Recently there has been a lot of talk about the two most recent anti-piracy bills pushed through Congress, PIPA (by the Senate) and SOPA (by the House of Representatives). Because piracy has become such a public problem, the US government has given more and more attention to the subject. Even Vice President Biden has taken a very hard stance against piracy and gone as far as saying “Piracy is theft. Clean and simple. It is smash and grab.” This is the kind of policy that gives bills like this the momentum they need to make it to forefront of Congress. There is a lot to know about the both of them, but the one that is garnering the most attention and appears to be the most dangerous is the one that we will focus on here: SOPA.

The Stop Online Piracy Act, also known as the “WikiLeaks Law”, has been causing one hell of a commotion on internet forums around the world. At its core, SOPA is another weapon in the US’ arsenal against online piracy. The bill, aimed at websites hosting unauthorized copyrighted content, would allow any website’s funding to be cut off from major payment processors such as MasterCard, Visa, or PayPal. The reason this has been labeled as the WikiLeaks Law is because one of the methods used to attempt to bring the infamous site to its knees was by choking its funding by going after its payment processor. Needless to say, this is a very powerful thing. If a website has no funding, it is only a matter of time before it ceases to exist.

This all sounds well and good until you consider the fact that this bill is being heavily influenced by the MPAA and RIAA. Beyond that, there are some serious issues that come from the power that SOPA gives to private companies. By filing a complaint, a private company can stop payments to pretty much any one of its competitors. This might not sound like too big of a deal, but when you consider the fact that almost every web hosting provider, cloud-based service, and backup provider could be immediately brought down by a competitor or concerned party. This means that companies like Amazon, Google, and Dropbox could be caught in the line of fire.

There are a host of other problems that would arise with the passing SOPA, but to go into every one of them would take far too much time. The concept of this bill stifles innovation and has the potential to destroy the very freedom of the internet itself. It does not offer a protection plan against piracy and it certainly does not ensure that intellectual property will somehow become more secure. One thing this bill (and others like it), does tell us is that it is time for politicians to start learning about technology and stop hiding behind the guise that speaking nerd is best left for nerds. If you are at all interested in finding out what you can do about this, please feel free to contact your local representatives or use this site to help point you in the right direction.

One final note to my gamer kin: Give this Gameranx a solid read-through. It highlights some of the issues that directly affect us and the way websites handle MODs, video reviews, and game guides.