A Disco Bear Creation. (ManipMedia, Winchester Uni, 2012)

1. WHAT ARE PIPA AND SOPA AND DO
THEY CONSTITUTE A GOOD OR BAD THING
FOR PERSONAL FREEDOM?
A Disco Bear Production

2. WHAT ARE PIPA AND SOPA?
 PIPA & SOPA are laws focusing on anti-piracy
 SOPA – Stop Online Piracy Act
Is a house bill introduced in October that would
give federal prosecutors new powers to crack down
on foreign online piracy sites that trade in
counterfeit music, movies, software or other U.S.
copyrighted products. (Yoursolutions.forrent, 2012)

3. WHAT ARE PIPA AND SOPA?
 PIPA – Protect IP Act
A similar bill known as Protect IP (PIPA) was
introduced in the senate last may, giving the US
government additional tools to curb access to illegal
websites, especially those registered outside the
US (Knowyourmeme, 2011)

4. IS IT TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE?

5. WHO ARE OPPOSING THESE LAWS?
 Some of the biggest names on the web are so
opposed to these laws that they either shutting
down for 24 hours or protesting in some major way.
The sites famous for doing this include
Google, Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, Mozilla and
Wikipedia. (Lastshredsofsanity, 2012)

6. WHO ARE OPPOSING THESE LAWS?
 The general public are the main opposition. They
feel the government are engrossing upon their
personal freedom.

8. WHERE DOES OUR PERSONAL FREEDOM
START AND END?

9. WHO ARE OPPOSING THESE LAWS?
 Many sites already have content filters in place to
control copyrighted content so is there a need for
the government to butt in?

10. WHO ARE OPPOSING THESE LAWS?
 Small businesses – larger corporations would be
allowed to bypass the court system and temporarily
(or permanently) remove “rogue” websites that use
duplicate, copyright content. This would only be
available to copyright holders who want to protect
their investments, control internet content and
enforce their system of power
(alexanderpease.hubpages, n.d.)

11. SO WHERE DOES THIS LEAVE SMALLER INDEPENDENT
BUSINESSES?

12. WHY DID THE BILLS GET SO MUCH OPPOSITION?
 The laws would give the U.S. Department of Justice
new powers to require U.S. companies to disable
links or stop advertising e.g. penalties ranging from
criminal sentences, fines and website takedowns
for not complying.
 The Constitution of the United States and The Bill
of Rights gives us personal freedoms that are ours
by birthright and law. However, our current
government wants to regulate everything we do –
even in the privacy of our own homes.
(Knowyourmeme, 2011)

14. WHY DID THE BILLS GET SO MUCH OPPOSITION?
 These laws would make the US government
comparable to that of the North Koreans or
China, with whose policies they strongly disagree
with.
 If you ever use the internet you will be affected by
PIPA/SOPA – facebook, twitter, etc

16. MEGAUPLOAD LIMITED
 Megaupload Limited, better known for its closed
websites including the top 15 file hosting service
megaupload.com, is an online Hong Kong-based
company established in 2005 that ran a number of
online services related to file storage and viewing.
The domain names were seized and sites shut
down by the U.S. Justice department on 19th
January 2012. Following their indictment and
arrests of the owners for allegedly operating as an
organisation dedicated to copyright infringement.
The shutdown led to denial-of-service attacks on a
range of websites belonging to the U.S.
government and copyright organisations.
(Wikipedia,2012)

17. WAS THIS THE FIRST VICTIM OF PIPA AND SOPA?

18. WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF THESE NEW LAWS?
 To start with it would allow companies to protect
their businesses to a bigger degree such as in the
music and film industry as piracy would be cut
down more people would be buying their music and
film with profits going directly back into their
industry.

19. MAKING THE RICH RICHER AND KEEPING THE
POOR POOR?

20. WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW?
 Due to the huge amount of opposition to these
bills, they have currently been postponed until
issues about the bill have been resolved. Hopefully
next time they appear they will allow us our
personal freedom rather than control it.

21. REFERENCE LIST:
 Yoursolutions.forrent, 2012. A Dark and Virtual Storm Still on the Horizon? [weblog]
Available at: http://yoursolutions.forrent.com/property-managers-owners/a-dark-
and-virtual-storm-still-on-the-horizon [Accessed: 6/02/2012]

 Knowyourmeme, 2011. Protect IP Act / Stop Online Piracy Act [online] Available at:
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/protect-ip-act-stop-online-piracy-act
[Accessed: 6/02/2012]

 Lastshredsofsanity, 2012. Stop SOPA, PIPA And Repeal SB 1867: Save Our
Personal Freedoms And Constitutional Rights [online] Available at:
http://lastshredsofsanity.com/stop-sopa-pipa-and-repeal-sb-1867-save-our-
personal-freedoms-and-constitutional-rights/ [Accessed: 6/02/2012]

 alexanderpease.hubpages, n.d. SOPA and PIPA [weblog] Available at:
http://alexanderpease.hubpages.com/hub/SOPA-and-PIPA [Accessed: 6/02/2012]

 Wikipedia,2012. Megaupload [online] Available at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaupload [Accessed: 6/02/2012]
