Editor’s Note: This story was updated at 4:30 p.m., Jan. 24 to reflect the correct printed version.
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) were postponed Jan. 20. If you didn’t know about them before, you probably discovered their existence last week when many websites, such as Wikipedia and Reddit, went down for a day to protest the passing of the acts.
Online piracy of music and other forms of entertainment is bad; we get it. But just because a proposed solution to a problem is developed, it doesn’t mean it is the right solution. SOPA and PIPA focus on enforcing copyright infringement laws against host websites instead of the people downloading and using the pirated material. This would give the government license to shut down websites at its discretion. The acts do this by proposing the governement receive the power to stop U.S. companies from funding, advertising or linking to these sites. Court orders could also block U.S. web users from being able to read the site.
YouTube, for example, could be shut down almost immediately. On YouTube, users publish videos that may have copyright infringements. It is unreasonable to think YouTube could police the millions of videos hosted on its site. The trouble with the proposed acts is they focus too much on penalizing the hosting sites even though there is no way these host sites can monitor all the content published.
Furthermore, the acts would not prevent people from downloading illegal content. It would just kind of add an extra step to the process. On the Internet, there are ways of getting around virtually anything. The government should not have control over what the public has access to on the Internet. Even though the acts don’t necessarily promote censorship, they would undoubtedly cause it.  This could interfere with freedom of speech by blocking sites that involve user-developed content, such as Twitter, Facebook and Wikipedia. We do not live in a communist country where the government controls where we can travel on the Internet, and it is rather foolish of it to believe it can halt illegal downloads. These acts target host websites without cause because the piracy wouldn’t stop.
Studios and music labels should find ways to make piracy work for them instead of trying to eliminate it. For example, networks could host television shows on their websites with a small number of advertisements, which could provide a legal alternative to illegal downloads. This way, money could be made from the advertisements presented during streaming. Many networks already do this with some shows.
What is so impressive is that these acts were stalled, at least partly, by the public’s reaction. The stalling of the voting exemplified the power of the American people and the voice we have in the government. On Jan. 18, an alternative act was proposed: Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act (OPEN). This act was published to the web so the public could respond.
The postponement should reinforce to the public that we do have a say in the rules by which we must abide. We create America; it cannot stand alone without us.