The acts which the US Congress claims will put a stop to piracy through several provisions (read about it here, here and here) but the act fails to ignore the deeper, more critical effects it will have culturally and socially for the coming digital generations.
First, it will affect how people communicate online. If our conversations offline are peppered with references to media and pop cultural artifacts, our online dialogues go a step further and provide links to these very media. Some writers claim that, because of the ambiguity and broadness of the provisions, licensing companies like Disney may invoke these provisions for the sharing of these media links in comment boxes by people in social networks.
This points to a second consequence -- that of sharing. Ideas, projects, even businesses were created through the conversations online, through the exchanging of materials and media. People on the web contribute to programming projects online, remix audio-visual materials and create new artforms. This involves building on previous creations, thoughts, reactions (see Lawrence Lessig's Freeculture) that people willingly share in the spirit of cultural growth. Is SOPA and PIPA do become laws, that freedom to speak one's mind and share ideas may be curbed, out of the fear of overstepping the (vague) lines that define online piracy. The web itself was born because of Sir Tim Berners Lee's idea that the web, and people's access to it, should be unhindered. There are provisions in SOPA and PIPA that imply immunity for those who voluntarily "squeal" on suspected "pirates." Trust is broken. Sharing stops. Knowledge disappears.
The US Congress thinks passing these acts into law only apply to their citizens, or those who live in the US. They forget that boundaries crumble on the web, and everyone, anywhere they are are all citizens on the web. Because many servers are housed in the US, most, if not nearly all of us who have made virtual homes on the web, are affected by these policies. How will the US implement measures that do not discriminate against non-US ISPs? If the acts are strictly for US companies and entities, how do they get past the glocal expressions of their media products?
This discriminates, in my view, user-producers in developing countries. Without the same physical and capital muscle countries like the Philippines will be at the mercy of these provisions. Most of the Philippines' ISPs offshore servers are in the US, server space shared with US companies. As one of the most prolific content generators on the web, Filipinos find expression by remixing material from the West through parody or just plain fun. But we learn because we share and without that freedom and agency they suppress further the ability to access more knowledge.
With the web and social media now an inextricable part of our lives, we are in a constant conversation, one that does not end and didn't begin at any particular point in time. While some may argue that this becomes a nuisance and a time sucker, our asynchronous and tethered-ness to one another is the reason why the knowledge base of humanity can now be accessed through simple dialogue, link-passing and collaboration.
This is a new age of creativity. The most fecund of ideas find expression no longer housed in material goods but in ongoing conversations through time and across physical space. Putting up nets and traps around the web only means killing some of the most basic skills that has brought humanity this far in history -- thinking, creativity and collaboration. It's a new model for survival in the digital age and if SOPA and PIPA are given the go, and if the US Congress fails to change their paradigm, we can be sure we will see the beginning of the end of human innovation in our lifetimes.
