Stop Online Piracy Act ( Sopa ) - Why Did It Fail

Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) – Why did it fail? SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) was a bill proposed in the House of Representatives that aimed to tackle the growing problem of online piracy and copyright infringement. It targets foreign-based websites that contain any form of unauthorized copyright-infringing material such as movies or music by giving content-creators the right to stop any US businesses from providing payment services, advertising, or even dealing with prosecuted websites; essentially blacklisting and hiding these websites to any US visitors. The bill is split into two main sections: â€Å"Combating Online Piracy†, which provides tools for rights holders to protect their content, and â€Å"Additional Enhancements to Combat Intellectual Property Theft.†, which criminal law which as applies to intellectual property rights and increases punishments for leaking government information. SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) was not enacted because of very strong opposing public opinion, its highly broad and unconsti tutional policies that restricted speech, and presidential leadership against the bill. One of the main reasons for the failure of SOPA is the huge amount of public opposition fueled by campaigns and petitions by enormous and well-known companies like Google, Wikipedia, and Twitter. Millions of Americans protested the bill through social media and public demonstrations. The opposition is fueled by the fact that the bill personally affects all kinds of internet users by