On Jan. 18, Internet users who frequent websites like Reddit, Google and Wikipedia found themselves in a protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect Intellectual Property Act.
SOPA, in the House, and PIPA, in the Senate, are two bills that were proposed to increase the capability of the U.S. government to fight Internet-based piracy by blacklisting the IP addresses of websites that link to other websites that host pirated material.
Dustan Jones, senior in industrial design, noticed Wikipedia's blackout and said he doesn't support of the bills.
"Well, quite frankly, we would be pissed," Jones said. "The Internet has become a huge part of our lives and I think most of us would like to keep it that way.
"This legislation could bring about mass shutdowns of sites like Google and Facebook just because they are connected to piracy sites."
Some people, like Asim Ali, information technology specialist at Auburn, believe the bills came out of nowhere and were proposed without proper research being done beforehand.
"I think the most concerning aspect of the bills that is not getting a lot of attention is the fact that, historically, legislation has always been written as a result of research or as a result of discussions at a think-tank level," Ali said.
Ali said the legislation for copyright protection wasn't being written by the right, unbiased people.
"Here we have legislation being written by people who should not be writing (it)," he said. "It is written from the point of view of greed rather than the point of view of access and sharing information, which is the whole point of the Internet."
Sites including Wikipedia and Google directed their visitors to online petitions the day of the protest, gathering more than 7 million signatures and prompting Congress to announce Friday it was shelving both bills.
According to Ali, if passed, SOPA and PIPA would have virtually shut down websites like Google, Wikipedia, Youtube and Facebook for displaying copyrighted material.
"The biggest threat would be to innovation, to how information is shared," Ali said. "The power of the Internet is that it gives regular people ... in the middle of nowhere the ability to be heard."
Local attorney Ben Hand predicted the noise coming from the American people could be enough to send SOPA and PIPA back to the writing block.
"I've noticed that a lot of congressmen have backed off, especially with Wikipedia going black and several of the other sites," Hand said. "The possibilities of these being passed are greatly diminished. I think there is enough protection in the copyright laws that exist to protect copyright law. "
Hand said he doesn't believe further legislation than was exists today is necessary to protect copyrights.
"I think most of these bills have some very scary aspects to it." he said. "I think the laws that currently exist are certainly sufficient to criminally prosecute users and to slowly pursue ramifications if you need to."
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