SOPA is an anti-piracy bill that was debated in the US. The acronym stands for ‘Stop Online Piracy Act’.
SOPA and its close cousin, PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act), aim to limit online piracy and theft of intellectual property (IP) by removing people’s ability to find it through search engines, for example.
Proponents of the act see it as essential to protecting IP online, but opponents think it is going too far and will effectively create a censored web.
The main supporters of the bill have been Hollywood movie producers and other large content producers who really got the bill moving.
Opponents to the bill include the founders of Twitter, Wikipedia, Yahoo and Reddit.
If the bill is passed, the government and content providers would have the power to penalise sites that produce or even link to content they deem to be in breach of copyright.
It would really amount to a case of being guilty before being proven innocent, because before any proof is considered or the case is heard, money would be cut off from the suspect’s site, which would mean it would stop operating. PayPal and credit card processing would not be allowed to operate, and the site featuring corporate videos would be financially ruined.
Implications For Online Video
SOPA and PIPA would impose legal restrictions on people’s ability to search freely for content that is available. This would mean clamping down on the freedom of the net to share content.
Whether you’re an online video company or have a YouTube channel, SOPA will probably affect you. Even if you just link to a site that they think infringes copyright, you could be shut down. It could take up to a year to get back online again, by which time you would have faced financial ruin.
Big companies would find it easier to cope because they have the resources to fight court orders, but smaller companies producing corporate videos would suffer.
In January 2012, the English Wikipedia, Reddit, and about 7,00 other smaller websites coordinated a service blackout to raise awareness. Another protest against SOPA and PIPA included petition drives, with Google stating that it had collected over 7 million signatures.
Because of these protests, votes on the bill were postponed because legislators withdrew their support.
Although this is being debated in the US, it has implications for Australia and the rest of the web. The MegaUpload site in New Zealand had four of its leaders arrested, and the site was closed by the US government as part of an alleged $175 million copyright infringement case.
The terms and language of the bill are broad and unclear, so anyone could be caught off guard. There are other ways to fight piracy of corporate videos, and this does seem an extremely heavy-handed approach.
Producing corporate videos that follow legal guidelines is something you need to know today. But you need to know the basics of creating these company videos. You can also contact our team of video production experts to see how we can help you create quality corporate videos today.
