Why SOPA Stinks for Internet Marketers

The Mayans were probably right. The world as we know it could end this year (gasp).

But perhaps not.

SOPA. It’s such a sticky issue that one can’t simply turn a blind eye on. Millions of people are oblivious about the subject, but IF it gets to become a law, the whole world could be in total disarray.

If you are an internet marketer or someone who’s making a living off the interwebs, you should care. The issue may have quieted down a bit, thanks to the massive online protest pulled off by online giants led by Google and Wikipedia, the battle is far from over.

SOPA may not be signed into law this year, but it will pretty much re-appear next year with a different face, tone and name.

What is SOPA by the way?

It does sound like a Mexican delicacy, but it’s far less desirable. While it may sound harmless, what lies inside it could spell the doom of freedom of expression and freedom of information.

For the uninitiated, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is a bill proposed in 2011 that was scheduled to be put to a vote by the Senate on January 24th.  It has been proposed with one major end in mind – to put a stop to online trafficking of counterfeit goods and copyrighted properties.

Sounds like a good thing. It really is – on the front. But what’s really scary about this bill is that it categorically threatens the free world of the interwebs and the entire industry of e-Commerce.

How does SOPA affect the entire internet?

In a BIG way.

The bill proposes to crack down on sites that facilitate and merely “enable” the use of copyrighted materials such as images, videos and music. Even websites that link to such sites will be held liable under the bill. Now let’s take a look at that closer.

SOPA uses a very broad language that encompasses practically all websites. Think about it, if this bill becomes a law, it will crack down not only on smaller e-commerce sites, but also on online heavyweights such as Google, YouTube, Wikipedia, Facebook and Flickr.

While not very apparent to everyone, those sites either “enable” the use of copyrighted intellectual property rights or link to such sites. Under the bill, Google could be forced or ordered to remove such sites from its index.

Now let’s talk about how SOPA directly affects internet marketing.

Under the bill, your site does not have to deliberately commit copyright infringement to get into legal trouble. All it needs is for it to have a feature that enables copyright infringement to be subject to the penalties under the bill. So if your site allows comments, for example, and a link to a site that violates the copyright laws is posted to your site, you could be flagged as an offender.

As a result:

• Google and other search engines could be forced to remove your site from their indexes. You lose credibility and all traffic from the search engines will be lost indefinitely
• If your site facilitates online payments, payment providers such as PayPal and major credit card providers will be forced to terminate services to your site
• Ad providers like Google Adsense will also be required to terminate  all ad services to your site
• ISPs will be forced to block your access to your own site

That’s quadruple whammy for you, while the government effectively seizes control of your domain.

What can we do to stop SOPA?

Well, the recent stunt that Wikipedia and other major sites pulled off seemed to spook the legislators, especially some of the bill’s sponsors. More and more of them are waking up to the counter-productivity of the bill that they thought up.

At this point, all we can do is to stay vigilant for more government and corporate initiatives that look, sound and smell like SOPA.

But kudos to Reddit, Google, Wikipedia and the rest of the online community for an awesome protest that powerfully drove the point home.

Let’s keep the internet free while maintaining a more disciplined approach to disseminating information across the web.

Andy “the vigilante” Jenkins

P.S. Mitt Romney recently expressed his disapproval over SOPA, as well as other Republican hopefuls. Another win for the Internet.