Personally, I think the true intent of SOPA is to prevent a Jasmine Revolution happening in the US (or Europe), and to prevent sites like WikiLeaks from spreading.<p>The US saw that Twitter and Facebook were key driving forces behind the events in Egypt, Tunisia, Iran, Syria, Libya, etc. Today they have not much control over these sites (other than politely requesting Twitter to delay a system upgrade[1] because Iranians were using it to coordinate their activities). Thanks to SOPA, they'll have a sledgehammer in their arsenal to knock these sites around.<p>Similarly, they could just talk to Amazon to not host Wikileaks[2]; but if Amazon had refused to comply, they couldn't have done much (OK, other than maybe quickly imposing a federal sales tax). Now, thanks to SOPA, they can completely shutdown AWS should the next Wikileaks crop up.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/06/16/us-iran-election-twitter-usa-idUSWBT01137420090616" rel="nofollow">http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/06/16/us-iran-election-t...</a><p>[2] <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/01/wikileaks-website-cables-servers-amazon" rel="nofollow">http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/01/wikileaks-websit...</a>
That's one take.<p>Another perspective that's occurred to me: this is a battle (in part) between the old world of software distribution (sold, in physical units, proprietary), vs. the new (SAAS, and to a small extent, free software distributed over the Net).<p>In the case of SAAS vs. desktop/locally installed software, it's hardly surprising that Google and Microsoft end up on opposite ends of this debate. What helps one most certainly hurts the other. And to that extent, other players in this game are probably pawns to an extent.<p>That said: SOPA is bad, bad, bad legislation and I'm very strongly opposed.
I'm not directly affected by SOPA as I don't live in the US, but it certainly is a concern of mine that if it were to pass, it can be used to motivate such actions in other countries despite the recent negative statements on SOPA from the EU Parliament. It's a "but look, even they are doing it"-thing.<p>In other words, here is yet another person hoping it doesn't pass, no matter what the true intention is.<p>EDIT: I do realize, however, that sites used by me which are hosted in the US can be brought down and affect me directly.
My gut has been that it is backed (and would be exploited) by corporations, specifically big media. Combine this with poor IP laws and you've got a scenario in which corporate censorship can thrive.
OK so I finally read Wikipedia's take on the bill (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act</a>).<p>At this point that no matter what happens we're screwed. I see why the people in industry want to back SOPA. As a copyright holder of something that costs a lot of money to make of course you want to make sure someone's not getting it for free.<p>I feel that laws like this could be way too broad and definitely hurt companies that rely on general Internet content like the people making noise against it (Google, Facebook, and Twitter for example). I couldn't imagine the chilling effect this would have for those companies to come up with ways to remove the offending content. This would eat into their profits and make their products less useful.<p>On the other hand I don't know what the solution to this problem is. Should the companies just accept that a certain amount of piracy is going to happen? Should they charge less for content and make it more accessible? That may be a feel-good thing to say but to create the high production values for your favorite movie today costs money.<p>As to why I think we're screwed I imagine that if (when?) this bill doesn't pass then the companies will enact even more draconian options to curb piracy or copyright infringement.
Woah, sopa is a future Wikileaks killer. Woah suddenly everything clicked in my mind. Mpaa, riaa, internet copying and "saving the children" are just pieces in a great chess game where Congress keeps itself the most powerful entity on the planet... With a website off switch to be used on any website worldwide that successfully challenges its authority. All bills giving any central authority power over the worldwide internet must be stopped. Internet > all governments... Combined. Internet should be free like a conversation in your home is free.