Rationally Persuasive Essay
Doe 1
Jane Doe
Syreeta Harada
Political Science 1
01 May 2012
Is SOPA the right answer to online piracy?
In 1998, the Chinese government embarked on a path towards the creation of a censorship and Internet surveillance program (Walton 197). On November 2003, the Golden
Shield Project, nicknamed the ‘Great Firewall of China” was implemented in an effort to regulate the Internet, serving to block Chinese citizens from websites containing information that may deemed unlawful by government and essentially censoring access to public content (Walton
197). On October 26th 2011, Texas Republican Representative Lamar Smith, along with twelve co-sponsors, unveiled the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) (Pike 24). The bill is an anti-piracy initiative, which in effect would allow the U.S. Department of Justice to halt any websites or services using copyrighted material without legal consent (Pike 24). While it is unreasonable to wholly compare China’s Internet-policing methods to the U.S.’s proposed plan, it is not unreasonable to speculate on SOPA’s possible detrimental consequences as it attempts to battle online piracy. Will SOPA bring more good to the world through economic alleviation, job protection, and the protection of intellectual property, or will it cause the destruction of the
Internet’s symbiotic rapport with the world and sacred constitutional rights?
As previously mentioned, SOPA was introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives late last year, but it truly came to the forefront as a newsworthy, topical issue on January 2012.
Further debate of the act was scheduled for the early months of 2012, but on January 18th, the process was interrupted as widespread online protests emerged involving the “blackout” of
Doe 2 several websites. The massive events of that day lead to an indefinite postponement of the bill. It is crucial to keep in mind though that SOPA was also likely pulled due to the amount of surrounding controversy and the fact
Jane Doe
Syreeta Harada
Political Science 1
01 May 2012
Is SOPA the right answer to online piracy?
In 1998, the Chinese government embarked on a path towards the creation of a censorship and Internet surveillance program (Walton 197). On November 2003, the Golden
Shield Project, nicknamed the ‘Great Firewall of China” was implemented in an effort to regulate the Internet, serving to block Chinese citizens from websites containing information that may deemed unlawful by government and essentially censoring access to public content (Walton
197). On October 26th 2011, Texas Republican Representative Lamar Smith, along with twelve co-sponsors, unveiled the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) (Pike 24). The bill is an anti-piracy initiative, which in effect would allow the U.S. Department of Justice to halt any websites or services using copyrighted material without legal consent (Pike 24). While it is unreasonable to wholly compare China’s Internet-policing methods to the U.S.’s proposed plan, it is not unreasonable to speculate on SOPA’s possible detrimental consequences as it attempts to battle online piracy. Will SOPA bring more good to the world through economic alleviation, job protection, and the protection of intellectual property, or will it cause the destruction of the
Internet’s symbiotic rapport with the world and sacred constitutional rights?
As previously mentioned, SOPA was introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives late last year, but it truly came to the forefront as a newsworthy, topical issue on January 2012.
Further debate of the act was scheduled for the early months of 2012, but on January 18th, the process was interrupted as widespread online protests emerged involving the “blackout” of
Doe 2 several websites. The massive events of that day lead to an indefinite postponement of the bill. It is crucial to keep in mind though that SOPA was also likely pulled due to the amount of surrounding controversy and the fact
Cited: Clemmitt, Marcia . "Internet Regulation." CQ Researcher Online 22.12 (2012): 325-248. CQ Researcher Newman, Daniel, Mangmang Cai, and Rebecca Heugstenberg. "Intellectual Property Crimes." The American Criminal Law Review 44.2 (2007): 693-744 Riley, Gail Blasser. Internet piracy. New York: Marshall Cavendish Benchmark, 2011. Print. Wang, Shujen. "Recontextualizing copyright: Piracy, Hollywood, the state, and globalization." Cinema Journal 43.1 (2003): 25-43 A Divergent Perspective." Journal of Business Ethics 87 (2009): 45-47. ProQuest Database