Whats the deal with SOPA and PIPA???

[shafty]

I hear about this piracy bill and everyone seems to be having a protest and a blackout, yada..yadaa... But what exactly will SOPA do? Can they just shut down any site like a kinda big brother. Please explain...

[admin]

The SOPA bill is either an affront to free speech and the freedom to quote people or it is an action that will protect Hollywood from thieves. Quoted from What is SOPA anyway from the WSJ:-

The basic method is to stop U.S. companies from providing funding, advertising, links or other assistance to the foreign sites. The bills would give Justice Department prosecutors new powers to prevent pirate sites from getting U.S. visitors and funding.

Opponents of the legislation worry that the language in the House bill is so broad that it would allow content owners to target U.S. websites that aren't knowingly hosting pirated content. This has been a particular concern of bill opponents Facebook, Wikipedia and Twitter, all of which have sites that depend heavily on content uploaded by users.In an extreme case, opponents say, media companies could get a court order blocking payments to an innocent site, with the effect of shutting it down and stripping it of its rights to free speech.

The bill would also require "DNS blocking." So if a a user goes to a website such as www.thepirtebay, the domain-name system, or DNS would redirect the user so they never get to the site.

Many think it is stopping the web being a free and largely uncensored product. Governments could just block sites they don't like, such as anti-government websites. It is also not clear what kind of offence can get a website shut down.