SOPA and PIPA

What the heck are these you may ask?

SOPA is the 'Stop Online Piracy Act'
and
PIPA is the 'Protect IP Act'

Various websites (such as Wikipedia) are 'blacked out', or shut down for today in protest.

Wikipedia, at them moment, only says info about these two bills and why it is against them and whatnot.

A snippet from their page:


"SOPA and PIPA represent two bills in the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate respectively. SOPA is short for the "Stop Online Piracy Act," and PIPA is an acronym for the "Protect IP Act." ("IP" stands for "intellectual property.") In short, these bills are efforts to stop copyright infringement committed by foreign web sites, but, in our opinion, they do so in a way that actually infringes free expression while harming the Internet"


I believe that SOPA grants the power to censor content on websites that includes anything copyrighted, and PIPA can block sites altogether. (But don't take my word on that, I might have them backwards, or mixed up a bit)


You can find these on Wikipedia at the moment, but I will also share these links:


Here you can track SOPA


Here you can track PIPA


and here will tell you a little bit about why everyone is saying that it's so bad (or at least one person's opinion).




So, basically people are freaking out because the internet is supposed to be all about sharing information and connecting and all that. But, I do get where some of this is coming from. I mean, censoring twitter posts and such things that are completely harmless and ultimately useless has no point. However, stopping piracy of software, movies, ect.. I get that part. I like downloading the occasional missed TV show, or something in another language that I can't find here, but I don't know how justified it is to download all pirated programs and movies that are still in the theatres.
I am against the bills, of course, otherwise my blog would probably be shut down even though I'm based out of Canada... I agree with some of the ideas behind the bills and where they are coming from, but they just aren't going at it the right way. This is just making everyone mad.


Do some research and decide for yourself. What do you think?


Aside: if you enjoy memes and all that then these might entertain you/help you understand SOPA
http://9gag.com/gag/1933358?ref=sopa
http://9gag.com/gag/1114501?ref=sopa
and there are many more where that came from...