● The SOPA Bill was introduced by representative
Lamar S. Smith in 2011
● Intended for U.S enforcement to monitor online
copyrights and to protect the intellectual
property of the original owners by blacklisting
sites that share copyrighted film and music.

3. ● Internet
censorship
● blocking free flow
of information
Too good to be true ?

4. ● SOPA uses DNS Data blocking (a
website censorship method) which was
used in China and Iran.
● SOPA bill makes website owners
responsible and punishable for how
users interact with their sites.
● The language of SOPA can be easily
manipulated, resulting in many
websites being limited or blocked.
What is the problem with SOPA?

5. ● The entire domains can
be blacklisted if any
part of the site is
found in violation
● NOT content removal
but entire site
censorship
What is the problem with SOPA?

6. The Battlefields
Bill sponsor:
This legislation
primarily targets
foreign sites
Opposers:
SOPA separate sites by domain
name. Under this definition
many sites can be mis-labeled.
defining “domestic” vs “foreign”
sites leaves itself wide open for
abuse
VS.

7. ● On January 18th 2012 over
15,000 websites went on
strike against SOPA by
blacking out their sites from
viewers use.
Protests

8. Protests ● Street protests in New
York, San Francisco and
Seattle

9. Protests

10. Those in agreement

11. Those opposed

12. How would life with SOPA be?
creativity? Innovation ?
Freedom of
Speech?

13. ● Under the provisions of the
bill uploading clips of movies
or TV shows to Facebook or
YouTube could become a
criminal act.
● Streaming of copyrighted
content could land you with
a five-year jail term.
How would life with SOPA be?

14. ● One group that opposes the bill, Fight for
the Future, even claimed Justin Bieber
could go to prison for posting covers of
Usher songs on YouTube.
● Tons of people do this for fun and many
current artists got discovered in this same
way.
How would life with SOPA be?

15. ● GoDaddy has officially pulled their
support of SOPA. 22,000 Boycotters
pledged to move over 82,000 domain
names from GoDaddy over the boycott
period.
● On January 20th 2012 congress shelved
the bills indefinitely.
Does protests worked ?

16. ● SOPA does not focus on the
removal of actual infringing
content, but rather the
censorship of links to entire
domains.
● SOPA has ambiguous language
which makes it ripe for abuse
● SOPA Introduces unprecedented
level of censorship to the open
internet
Conclusion

17. Remix Video

18. Thank you / Questions?

19. ● http://www.theguardian.com/weather/interactive/2011/dec/23/shrews
bury
● http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2012/01/17/gIQA4WYl6P_stor
y.html
● http://www.sopastrike.com/
● http://godaddyboycott.org/
● http://offcampus.lib.washington.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.
com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lgh&AN=86356867&site=ehost-live
Sources