WE DON'T HAVE CASES. WE HAVE CLIENTS. ^SM

It's not every day that websites ranging from Wikipedia to Google black out in protest of a bill that has yet to pass into law. However, those heavy hitters were just two of the many websites that took a stand against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a bill some critics said would be the end of the internet as it had existed previously. However, advocates of SOPA - such as the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) - hailed it as a much-needed protection of intellectual property in an era of rampant copyright infringement. While both sides have valid arguments to make, an objective analysis suggests that this attempt to secure trademarks and copyrights was somewhat misunderstood.

The reason that SOPA garnered so much attention was largely due to vague language that seemed to provide the government with a very wide scope of power to shut down websites and block access. While the possibility of restrictions may have looked like censorship to a public used to a laissez-faire approach to internet access, the main targets of SOPA were primarily foreign websites that hosted libraries of pirated content. With movies, music, software, video games, books, TV shows and more up for grabs on such sites, intellectual property violations could go virtually unchecked.

Despite not being tangible, trademarks and copyrights are property, and quite valuable property at that. And though the federal government has ample authority to enforce laws within the United States, exerting influence over foreign entities is much more challenging. Thus, lawmakers sought to strengthen the government's position in the war on copyright infringement through more novel means, such as blocking illegal download sites from appearing in search engine results, preventing U.S. payment companies such as PayPal from transferring funds to the sites and barring advertising networks from working with the sites.

Proponents of SOPA suggest that allowing law enforcement agencies to cut off funding and prevent United States traffic from reaching sites that host pirated content is a reasonable solution to the problem presented by pirated content on overseas sites. Given the continued success of such sites, current enforcement measures don't seem to be sufficient, and influential copyright-owning corporations are urging Congress to find a solution.

However, critics of SOPA suggest that restricting the internet access of American citizens is not acceptable, no matter what type of site is being blocked. Comparisons to censorship in China and other countries quickly emerged when mainstream media outlets took notice of SOPA, which fueled public disapproval of the bill. Although SOPA wouldn't have launched such an extreme scenario, the ambiguity regarding the exact limits of the government made citizens uneasy enough. 

Whether SOPA would have actually led to a slippery slope culminating in significant censorship is unclear. But what is certain is the fact that the government will need to be innovative to overcome the challenges of effective law enforcement in this field. As the opposition to SOPA shows, Americans are not willing to risk losing rights, even to protect the intellectual property of others.