A K LEO T H E
WEDNESDAY, FEB. 1 to THURSDAY FEB. 2, 2012 VOLUME 106 ISSUE 65
Serving the students of the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.
V O I C E
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WHO OWNS THE WEB?
SOPA and PIPA Acts down, but not out
Who is paving the information highway?
A N T ONIO L A M B Staff Writer
BOAZ ROSEN Opinions Editor
Last month, over 7 million Internet users took part in a massive online protest against two bills, the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect Intellectual Property Act, leading national lawmakers to postpone voting. SOPA and PIPA would have given U.S. law enforcement the authority to crack down on the trafficking of pirated games, music and software over the Internet. The bills would also have categorized unauthorized streaming and uploading of movies and music as criminal offences – with up to five-year prison terms.
When I look at the web today, I feel I am the last of a generation – a generation that grew up in a world where the Internet was not widely available. Watching videos, listening to music and chatting online seemed like things out of a science fiction novel. Nowadays, the Internet has become an integral part of our lives. The web is dominating all forms of media; long gone are the days where you turned to your 8:00 newscaster to receive your daily dose of local and global information. It is now all available at the press of a button. Or, if you have an iPhone 4S, just ask Siri. But beneath the exponentially growing layers of information online, the virtual world is rumbling: a dark and disconcerting rumble of war. It is not a war in your traditional sense of death and violence, but a war of control over media and data.
CONCERNS OVER NET NEUTRALITY
The laws were introduced to protect intellectual property rights for content creators who have seen their revenues decrease over the last few decades because of file sharing. But websites like Google and Craigslist expressed concern that if the laws passed, the U.S. government would essentially have the power to censor the Internet, stifle innovation and end net neutrality. The fear was that SOPA and PIPA would have set a precedent
T H E P L AY E R S
The proponents of this virtual confl ict can be summed up into a few general players. They are the old media moguls such as Hollywood, Time Warner and people like Rupert Murdoch (owner of NICHOLAS SMITH / KA LEO O HAWAI‘I
See Coordinated efforts, next page
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Report
See Data wars , page 8
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