Does anyone remember a time when the fastest Internet connection available was a 56K dialup? Pictures were downloaded from AOL at a rate equal to how fast we can download an endless library now from any innumerable websites.

As a result, entire movies and albums are posted online for the world to view, leaving agencies like the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America helpless as the masses view their prized intellectual properties, leading them to be seized and distributed. Enter the Stopping Online Piracy Act, or SOPA.

Despite the far-reaching implications of this bill, it’s relatively unknown among the masses.

“I just saw some popups on a few of the websites I visit,” said Matt Hagan. “Up until then I hadn’t even heard anything about it.”

The government proposed SOPA late last year; the idea behind its wording is to target rogue sties, which are websites that operate outside of the U.S. and therefore outside federal jurisdiction, and prevent them from distributing copyrighted material.

For enforcement, any website caught infringing on copyright would be a shut down by the Attorney General using the DNS, or the Domain Name System.

Based on its intentions, it would seem as though this bill is no more harmful than what was used to dismantle free file sharing websites like Napster. So why is virtually the entire internet outraged over this?

“The bill’s language about facilitating copyright infringement is potentially very broad,” said Professor Peter Swire of the Moritz College of law and national expert of Internet law. “Anyone who has a platform such as Facebook or YouTube is legitimately worried that they could be subject to the harsh penalty in SOPA.”

But how could giant websites such as those be in jeopardy as a result of this bill?

“I don’t see what the big deal is,” said Russell Bower, communication design major at San Francisco State. “Just don’t post copyrighted material anywhere and you’ll be fine.”

Under the current legislation, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA, since Internet giants like YouTube and Facebook can’t completely monitor every user’s every activity all the time, it is that individual user and not the entire website that is held accountable.

After all, no one at either company is specifically at fault. If a user has material on their page that is guilty of copyright infringement, once the website notices it, they force said user to remove the material. If they don’t comply, their account is removed.

Under SOPA, if the owner of that intellectual property were to find their copyrighted material being infringed upon, they can request a blacklist and removal of that website.

The removal of those websites would be without due process, combined with a lengthy appeal process and encouragement could jeopardize the continuing prosperity for small businesses on the Internet. However, if some significant and perhaps even drastic changes aren’t made, large industries will continue to lose funds as a result of piracy.