Essay on Online Piracy The Folly of a Blacklist - 879 Words

In the time since the internet has become mainstream, the means to distribute copyrighted material have grown not only in size, but in ease of use as well. Whether it is a new CD, a best-selling novel, or a fake Louis Vuitton handbag, each can be found on the web with a little effort and some know-how. Criminal enterprise run rampant. The business world is now fighting back. Steve Tepp is one of the fighters. He is the Chief Intellectual Property Counsel for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The U.S. CoC was integral in pushing the now failed legislative actions known as the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA). These bills would have enabled the government to block access to websites identified by businesses as†¦show more content†¦They can be in any place, in any country. This unique facelessness is unprecedented and Tepp is correct to believe the needed statutes are lacking. On the other hand, Tepp’s argument that SOPA and PIPA are the answer to these issues is flat out incorrect. Gregory Mead of analysis firm Semetric offers clues to why this is, â€Å"Data around the blocking of [websites] in the UK last April showed little negative impact on file sharing, which would have been due to the slew of copycat sites set up on proxy servers† (Mead, (as cited in Farivar, 2013)). Given the scope of the internet, this ineffectiveness is hardly a surprise. The use of a copycat proxy server, as mentioned by Mead, is just one of many circumvention tools that can effectively nullify any government blacklist. With further methods only a simple Google search away. There will always be someone out there doing their best to fight the system and take advantage of anonymity. Simply putting out what amounts to a small road-block offers no real threat to any of these enterprising criminals. It is with that in mind that we question Tepp’s next point. It is true that granting some form of recourse against these criminals will serve to protect businesses, workers and consumers, but based on the nature of the internet, the impact of the proposed statues would be minimal to non-existent. Businesses will always want to be