1. Name: Danica De Gracia BTM 1 March 21, 2012
Teacher: Mr. Rey Uzhmar Padit Economic 1 MW 9:00- 10:30
*What is the basis of US government in promoting SOPA and PIPA? Is it worth
the loss in maximizing their economic revenues through implementing this bill?
Information nowadays is critically important especially when it comes
to economic stability because it is one of the factors that affects the change of
needs and wants of an individual, with the vast changing of our technology today
which gives us easier access of information through internet including the public
site like Google, YouTube, Twitter, and the most trending, the Face book where
plagiarism are most likely to happen pushes the US government to take a serious
step in making a decision to push through the implementation of first, the PIPA,
an acronym for the Protect IP Act, and was first introduced to the U.S. Senate on
May 12, 2011 by Senators Patrick Leahy which, if passed, will give U.S.
corporations and the government the right to seek affirmative legal action with
any website that they see as enabling copyright infringement whether of U.S.
origin or not. This was followed by SOPA an acronym for Stop Online Piracy Act,
and is a bill introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives by Representative
Lamar Smith on October 26, 2011 which if passed will work in conjunction with
PIPA.
The reason behind these sudden action of the US government were the
copying of information easily and illegally which affects the revenues of the big
corporations especially in line with the entertainment industry that is said to have
suffered greatly from online content theft especially in public site like YouTube.
One of the advantage of this bill is that we can guarantee the quality of the
product and also the information because every detail in the internet will be
highly checked by copyright yet in my opinion the government should also give
consideration that through online piracy, their movies and other productions were
advertised extensively all over the world in a split second and if pointed out the
profits or surplus at stake from piracy relative to the lost value all of the other
Internet activities that would be stifled under SOPA/PIPA, the cost of piracy is just
not that large. Sure, it’s concentrated in the hands of politically-powerful
entertainment content companies, but relative to the rest of the vibrant, dynamic
value creation that would "be disappeared" it's small. Moreover, domestic and
international legal institutions already exist to deal with piracy; like any other
human institution they are imperfect, but as a consequence of them the losses
from piracy are small relative to what would be lost if Congress imposed SOPA.
The reason why I am so curious and very blatant in voicing out my
opinion when in fact it is not a Philippine bill that were proposed is because these
act are stopping us to innovate and that could change how we use the internet
also the cost of utility that would be forgone is very high compared to its benefits
in the market.