WHAT ARE SOPA AND PIPA BILLS?

                       Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)

                        The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is a U.S House Bill to fight online trafficking in copyrighted Intellectual Property and counterfeit goods. Proposals include barring advertising networks and payment facilities from conducting business with allegedly infringing websites, barring search engines from linking to the sites, and requiring Internet Service Providers (ISP) to block access to the sites. The bill would criminalize the streaming of such content, with a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

                           User-Content Websites such as YouTube, Facebook, and Google would be greatly affected, and a serious concern has been expressed that they may be shut down if the bill becomes law. Opponents state the legislation would enable law enforcement to remove an entire internet domain due to something posted on a single blog, channel or page, arguing that an entire Online Community could be punished for the actions of a tiny minority. In an 1198 law, copyright owners are required to request the site to remove the infringing material within a certain amount of time. SOPA would bypass this "safe harbor" provision by placing the responsibility for detecting and policing infringement onto the site itself.

                            Lobbyists for companies that rely heavily on revenue from intellectual property copyright state it protects the market and corresponding industry, jobs, and revenue. The US president and legislators suggest it may kill innovation. Representatives of the American Library Association state the changes could encourage criminal prosecution of libraries.

                              On January 18, the Wikipedia and several other websites coordinated a service blackout to protest SOPA and its sister bill, the Protect IP Act or PIPA. Other companies, including Google, Facebook, posted links and images in an effort to raise awareness. An estimated 7,000 smaller websites either blacked out their sites or posted a protest message. A number of other protest actions were organized, including petition drives, boycotts of companies that support the legislation and a rally held in New York City.

The Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA)

                               The Protect Intellectual Property Act (Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011 or PIPA), also known as Senate Bill 968 or S.968, is a proposed law with the stated goal of giving the US government and copyright holders additional tools to curb access to "rogue websites dedicated to infringing or counterfeit goods", especially those registered outside the U.S. The bill was introduced on May 12, 2011.

                     The Congressional Budget Office estimated that implementation of the bill would cost the federal government $47 million through 2016, to cover enforcement costs and the hiring and training of 22 new special agents and 26 support staff. The bill was in hold as of now.

                        The Protect Intellectual Property Act is a re-write of the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA), which failed to pass in 2010. Now some Senators are trying to pass it on the legislation as the re-write bill PIPA. A vote has been scheduled in this issue on the legislation for January 24, 2012.


                                                                        : Source- Wikipedia