These sources are merely intended to explore the economic consequences of piracy and how that affects the united states in terms of jobs and unemployment rates.They also explore the possible consequences of enacting a bill like how the bill could grossly affect the economy and innovation adversely. These sources just provide insight into the economic need and consequences of SOPA.
Source 1
Title: SOPA, Internet Regulation And the Economics of Piracy
Author: Julian Sanchez
Summary: This journal address all the key economic reasons for SOPA. It discusses how SOPA actually doesn’t have the effect on merchandise sale as it is thought to by SOPA proponents. It examines all major industries that are supposed to be greatly affected by piracy economically such as the music and the movie industries.
Useful Information: It uses research that finds no direct correlation between increased piracy and sales. It makes the argument that the most pirated movies and music are actually the most successful ones and aren’t going to affect the industries bottom line. The most pertinent thing about this source is it addresses the claim that piracy affects jobs and a law preventing piracy would increase jobs and improve the economy. This site discusses how over the past decades sales in music have gone up and then down it would be helpful to understand the different causes other than the ones discussed in the journal.
Additional Sources:
Source 2
Title: SOPA: How much does online piracy really cost the economy?
Author: Brad Plummer
Summary: This source discusses how much truth are in the figures used for the SOPA debate. For example “those industry-estimated losses come to just $446 million per year,” are examined and according to the author most of those numbers don’t hold up.
Useful Information: The article also raises an interesting point, which is, if someone isn’t allowed to download an item that doesn’t necessarily mean they will go to the store and buy the item. The article questions whether there is a real correlation between the movie industry and the economy as a whole.
Additional Sources: It would be apt to do research on the peaks and valleys of the U.S. economy over the last 30 years and compare movie sales.
Source 3
Title: Why Should We Stop Online Piracy?
Author: Matthew Yglesies
Summary: What is interesting about this source is while the proponents of SOPA say this bill would be needed to save the American 
economy, this blogger actually believes the bill itself would have the opposite effect. According to Yglesies, the losses from piracy are inflated and piracy could actually be beneficial to the economy, in that it reduces dead-weight loss.
Useful Information: It also draws the comparison between libraries and used books, which cost publishers money just like piracy cost production companies. The blog brings up the point that digital works are cheaper to create so it would be interesting to know if the gains made in production can make up for losses in sales.
Additional Sources:
This cite is very informative. It gives the basic information on both SOPA and PIPA and allows readers to form their own opinions. This website is extremely helpful for students who are beginning to delve into the complex and multifaceted debate of SOPA. It is however clearly biased after the initial descriptions. The cite concentrates on both the Pro and Con arguments of the bill by compiling editorials that chronicle the whole debate.
Source 1
Title: SOPA Alternative Bill Introduced in the US House of Representatives
Author: Grant Ross
Summary: The first article entitled, “SOPA Alternative Bill Introduced in the US House of Representatives” is a landmark piece of legislation that opposes this bill. The bill proposed the OPEN
act which allowed large cooperations to file complaints. “The OPEN Act would allow copyright holders to file complaints about copyright infringement at foreign websites with the U.S. International Trade Commission, which would investigate the complaints and decide whether U.S. payment processors and online advertising networks should be required to cut off funding. The cite goes on to describe the effects of the bill on Hollywood as well as the general public” (Gross). This bill is in effort to prevent rogue foreign websites from stealing Americans work.
Useful Information: The importance of this article is to understand that there are other options rather than simply imposing SOPA/PIPA. This article comes off as an article against SOPA/PIPA, but at the same time alternative and more direct solutions are being created. What this means for us is more direct targeting of “foreign, rogue websites stealing from American artists and innovators,” as stated by Darrell Issa, California Republican.
Additional Sources: This article brought up the point that there can be a end to copyright infringement, without having the entire world wide web, shut down. In the article itself, the author posted a link to The Open Act, which shows a draft and introduction to the Open Act. Sometimes, comments in articles go unnoticed, but here there was a comment put up by some user of this Youtube video. The video, ACTA Video, is a user posted video that discusses how all of the major companies that are proposing SOPA/PIPA, are in fact the ones that violated it to begin with. It is funny how this one video, devalues everything that the bill supporters say or want.
Source 2
Title: Two SOPA Co-Sponsors Drop Support for Bill
Author: Jared Newman
Summary: This article talks describes an instance of Senators dropping their support for SOPA. Co-sponsor of SOPA Representative Benjamin Quayle of Arizona has had his name withdrawn from SOPA’s Representative Lee Terry of Nebraska plans to remove his name as well. “Charles Isom, a spokesman for Terry, said the congressman was dropping support for SOPA because of negative sentiment from free speech advocates, civil rights groups and tech companies, among others. Terry had originally co-sponsored the bill because of concerns about piracy’s effect on the economy” (Newman). This article is very interesting because the fact that the co-sponsors are removing their names from the SOPA bill reflects very poorly on the bill. This article is a great reference for students who are interested in what politicians have to say about the bill.
Useful Information: What is important to realize in this article is that Newman states, “participation in anti-SOPA protests from major websites such as Wikipedia and Google will bring mainstream attention to the bill.” Our efforts in bringing attention to the negativity of these acts is what drives the lawmakers to drop their support for the bills. With more attention and awareness, the passing of the bills can be stopped permanently.
Additional Sources: Newman’s article has a lot of outside research to back up his findings. He has provided a list of SOPA’s co-sponsors, as well as basic Facts on SOPA and PIPA. Newman seems to know a lot about the topic, because he has done more than one article on the bills in his tenure.
Source 3
Title: Hollywood Disappointed with President Obama’s SOPA Stance
Author: Jared Newman
Summary: In the last article on the site Jared Newman discussed how Hollywood is not happy with President Obamas reaction to SOPA. The white House wrote “While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet”. Many “talking heads” in Hollywood believed that the White House should have stayed quit about the issue or taken a neutral stance. Democrats in particular are extremely unhappy because they do not believe Obama is supporting their interest in this issue despite all the money and time they have donated to the Democratic Party and Obama.
Useful Information: By now it seems as if Newman is a very neutral writer. He is simply out there to get the facts out. This article shows how instantly support can be dropped if one does not support the bills. The movie and TV industry, being so adamant about shutting any and everything down, has not taken the time to sit and realize the problems that SOPA/PIPA will cause. Losing freedom to speech is the biggest issue right now, and we do not support the movie and TV industry for supporting that.These three sources show the different phases of this debate. The first is an article in the Washington post titled “SOPA(Stop Online Piracy Act) debate: why are Google and Facebook against it ?” delves into the different sides of the debate from the perspective those affected. The second is a blog titled “SLAC colloquium examines Wikipedia’s protest of SOPA, PIPA on may 7”. It discusses the actions which the affected parties have taken to stand against the bill. The third is a journal article titled “Combating Online Piracy while Protecting an Open and Innovative Internet”. It petitions to it’s readers by stating the reasons the bill would be detrimental to the Internet innovation while also stating the need for alternatives to the bill. These sources explore all sides of the debate and show the actions that are being taken for or against SOPA.
Source 1
Title: SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) debate: Why are Google and Facebook against it?
Author: Beth Marlow
Summary: This article discusses both arguments pertaining to SOPA. SOPA’s critics include internet giants such as Yahoo, Google, Facebook and the Consumer Electronics Association who believe the act is a ” full-on assault against lawful U.S. Internet companies.” on the other extreme is the Motion Picture Association of America, pharmaceuticals makers, media firms and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. They lament over the estimated $135 billion in revenue lost each year to piracy and they believe the act is needed to protect jobs.
Useful Information: This article furthers the discussion by accessing the effect of the act on the artist themselves. while the law would protect established musicians from having their work stolen online. It would also prevent amateur remixes, covers and mash-ups of works by others because “these works would be considered copyright violations, and not only could the creator of the work be legally vulnerable, but also could the host of the content.” This is useful to the debate because it shows how this act helps established artist protect their work but inhibits the creativity of amateurs.
Further Research: this source discusses two books that have opposing views of the effect of online piracy . One titled “remix” by Lawrence Lessig which argues that copyright laws should allow amateur creativity. The other is titled“Free Ride: How Digital Parasites Are Destroying the Culture Business and How the Culture Business Can Fight Back.” by Robert Levine who thinks “the best way to save artists’ jobs is to strengthen copyright laws”.
Source 2
Title:Wikipedia’s protest of SOPA, PIPA on May 7
Author: Alexander Wise
Summary: Internet giant Wikipedia intended to have a black-out on their site in order to protest the bill because they believe the bill oversteps it bound and it would ” have a chilling effect on the sharing of legitimate content.”
Useful Information: just gives some insight into the symbolism of the protest sites that would be forced permanently offline by SOPA wanted to show the internet world what it would be like without their services. This is only pertinent because it shows how seriously some companies are taking this act.
Further Research: It would be interesting to find out what other internet companies are doing. This could lead to comparisons of methods for example offline protest vs lobbying.
Source 3
Title: Combating Online Piracy while Protecting an Open and Innovative Internet
Authors: Victoria Espinel, Aneesh Chopra, and Howard Schmidt
Summary: It states the importance of the preservation of the free and innovative nature of the internet. any law which is intended to protect the artistic property from piracy must not open the door for frivolous litigation that would discourage innovation. if the proposed plan manipulates the Domain Name System it could pose a threat to cyber security. although online piracy is a major problem that cost a lot of people their jobs, the laws that combat piracy should neither impede innovation nor reduce cyber security.
Useful Information: This journal explicitly explores and explains the risk that come with SOPA. This is paramount to the topic at hand because it paints a big picture of the consequences of SOPA. It also considers the need for an act such as SOPA. finally it suggests a middle-ground solution.
“Let us be clear—online piracy is a real problem that harms the American economy, and threatens jobs for significant numbers of middle class workers and hurts some of our nation’s most creative and innovative companies and entrepreneurs. It harms everyone from struggling artists to production crews, and from startup social media companies to large movie studios. While we are strongly committed to the vigorous enforcement of intellectual property rights, existing tools are not strong enough to root out the worst online pirates beyond our borders”
Students Against Censorship 
