• Listen to this segment

• Listen to the entire program

Internet piracy has not ceased to boil the blood of entertainment industry heavy weights since Napster allowed nominally savvy users to widely share music online without a penny going back to major record labels. The distributors of movies and music largely located in Hollywood have not adapted to the new age of information sharing, and instead continue to lobby for legislation to restrict the ability for internet users to consume their content online for free. Two bills under consideration in the House and the Senate are born of this tension between new media and old, the better known is the House’s Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA. SOPA, introduced by Texas Congressman Lamar Smith, ostensibly targets foreign “rogue” sites that distribute US content in China and elsewhere. US companies have few effective legal options to regulate foreign practices. SOPA would allow extrajudicial action if an Intellectual Property rightsholder claims a website is infringing on a copyright. Without a hearing before a judge or a court order, payment processors for websites and advertisers could be given 5 days to stop business with the alleged “rogue” website. The Intellectual property holder only needs to notify the companies that they are supporting a website engaging in copyright infringement. SOPA also allows the Department of Justice to blacklist an entire website by preventing access to it through the Domain Name. Website owners have few opportunities to contest allegations of copyright infringement. Opponents of SOPA say its vague language will allow interference with US based websites, and decry its broad stroke approach of disabling an entire website instead of removing only single pieces of offending content. Google, Yahoo, and Facebook have come out against SOPA as well as many internet advocacy groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

GUEST: Holmes Wilson, co-founder of Fight for the Future, an advocacy organization against internet censorship

Find out more about the Stop Online Piracy Act at www.fightforthefuture.org.