QWANZ

As SOPA defines “theft of U.S. property online”, it can mean that any site can be held criminally liable if it allows users to post content on its site and that functionality of allowing users to post content online can lead to copyright violations. By that definition, it is not off-mark to suggest that this can mean that YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia, Gmail, Dropbox and many other sites can be classified as “Internet sites…dedicated to theft of U.S. property”. This is because, ba...   >>>

As SOPA defines “theft of U.S. property online”, it can mean that any site can be held criminally liable if it allows users to post content on its site and that functionality of allowing users to post content online can lead to copyright violations. By that definition, it is not off-mark to suggest that this can mean that YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia, Gmail, Dropbox and many other sites can be classified as “Internet sites…dedicated to theft of U.S. property”. This is because, based on SOPA provisions, simply providing a feature that can be used by someone to commit “copyright infringement or circumvention” can get the site under the radar for being a site that allows for infringement. The SOPA provisions almost make it imperative for sites that allow users to post content on their site to super police their respective site and determine whether all the contents posted on the sites are copyright-free. Either they do that or law enforcement officers can act against them.



Photo: flickr