The Internet is exploding this week with news about SOPA- the Stop Online Piracy Act that was introduced in the House of Representatives Oct. 26, 2011.

This bill is working to give the FTC and other US government law enforcement agencies the power to fight online piracy- trading and sharing of restricted intellectual property.
The bill is divided into two parts with the first focusing on combating “foreign rogue sites”, websites outside U.S. jurisdiction that enable or facilitate copyright infringement, and the second focusing on increased penalties to combat intellectual property theft via digital means.

For a basic overview of the bill, check out the Wikipedia article on SOPA.

Opposition to the bill is coming from a variety of places.

Artists are nervous about the bill because, as put so skillfully in the Washington Post: “[SOPA] is under attack by users of the Internet’s most popular Web sites, who say that the legislation is tantamount to censorship. The bill puts artists in a tricky place: On one hand, it protects their work. On the other hand, it could prohibit the collaborative creativity that the Internet enables and curb viral marketing that can help an artist’s career.”

Calling the bill “censorship” of the Internet, Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, has taken a stance that will not easily be revoked or overturned. In a TechCrunch article reporting his speech, he says: “The solutions are draconian. There’s a bill that would require ISPs to remove URLs from the Web, which is also known as censorship last time I checked.”

Because we all like to see things explained visually, check out this interesting infographic explaining one potential implication of the pending legislation.

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