Copyright is a hard one to police and get anything done about. I should know, as I am currently fighting Google to have my book removed from their servers. Back in 2010, Google teamed up with the University of Michigan and digitised the entire library held by the university, scooping up public domain titles as well as copyright materials. Just getting Google to remove snippets view took an invoice, which they have yet to pay.
They were supposed to ask permission, but that seemed to get lost in their voracious desire to swallow the written words of everything ever published. Trying to get through to some large companies about this kind of breach of copyright can also be as difficult as hunting down those that hide in the recesses of the internet. But then again, whats the difference with someone small distributing something they do not own and a large multi-billion dollar corporation breaking copyright law. Not much, they are both culpable and in breach of copyright.
But SOPA and PIPA are a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Sometimes those that purport to do things for reasons that they believe to be in the best interest of everyone have either had their vision coloured by a third party, or they fail to see the bigger picture.
The internet is bigger than any one person, company or country. It is bringing us together in ways we never thought possible. Actions without understanding of the repercussions (short of long term) will be something that haunts everyone, just look at how the end of the war in Iraq was handled, to see bad planning in action. Any change needs to be discussed by those it is intended to impact, and the impact of any changes on the way the internet is policed needs to be viewed from a global position. As has already been mentioned, many of the internet infrstructure providers residing outside of the US would shield themselves by limiting DNS services between the US and the rest of the world.
In the current climate that would be a VERY BAD FINANCIAL MOVE. So I am glad for the moment there has been a breathing space, but as others have said, it is far from dead, watch this space and keep you finger on the pulse.
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