Staff writer - Keisha Gaspard
For weeks the internet has been filled with discussions about the SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act) bills which have been negotiated by the United States of America congress. SOPA seeks to counter piracy by restricting access to websites that host pirated content such as Pirate Bay (piratebay.com) and torrent hub (http://torrents.to/sites/general/torrent-hub) whilst PIPA is purposed to give the American government authority to remove a website deemed to have infringed content. Companies such as Pirate Bay have escaped the long arm of the law due to its servers being housed overseas (outside of the United States of America), however MegaUpload was not as fortunate as not only the site is currently shut down but the proprietors are facing federal charges.
Why ought we to care about this American legislature? After all, we are not citizens of America. The fact is that this legislature concerns the internet body; these bills would indeed change the way the world operates (http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/design/how-sopa-pipa-can-affect-you/ ) it would mean a change of business and information gathering. No longer would the Caribbean be able to acquire pirated songs, movies, or information that is now so freely and easily available by a simple ‘Google’ search. Business would be lost as SOPA, which does not have international reach, seeks to monitor and control American companies such as Google, YouTube and E-bay, from displaying illegal content i.e. content that infringes the copyright policies. The bill also prohibits money transfer and payment to acquire the aforesaid illegal content such as Visa and MasterCard. Many Caribbean nationals have spoken out against these bills; however, can we really fight a fight that does not belong to us? Will the American government hear us? Why should the Caribbean or the rest of the world for that matter be dismayed if these bills were approved?
I believe SOPA and PIPA can be an opportunity for the Caribbean; actually, it poses an opportunity for the rest of the world. There is obviously a huge problem here if the world relies so heavily on one nation for so many services, that one law can affect our way of life. There ought to be competition on a global scale for search engines, encyclopedic information, payment services etc. Google, Twitter and E-bay believe the SOPA bill to be similar to China’s censorship and so do I. China bills to control censorship can be seen to have encouraged local imitations and innovations of these internet super giants – Google and YouTube. Though Google Inc. has not left the country and is still needed, the imitations provide economic gain to the local economy as well as cultural preservation. Outside of the obvious problem of the lack of freedom of speech, China’s censorship is very beneficial to China. In fact the Chinese now see their Great Firewall (the censorship) visionary and are claiming the Americans are following their vision. Google, who is opposed to the SOPA bill and protested by blacking out the site for a day, is already a censor conspirator for countries such as Germany, China and France (http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-03-02-n19.html ). In China Google censors Human Rights groups amongst others (http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/google/results1.html) and in Germany Nazi websites are censored; it is left to one’s own surmise if Google is against SOPA based on moral dilemma and threat to information freedom as claimed or great potential revenue loss. That said, Google is a friend to hackers and that has, no doubt, increased its popularity.
Let the United States of America’s loss be the Caribbean’s gain. Though the bills are shelved for now, if they were to resurface with invigorated determination to be a reality in the laws of America, let us be ready for the opportunity that presents itself. Let us spark the innovation in the Caribbean, united in the cause of free information and freedom of speech and expression. Let the Caribbean create its own optimized non-American search engine that does not have the restrictions of censorship, our own payment services to compete with Visa and MasterCard. I believe these bills which are a threat to the freedom of speech for the American way of life on the World Wide Web, is the Caribbean Community’s freedom to think and be opportunistic to place ourselves in a strategic advantage point to capitalize on any misfortune these bills may present the world. Today, let us be grateful that the bills were shelved, however if in the future they were to be implemented, let us be ready with our own solutions and services in place, to keep the internet free for speech, expression, innovation and communication without censorship.
