SOPA is dead, but OPEN lives on

SOPA is dead. That is, until February, when Lamar Smith, the author of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), plans on resurrecting the bill like a legislative Frankenstein.

But until then, we can all rest easy and enjoy videos of cousin Joey singing Jason Aldean on Facebook. I joke, but piracy is a serious issue. Protection of intellectual property is as important as preservation of physical property, but there are better solutions than the suppressive SOPA.

The best solution is the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade (OPEN) Act, which is an alternate to SOPA. OPEN has the support of Google and Facebook because it contains exceptions for websites that remove pirated content in a reasonable time. This exemption would allow YouTube, Facebook and many other websites to remain unmolested.

OPEN's method of restricting piracy is also less restrictive and more logical than that of SOPA. OPEN denies financial services (like PayPal) to piracy websites. The bill does not constrict search engines or blackout websites to US users. Furthermore, responsibility of enforcement is given to the US Trade Commission (which already deals with patent disputes) and taken away from the heavy hand of the Justice Department.

The most dangerous part of SOPA was its potential to allow the Department of Justice to shut down whistle-blowing websites like Wikileaks. Hiding in the legal-speak of the bill was a provision that allows blackouts of websites that make public "specified trade secret offenses intended to benefit a foreign government, instrumentality, or agent". Since Wikileaks often makes public "classified" and uncomfortable government documents, they would have been a clear and obvious target. The new act, however, has no provision for the blackout of sites such as Wikileaks.

A forgotten fact is that all the movie studios are steadily increasing their profits every quarter. Yet, we are still led to believe piracy is hurting the movie industry beyond repair.

Representative Smith (R-Tx), the author of SOPA, has received massive donations to his campaign by Hollywood and RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) moguls. These movie and music magnates will attempt to protect their cash flow even if it means using the government to restrict the spread of free speech. In the past, entities such as RIAA and MPAA (Movie Picture Association of America) have sued for millions over downloading and sharing of just several songs.

There needs to be clear and sensible legislation protecting the intellectual property of Americans. OPEN is such a bill, for it focuses on illegal activity and does not cause collateral damage to the web.