The Stop Online Piracy Act: "The End of the Internet?"

Taken from here.

[Editor's note: The Stop Online Piracy Act currently in Congress has got Facebook and Google and a lot of bloggers alarmed. Janice spells out why she thinks this legislation "sent a chill down the spine of all of us who pay attention to these things." Are you following it? Do you agree? -- Julie]

SOPA creates insanely over-reaching new standards of liability for copyright violations. The upshot is that any website could be sued or shut down for any copyright infringement found in any of its content coming from any of its users. Facebook would be responsible for every entry posted by every random user. User review sites like Yelp and Rotten Tomatoes would be held to the same standard for each comment and review posted to them. Sites like Vimeo and YouTube would find that their liability extends to even copyrighted music playing in the background of home-made videos.

Image by Donkey Hotey via Flickr