European Parliament Criticizes SOPA

The matter of taking down domains that are believed by the US authorities to promote and sustain piracy was heavily criticized by the European Parliament which adopted a resolution to state their disapproval of this certain section included in the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

According to TorrentFreak, while the media industry welcomes the bill, civil liberties groups and legal experts argue that global internet freedom and communications are at risk because of it.

If SOPA will pass Congress, the United States will obtain the power to shut down domains all over the world, this being highly controversial, since many companies are already battling the US in similar matters.

A perfect example is represented by the Spanish website Puerto 80, which even though was declared legal in Spain, was taken down by US authorities with a simple warrant from DHS's ICE.

The EU-US Summit that will take place on November 28 will be a good opportunity for each party to discuss the “need to protect the integrity of the global internet and freedom of communication by refraining from unilateral measures to revoke IP addresses or domain names.”

Most fear that if SOPA passes, thousands of jobs will be endangered since many of the companies appointed by the US media industry as being involved in copyright infringements acts employ a lot of individuals who will suffer if the websites they work on will be shut down.

The EP surely realized the implications of this legislation and that's probably why they took a stand on the matter, but they're certainly not the only ones who feel this way.

“Censoring the internet is the wrong approach to protecting any sectoral interest in business. By adopting SOPA, the United States would lose its position as a global leader in supporting a free and open Internet for public good,” reveals a letter coming from press freedom and human rights advocate groups.