Why Fight SOPA

Why SOPA Bill needs to be fought
The Stop Online Hacking Act is one of those sites that may seem to be the best news against the destructive courses of the internet piracy acts, but in real sense, there is something really negative behind what the act is all about. Potentially, if passed, the entertainment business will be given a go- ahead to censor any kind of website that may be involved in any kind of copyright infringement, or even any kind of site that will enable or seems to encourage the same. The scary thing about this bill is the vagueness of the language being used here. The implications are crippling, and this is what we are up in arms against.
For all the Facebook, Tweeter, and other social media lovers, especially in the United States, it will be awfully difficult to send links to your friend and family concerning a certain clip that you may want to share with them. Not only so, but the site may be censored entirely if the court deems it necessary according to the Act. Where does this come from?
According to the masterminds of SOPA, the idea behind it seems to be positive and quite reasonable. The fact that there is a hoard of online piracy acts going on around is not good news for the entertainment business, and downloading their products without necessary permission is not good at all for business. The issue with the Act comes into perspective with the realization that SOPA does not really care if you are or you are not in support of the piracy in the internet. They are simply looking for the necessary permission to be able to block out any kind of a website that seems to encourage, or that is in the business of internet copyright infringement. This goes as far as implicating a website that has articles that seem to be ‘piracy-friendly’. Such a website could potentially be closed, and therefore any visitor could not have access to that particular site. Think of the potential danger of putting this power into the wrong hands. Of course if an individual knew the right IP address of the site, then the Bill could not block the site, since the Bill will only touch the domain name of the site.
This means that any site that is capable of providing information about that site or capable of promoting information concerning that site can also be locked down. As we all know, Facebook, Tweeter, Tumblr, and others like YouTube are on the verge of being brought down. You can always do something to help these sites fight against the support that SOPA is having towards the enactment of this Bill. You can do so through signing the petition against the Bill. Its implications are crippling to the social media world, and thus should be fought against by all means. Sending the information to your family members and your friends will also do good, as you will be able to inform them on the harm that is being brewed by SOPA.

Companies Who Oppose SOPA Bill

Companies:

AOL
eBay
Etsy
Facebook
foursquare
Google
IAC
LinkedIn
Mozilla
OpenDNS
PayPal
Twitter
Wikimedia Foundation
Yahoo!
Zynga Game Network

Web Founders

Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape and Andreessen Horowitz
Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google
Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter and Square
Caterina Fake, co-founder of Flickr and Hunch
David Filo, co-founder of Yahoo!
Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn
Arianna Huffington, co-founder of The Huffington Post
Chad Hurley, co-founder of YouTube
Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive and co-founder of Alexa Internet
Elon Musk, co-founder of PayPal
Craig Newmark, founder of craigslist
Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay

Public Interest Groups, Non-Profits, Advocacy Organizations And Think-Tanks

ACLU
American Association of Law Libraries
American Library Association
American Society of News Editors
Americans for Job Security
Association of College and Research Libraries
Association of Research Libraries Benetech
Brookings Institute
Center for Democracy & Technology
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Consumer Federation of America
Consumers Union
Creators’ Freedom Project
Demand Progress
Don’t Censor the Net
EDUCAUSE
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Fight for the Future
Freedom House
Future of Music Coalition
Institute for Intellectual Property & Social Justice, Inc.
Internet Society (ISOC)
Messaging Anti-Abuse Working
Group (MAAWG)
Library Copyright Alliance
Media Access Project
MoveOn
National Association of the Deaf
New America Foundation’s Open
Technology Initiative
PPF (Open Congress)
Public Interest Registry
Public Knowledge
SaveHosting.org
Special Libraries Association
StopBadware
Tea Party Patriots
TechFreedom
U.S. PIRG: The Federation of State PIRGs
U.S. Student Association

Industry Associations

Computer & Communications Industry Association
Consumer Electronics Association
Engine Advocacy
Entertainment Consumers Association
Information Technology Industry Council
NetCoalition.com
TechAmerica
TechNet
Writers Guild of America-West

Websites and Online Services

4chan
Boing Boing
Creative Commons
Daily Kos
Disqus
Grooveshark
Hype Machine
Irregular Times
Kickstarter
MetaFilter
O’Reilly Radar
Reddit
Techdirt
Torrentfreak
Tumblr

Find the rest of the list on this Opposition PDF