What’s Next in the SOPA Fight?

The English version of Wikipedia may have gone black in a one-day protest, but SOPA isn’t going away.

It’s not too hard to imagine how this will work in practice: Large, litigious copyright holders such as the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America will issue floods of copyright violation accusations to everyone from Google to Fark. These middlemen can choose to investigate each claim and decide whether to comply with the blocking notice, but the lawyers upstairs will always recommend that when in doubt, block. The law would create a new class of gatekeepers who will effectively decide what can go online and what can not. It will coronate a corporate censor for the Internet.

Expect these ill-considered provisions to live on in the new SOPA and PIPA bills.

By Michael Moyer | Read more at blogs.scientificamerican.com