Do you enjoy watching Youtube videos?

Do you enjoy downloading music from(legitimate sources)?

Do you enjoy the freedoms you have on social sites such as facebook,twitter,reddit etc?

If you do, then you should definitely keep your eye on the news, and you should definitely watch out for these new bills that the government is trying pass.

S.O.P.A(Stop Online Piracy Act), and P.I.P.A(Protect IP Act) these two acts could change the way you use the internet and even worse can change how we view our freedoms.

So your sitting their, in your seat probably unconcerned or believing this will just fade like all other bills. Well Im here to tell you this, your unconcern could cost you, your freedom!

Do I have your attention? Good!

Now listen up before I delve into why this could possibly have an major effect on your life, Im going to explain what S.O.P.A and P.I.P.A are.

Much of the entertainment we enjoy, comes from companies and these companies want to protect their products as well as deserve to be paid for all the hard work and dedication they put into their products. They also, don't want other people still their working and getting paid off, of it so in light of these certain laws and acts have been passed to protect them.

Before S.O.P.A and P.I.P.A were even in discussion there was already acts passed that protected these companies from piracy. The D.M.C.A( Digital Millenium Copyright Act) protects against specific types of unauthorized content. The S.O.P.A and P.I.P.A target the actual platforms or websites themselves that are home to the unauthorized content.

If your having trouble understanding this let me break it down for you.

*Lets say you like a movie(Rush Hour for example) and there is a particular part of the movie that you find funny and wanted to share on your Face Book. So you decide to look it up on the internet and you find some clips from an unauthorized site. You download the clips and you place them on your face book. *

As things stand now, instead of targeting Face book and holding it accountable for the unauthorized usage of the film, it will just delete the clip itself, or target the host site where the clip had originated.

Now with the implementation of S.O.P.A and P.I.P.A, Face Book would be target, YOU would be targeted, as well as the originated source of it.

Which could led to a lot of people being sued for copyright infringement. Sites such as: Face Book, Reddit and Youtube, would have to constantly search for and reject copyright infringements so as to avoid being sued.

Now your asking, Why would anyone want this?

Content Providers such as the Motion Picture Association of America(M.P.A.A) would love for this to happen. Why? They believe that overseas piracy poses a great threat to the booming domestic innovation and jobs that the internet provides.

In other words they fear that they will do all this hard work and someone from another country will search the internet, steal their work and profit off, of it without doing a days worth of work.

*Now some off you might believe this to be a good thing. Why shouldn't the M.P.A.A profit completely off their own work?*

As stated before their are better ways to secure the internet than these. S.O.P.A and P.I.P.A provide great protection, this is true but they also could backfire upon the citizens of the United States as well.

Under the laws of S.O.P.A and P.I.P.A new business and innovators might be afraid to start up an internet business because of the taxing fees that would be placed upon them, if even one copyright infringed link was placed on their site.

Imagine this, you have a great idea to open this new "social dating" website which allows people from all over the country to interact with each other. If just one person uploads a quote or link to a website that has some copyright laws backing it, it could cause you tremendous problems.

These is just the beginning of what can happen, if laws like this is are allowed to be passed. Im not trying to sound like a conspiracy theorist or whatever, just an concerned citizen who likes knowing he can go on Youtube find something funny and post it on my Face Book without worrying about being sued or some other legal action taken against me.