Déjà vu?

Thanks to all of the protests and complaints, the SOPA and PIPA laws were not even voted upon, and should definitely be kept quiet for another year or so. But, does that mean we are all in the clear? I don’t think so, at least not if history repeats it self, which it tends to do. Back in 1998 the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was passed, it imposed rules that prohibited the circumvention of technological protection measures, set limitations on copyright infringement liability for online service providers, and expanded an existing exemption for making copies of computer programs. Soon though, this law became out of date and too many loopholes were popping up. In 2002 they came up with a new law, the “Consumer Broadband Digital Television Act of 2002,” which attempted to prevent digital distribution by protecting copyrights. Then in 2004 came the “Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act of 2004” claiming certain technologies were equivalent to producing infringement, but was criticized for focusing on the technology involved instead of the behavior behind it. A different act was passed in 2004, the “Protecting Intellectual Rights Against Theft and Expropriation (PIRATE) Act,” which allowed “the entertainment industry to use the Justice Department as its private law firm to enforce copyright law in civil, as opposed to criminal, cases.  PIRATE was one of eight intellectual property bills grouped into one omnibus that year alone.”

Unfortunate for the Senate, but fortunate for the rest of us, the grouped package never passed. Until 2007 when the Senate came up with the “Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2008” (Pro-IP Act), this has harsher consequences often resulting in the seizure of computers, if there was suspected infringement. According to an article in the Huffington Post, “Industry leaders lauded the bill, saying it would create thousands of jobs and even help curb terrorism.” I don’t exactly see how terrorism plays into this, other than a lot of the pirated music comes from over sea sites.

Anyways, back to my point, the senate and congress are going to keep trying their little games to pass more acts and band all that is fun and interesting on the Internet. No matter how many times they fail or succeed it seems like, since technology keeps changing, they will continue to fight against online material. Luckily they need to overcome some serious obstacles before passing anything, as seen in the past and more recent past. We are all innovators, so we will find ways around whatever the government throws our way, unless it is a good idea…but who are we kidding? It wasn’t that long ago people were using P2P sharing programs to download music off the Internet, then it evolved into torrent sites and even simpler as file-host and file-sharing sites that have individual downloads available. So, lets keep the ball rolling world.