S O P A

The tech industry is abuzz about SOPA and PIPA, a pair of anti-piracy bills.The Stop Online Piracy Act ( SOPA), also known as H.R. 3261, is a bill that was introduced in the United States House of Representatives on October 26, 2011.When Rep. Lamar Smith announced the Stop Online Piracy Act in late October, he knew it was going to be controversial.This bill would establish a system for taking down websites that the Justice Department determines to be dedicated to copyright infringment. Forbes contributor John Gaudiosi writes:   Both SOPA and Protect IP attempt to combat online piracy by preventing American search engines like Google and Yahoo from directing users to sites distributing stolen content. Google, Wikipedia, and icanhascheezburger.com all agree. The industries pushing SOPA and PIPA aren't protecting jobs, they are protecting revenues. As the Internet orchestrated a massive protest Wednesday against the SOPA and PIPA bills, with blackouts on Wikipedia and beyond, hundreds of tech enthusiasts took that protest to the streets in New York City. The NY Tech Meetup community, an organization of more than 20,000 "geeks, investors, entrepreneurs, hackers, etc..." spread from the Web into the streets of New York  more in-person protests are scheduled for San Francisco, Seattle, Las Vegas and Washington D.C.