Illegal downloads of music, movies, and other copyrighted files on the Internet are not a new idea, especially to teenagers. Two new laws, SOPA and PIPA, or Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act, were recently proposed in Congress as a way of combatting the illegal downloads that often happen online. The discussion pitted Hollywood against Silicon Valley; many large Hollywood studios, such as Time Warner, were proponents of the bills, while online companies, like Google and Wikipedia, were the main opposition (http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/20/sopa-and-pipa-postponed-indefinitely-after-protests/?iref=allsearch). The President and Republican presidential candidates weighed in on the argument as well. Congress eventually decided to shelve both bills, hoping for a future compromise on the subject.

SOPA and PIPA proposed to make criminal enforcement of those who pirate copyrighted materials online more stringent. They allowed for court orders to shut down sites that were believed to be pirating these materials, whether the accusations were true or not. Some aspects of shutting down the sites included restricting search engines from displaying the site among search results, restricting online payment systems like PayPal and online ad agencies from working with the suspicious sites, and even asking Internet providers to block access to the sites. These laws would also mean that the penalty for those individuals convicted of online piracy would be increased to five years in prison.

While these laws were well meant, they sparked a great deal of controversy. Large music and movie studios supported the bills as a means of protecting intellectual property rights, and thus protecting industry, jobs, and valuable economic growth. Opponents of the bills, including Google, Wikipedia, and PayPal, claimed that the bills were nothing short of looming censorship. While the bills would not be hard to enforce, this was one of the many complaints; Google and others claimed that if passed, SOPA and PIPA could be used to shut down sites on the Internet regardless of whether or not they actually contained pirated materials. As a form of protest, Google, Wikipedia, and several other opponents of the bill blacked out their sites on Wednesday, January 18th (http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/20/sopa-and-pipa-postponed-indefinitely-after-protests/?iref=allsearch).

In response to the controversy, Republican presidential candidates and President Obama weighed in on the issue. Candidate Mitt Romney said that he did not support the bills, stating that they limited a growing US industry- the Internet. Gingrich said something similar; stating that he thought SOPA and PIPA gave the government too much power and influence. President Obama and the White House were surprisingly silent on the whole affair, only recently stating that if passed, SOPA and PIPA would not find friends in the current administration. While his silence was odd, it was not unexpected because Obama and the Democrats find a great deal of support through Hollywood studios and other proponent of SOPA (http://www.imperfectparent.com/topics/2012/01/17/obama-comes-out-against-current-sopa-and-pipa-legislation-but-stops-short-of-killing-it/).

Initially, the twin bills had a great deal of bipartisan support, but in light of the controversy, many in Congress withdrew their support of the bills, often announcing this over the same social networks who are some of the bills’ biggest opponents. The various tweets and Facebook posts claimed that while Congress wants to stop online piracy, SOPA and PIPA are essentially flawed laws (http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/19/tech/sopa-blackouts/index.html?iref=allsearch). Both Houses of Congress have shelved their respective bills; SOPA in the House of Representatives and PIPA in the Senate. Senate majority leader Harry Reid recently said of his decision on PIPA that he hopes for a compromise in the future, but will for now shelve the controversial censorship bill.