Stop Anti Piracy Act

During the past 10 years, the internet has impacted our culture in various ways. It is the epitome of convenience, something we Americans appreciate. The internet has replaced the need to go to a local library, where there would be a limited number of books and other sources of information; the internet provides us with countless sources that are being updated every day, which includes video, audio, and typed documents. Today, you can find and use the internet anywhere you go by using a cell phone or many other mobile electronic devices. We rely on it daily to check the news, the weather, to search for movie times at a theatre, and even to keep in touch with friends. It even helps businesses and companies by advertising, selling goods, and creating jobs. All of those things and more can be found with very little effort and very little time. Now, imagine that all of your favorite websites or search engines were blocked and could never be up and running again. In October, the U.S. Senate and House of Representative proposed a bill called Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Luke Johnson of the Huffington Post defines the Stop Online Piracy Act with, “the legislation would allow copyright holders and the Justice Department to seek court orders against websites associated with copyright infringement.” The copyright infringements, even if unintentional, could be the end to many websites. Declan McCullagh of cnet.com had found, “Laurence Tribe,… has argued that SOPA is unconstitutional because, if enacted, "an entire Web site containing tens of thousands of pages could be targeted if only a single page were accused of infringement."’ This has caused a lot of attention from high school students to major companies such as Google. The bill is worded in a way so that there are many ways a website could be shut down, even by something as menial as a few words. Luke Johnson also stated, “The language in the bill is vague, however, and could spark the shutdown of many