WHAT DOES SOPA/PIPA MEAN FOR SOCIAL MEDIA?

Over the past several days there's been an outpouring of anger across all social networks against the proposed SOPA/PIPA bills currently being considered in Congress. The Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act are both aimed at curbing online and offline copyright infringement by granting the government and copyright owner’s far-reaching new powers. SOPA/PIPA doesn’t change the current laws, but greatly increases the penalty for those who break the law. It also allows the government and copyright owners to hold any organization or website responsible for assisting in copyright infringement. For example, if Google links to a website displaying copyrighted material without permission of the owner, Google itself could be held responsible.

So what does this mean to the present and future of social media? In short, this legislation, if truly enforced with the vigor it implies, would severely cripple all social media platforms.

All social media currently allow users to upload content with very little monitoring. The ability to quickly and easily upload content is a vital part of social media. Current protections allow users to report any copyrighted or obscene content uploaded, and the platform will work quickly to remove the content.

However, if the social media platform itself could be held liable in court for any copyrighted content uploaded to their site, in order to protect themselves, these sites would have to begin monitoring every piece of content before it’s uploaded.

This would have two effects. First, content would no longer be posted instantly. Users would have to wait hours, or even days for their content to appear online. Secondly, social media sites would be forced to hire massive teams of people to review all content posted to the site. The cost of doing such a thing would be immense, and this cost would inevitably be passed on to the users, either in the form of increased and more aggressive advertisements, or through user fees.

SOPA/PIPA will also stifle innovation and the creation of new social networks. Start-up companies to not have the resources to monitor every piece of content uploaded to their sites, nor do they have the resources to hire a team of lawyers to defend them if a piece of copyrighted content happens to be posted to their site.

There’s also a slippery-slope argument against SOPA/PIPA. What exactly constitutes copyright infringement? Is uploading a cover-song copyright infringement? What if you change some of the lyrics? What about a song inspired by another song?

Ultimately, every new and original piece of content is influenced and derived by other works. There’s no such thing as an entirely original idea. Granting the government and copyright holders the power to draw the line as to what constitutes copyright infringement is a dangerous prospect.

Enterline Digital does not support or condone copyright infringement. Copyright laws are vital to providing incentive for new creative works. However SOPA/PIPA would swing the pendulum too far in the wrong direction, and end up stifling creativity instead of fostering it.