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Let's say that you´re the owner of some type of copyrighted material-

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maybe it's a movie, maybe it's music of some kind-

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and you observe that there is a site that is operating

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outside of the United States and that site-at least in your mind-

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seems to be infringing on your copyright by US law.

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So this is the site in question - and you're saying that it is doing illegal things, at least by US standards.

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The problem is that there's nothing you can do -

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it's operating outside of US soil and outside of US laws.

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You can even go to the government, even if the government wanted to do something about it,

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it really couldn't. Because once again, it's outside the US jurisdiction.

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The purpose of SOPA-and it seems fairly benign at first-

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is to give some tools to these actors to stop this.

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The problem-and we´ll see that it's quite a large problem-

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is that it gives tools to these actors to do much more than just stopping illegal activity;

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it allows them essentially to go on, to some degree, a kind of a witch hunt

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for anyone that might even have a whiff of enabling this type of activity.

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-it won´t even just be for foreign sites.

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So let's write this down, so SOPA stands for:

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Stop Online Piracy Act -

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and it sounds pretty reasonable -

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and this is the version of the bill that's coming from the House of Representatives.

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The one from the Senate, that's slightly different

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but they have the same intent, is PIPA [Protect IP Act].

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And what it does is, if you can´t go after this site itself

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maybe you can go after sites that is somehow benefiting this site.

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And those sites are inside the United States.

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So this is outside, this is inside the United States.

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So things that are doing that might include search engines.

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So search engines like Google or Bing.

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They obviously link to this site over here. You might have ad networks -

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so sites that allow this site over here to display ads and to get revenue from them -

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that are benefiting this site over here.

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You might have payment sites like PayPal

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or credit card processors that this site uses to collect revenue.

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And, maybe most importantly, you have things like the DNS servers within the US

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that associate this site's domain name with the actual servers.

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And I wont get too technical about it, but when you type in

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something like www.shady.foreign

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, and once again, we´re gonna see that this site might

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not even have to be shady or foreign-

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but when you type something like that in -

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there´re servers in the United states that associate that with these servers

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that might be operated outside the United States - that associate this text with a number

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that points to this website, that points to this website's servers.

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So these are all things within the United States -

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that to some degree this site is dependent on.

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So what SOPA does is, it allows these actors here -

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the ones that are obviously concerned with enforcing their copyrights -

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to issue court orders and notices to these actors right over here

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that essentially compels them, very strongly, to immediately

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cut off ties with this illegal site - or what they think is an illegal site.

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Now that might seem reasonable to you, except for the fact that

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it's kind of a "shoot first and think later" type of policy.

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The basic way it works is, you presume guilt until this guy

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somehow tries to prove his innocence and we´ll see

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this guy isn't necessarily outside the US.

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It might even be completely legal, or what I would consider

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completely legal sites inside the US.

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Essentially as soon as this allegation is made and either a court order

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or a notice is payed, these enablers have to cut off ties to this site -

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and you can imagine that if these cut off ties to this site,

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- this sites´ business - whatever it might be - whether illegal or legal,

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immediately gets obliterated, especially this one here

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including search engines, ad networks and payments.

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And if they don´t comply then these guys are going to start having a legal battle.

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So these guys are not only going to have to comply-and that by itself is hard-

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but if they don´t comply, then they themselves are going to be in trouble.

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Now it gets really obviously creepy, when you start

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going into - so when you think of this - you´re like

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okay, so maybe we can work around this a little bit.

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But it gets creepy when you even know this is the spirit of the legislation,

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when you actually read the wording of the legislation-

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and obviously that's what matters, not the name or the intent-

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But actually how it's worded-I mean, the way it's worded

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- it´s pretty clear that its intent is to go after much more

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than just a site that's explicitly selling illegal pharmaceuticals or

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allowing people to download movies or, or videos or music

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that these owners don´t have access to.

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When you read the wording, it's pretty clear that they want to be able

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to shut down anything that is in any way associating with itself -

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or in any way enabling it.

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And you see it in the wording. So this is actually section 1.0.3 of the SOPA legislation

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- and this is how they define a site that is dedicated to theft of US property.

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So an internet site is dedicated to theft of US property if -

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and, so you know, it's useable by people in the United States -

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and this is interesting: It´s "primarily designed or operated for the purpose of,"

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"has only limited purpose or use other than,"

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"or is marketed by its operator or another acting in concert"

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"with that operator for use in, offering goods or services in a manner"

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"that engages in, enables, or facilitates" - now this is interesting -

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enables or facilitates all of these violations.

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And these are the violations that would be illegal:

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You´re selling things that you can´t sell,

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you´re infringing on other people´s copyright.

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And it might seem harmless, this "enables, or facilitates", until you think about

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what that could encapsulate.

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If I have a site, like this, I am part of a site: Khan Academy

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Let´s say someone puts a message on Khan Academy

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and from Khan Academy they link to a site that actually is really illegal

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and that is really shady and they link to it in the message boards.

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Well, under this am I enabling, is Khan Academy enabling or facilitating?

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And if that's the case, then Khan Academy - by this definition -

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would be considered to be a site that is dedicated to theft of US property.

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And there are much bigger players than just Khan Academy,

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that can be thrown into this bucket, players like YouTube or Vimeo or any site.

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Or even a news site, that allows people to put comments,

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or allows people to put images, things like Flickr.

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That maybe had - in some way - their users infringing on the copyright

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now all of the sudden the whole site - based on this definition - the entire site

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can be defined as a site dedicated to theft of US property.

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By this definition YouTube could be that, if it's viewed in kind of

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enabling or facilitating.

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Khan Academy, any news site could be viewed like that.

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Vimeo could be viewed that way,

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a photo sharing site could be viewed like that.

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People might take a photo or something that they don´t have the copyright

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and upload an image and all the sudden - by this definition -

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based on just a sense that that's being violated,

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they won´t just be able to shut down these illegal sites;

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they would be able to shut down things like YouTube, or Vimeo,

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or even things like CNN.com, if someone puts a message

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or an image, that they think is somehow violating.

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And so it's not just going-right now the methodology is,

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if there is some content on YouTube or Vimeo or some other site,

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that they feel is infringing on their copyright,

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there are laws, where they contact YouTube directly,

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they point them to the content, that seems to be infringing

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and YouTube, or Vimeo, or whoever will take down that content.

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But what this allows them to do is shoot first and think later:

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"Oh, look: You´re enabling that"; if they could convince some court

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to give a court order, they can start giving notice to these players right over here

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to cut off ties with major - what I would consider very legal sites -

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like YouTube or Vimeo or CNN.

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It´s really almost any site that allows people to upload things onto it,

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or put links on it, which is almost - Facebook is another one -

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anything that has user generated content.

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On just a whim they could take down the entire site -

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not just take down that user generated content -

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they could, on just convincing one judge, or convincing just any of these,

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they could cut off ties with Facebook.

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Not even making Facebook.com point to Facebook anymore.

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CNN - they could just completely take down these sites on a whim.

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And it gets worse than that, because you would say:

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"well, look, if they can take this down on a whim and, you know,"

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"maybe they kind of thought it was, but they didn't do their homework"

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"and then they realize that it wasn't copyright infringement,"

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"couldn't these guys sue back?"-although, already, the damage would have been done,

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these sites would have been taken down;

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they would have lost millions or billions of dollars;

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millions, or tens or hundreds of millions, of users would not be able to access these things

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and this would also be true for Wikipedia,

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if someone uploaded something that wasn't completely, 100%, vetted,

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they could take down the entire site, not just that content.

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And you say: "Okay, that's bad enough!"

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"But couldn't these people say: `Hey, look, you wrongfully took us down,`"

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"`we´re going to sue you now`". Well to see that they can´t and

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to see how one-sided this legislation is, notice:

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The threshold for being able to sued back, if you kind of

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misrepresented a violation - the only way you´re kind of held

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accountable is if you knowingly, materially misrepresented the violation.

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So, if the copyright holder just says: "Oh, I think someone on YouTube"-you know-

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"I feel pretty good that someone on YouTube is violating"

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and that YouTube is enabling a violation and, therefore, YouTube

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is a site dedicated to theft of US property and it later on

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it finds out that it wasn't, it was fair use or maybe that person

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actually did have the copyright to it,

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they can´t be sued, because they said: "Oh, I just thought it was";

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they weren't knowingly materially misrepresenting themselves.

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So even if it ends up not even being a violation, these guys

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could take the site down. Maybe some small producers actually

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secured the rights, put it up on YouTube and then,

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all of the sudden, these guys take down all of YouTube based on

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not actually knowing what they are talking about.

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And there can´t even be a counter suit in that case, based on the law.

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And it gets even creepier than that, because to be considered this

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you don´t even just have to enable or facilitate - which is almost anything-

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one could argue a computer is enabling or facilitating this on some level.

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But you are considered to be a site dedicated to theft of US property,

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even if you do nothing illegal, even if you don´t enable anything illegal,

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but if you just take actions that make it difficult for authorities to confirm

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that you´re doing something illegal. So if you view this in the physical world:

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obviously, some people are doing illegal things in their homes

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and, obviously, some people lock their doors to keep people out of their homes.

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And maybe people are doing illegal things, it would even be

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more likely to lock their doors and close their shutters.

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What this would do-and this would do it in the virtual sense-

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is say: "Look! Just by taking the deliberate action of closing your shutters"

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"and looking your doors, which makes it hard for federal agents to confirm"

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"that you´re doing illegal things - just by doing that - that itself is an illegal act".

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This is maybe one of the creepiest and draconian Intrusions of privacy,

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that I have actually heard of,

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that was even attempted to be passed into law.

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So if I were you - just as a kind of a privacy and liberty loving American - I´d be worried.