2012 has had a bad start for the US government, with a global retaliation to the desired tighter regulated online copyrights acts. SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act) movements have been retaliating these acts from passing through congress. Large websites, such as Wikipedia, shut down for 24 hours on Wednesday 18th, showing how much these acts will disrupt the online community.
The online sharing website, megaupload, have been taken to court for copyright infringements, causing a wide-spread reaction in the US. As megaupload is one of the largest websites in the US, with over 50 million hits a day, and the demise of megaupload is something of a turning point in the SOPA and PIPA movement.
This has caused hackers to target US official websites and copyright organisations, moving the movement from campaigners on the streets to the cyber world. This world is a lot hard to control and volatile to say the least! This shows that people within the US will go to extreme lengths to make the internet free.
My thoughts of this matter is that the US congress is taking away the freedom of the internet and instead of creating a generic act they should be taking down the large illegal media sharing sites, such as pirate bay. Doing this would be less negative on the online community and will put a stop to the mass sharing of illegalmedia.
