"In this presentation we aim to answer the question “What are PIPA and SOPA and do they constitute a good or bad thing for personal freedom” Firstly what does PIPA and SOPA actually stand for? PIPA is the Protect IP Act SOPA is the Stop Online Piracy Act Both aim to tighten copyright online and give US law enforcers more power online. Along with a lot of the public, many big name websites have protested against the bills. It is argued that we will have little freedom to express ourselves online, and the amazing access we have now to unlimited information and knowledge will be reduced and diminished. As many of you may already know, wikipedia “blacked out” for a day on January 18th 2012 in protest of SOPA and PIPA (show image of wiki blackout) Sue Gardner, executive director of the Wikimedia foundation said “the Wikimedia foundation welcomes these developments. This is another step towards the destruction of these two pieces of proposed legislation. But lets be clear, these bills are not dead.” She also went on to say "The blackout was led by millions of ordinary internet users, and the people who make projects like Wikipedia possible - writers, photographers, editors and illustrators. They sent a clear message to Congress: don't mess with free expression, don't destroy the free and open Internet, don't do the bidding of traditional corporate interests. This is a moment in history when the people who create and share works on the internet as part of the free knowledge movement, and the people who depend on access to those works, are asking to be heard and to have their freedom of speech protected." (show reddit image) Another website www.reddit.com which refers to itself as “a source of what is new and popular online” also blacked out for 12 hours in protest and also included a link to sing a petition on their blackout page so users could join in the protest Many others joined in such as mozilla and tumblr, and although twitter didn’t there was trending hash tags of “STOPSOPA” and other similar protests circulating the network. On January 18th there were public protests in New York City. Around 20,000 people protested outside the offices of senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand who have co-sponsored the bills. Kent McCarthy of the website dysfunction junction.com says that if these bills pass then websites such as face book and twitter will have to petrol user content. (show KM quote in quotation marks, and have our explanation below separate so that it doesn’t all look like his quote) one of the most appealing things about face book, to both is uses and creators, is that the consumer creates the content themselves and can use the space to freely express themselves in (almost) anyway they like. To censor face book would be censoring the users personal spaces. He also makes the argument that this will start a “slippery slope” of control, basically he says “if they can control our internet, what cant they control?” He is proposing that the bills would be the first of many to limit our freedom. The amazing thing about the internet is anything is accessible to anyone as long as they have an internet connection, of course. So if it can be done that we cannot access all this information at our finger tips why cant they stop us from doing other things too? The bills almost seem to be belittling one of the most amazing technologies we have, almost anything can be found online and we can use it to communicate in millions of different ways. Why would anyone want to limit that? However Kent McCarthy also, unlike most others, has some good things to say about the bills. He argues that the government will be able to pursue more copyright violations that happen on the web. Copyrighting is obviously bad for all media industries, but the government are doing what they can to stop this already, why need even more control? Can’t they do their job now? He also argues that in theory it should boost revenue for entertainment industries as there should be less content theft. However there are regulations and laws against copyright and content theft at the moment, the government will have to take extreme measures to enforce that all of this is stopped when, for some people, its just so easy. Even with SOPA and PIPA it is likely that people will find away around this. With anything that censors what we say, so or access online it is safe to say that these bills will constitute a bad thing for personal freedom."
The next step now is to find someone to read the script.
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