Though it may be an old issue, I think the would-be Congressional laws SOPA and PIPA have raised questions about how best to protect copyright. Surely these acts are dead, but corporations like the Motion Picture Association of America still need to find new ways to protect their economic interests in copyrights. Since most piracy online comes from independent users, a direct approach to monitoring and punishing offenders would be impossible. Instead, copyright laws attack the bigger, more visible targets. For example, SOPA would have shut down an entire site if it had been found to possess copyrighted material illegally (even though the users were responsible for putting that content on the site). With this maneuver out of the picture, it looks like copyright owners are going after internet service providers. One plan calls for providers to slow down internet speed or even cut service entirely from repeat offenders.
Another interesting part of this article: It looks like Google has changed its algorithm to force copyrighted material into low priority on searches. If I can’t find copyrighted material, I guess I won’t be able to infringe it. This caught my attention because Google was one of many sites to black out for a day in protest of SOPA. To see them now compromising with those who would have loved to see the act pass seems hypocritical.
Forgive me if I’m misinterpreting here, but it seems like you agree with such websites as Google and Wikipedia in their resistance to PIPA and SOPA. While I understand the concerns coming from those businesses, I have a different view of these acts. At my internship this past summer, I spoke with employees of the publishing industry who were upset with Google and Wikipedia’s actions. According to these employees, PIPA and SOPA would have helped them immensely by coming close to eliminating websites that pirate their copyrighted material, which affects their company’s profit, employment, etc. These companies feel that websites that use copyrighted material are stealing and that companies such as Google and Wikipedia should not support it. So, I agree with Google’s algorithm, but believe that more should be done to eliminate these internet pirates.
What it seems like to me is, Google, like the other sites that blacked out, was against not anti-piracy maneuvers, but extreme maneuvers. To take out an entire site does sound like an outrageous thing to do. On the other hand, to hide a site through low priority still makes it accessible, but also relatively inaccessible. Therefore, the site still exists, isn’t harshly crushed, but also has pirating cut down.