After reading my classmate, Niki Chiriac’s blog regarding the SOPA act that was introduced into the US, and the negative effects that it brought with it, it got me thinking about how far those so called effects would go. In her blog she mentioned how wikipedia, in an effort to raise awareness, shut the operation of their entire site down for 1 day. She then went on to mention what the consequences would be if google did the same thing, being an extreme amount of lost revenue for google as well as other companies. She then began to adress how if SOPA did indeed pass, sites like youtube would be shut down, taking away the ability to advertise on it. Although I do agree with Niki in the sense that SOPA would cause sites like this to close down, making advertising that much more difficult, I feel that the extent to how far these difficulties would stretch, would in fact be much worse than what was discussed in the blog.
If one were to truly analyze the implications of what SOPA is, being an act which tries to regulate and stop all copyright infringement, they would see what I am talking about. This act would not only shut down large sites like Youtube, but it would also lead to the closure of many different large internet forums, blogs, torrent sites, and much else. These all are very effective means for advertisement used by companies, which allow them to really reach their targeted demographic. With SOPA, they would be no more.
Also, with the introduction of this act, creating adds in general would become extremely difficult and costly. This is due to the fact that every single picture ever used in an add or on a site, or in any sense at all, if not beloning to the company doing the advertising, they could not use it, or they would have to go and find the photographer for the pictures, and ask his permission. What was once a very quick and easy process, would now become very costly time consuming, and now no longer worth doing.
Besides being detrimental to the companies profits, this would have a terrible effect towards overall consumers. Products would not be as effectively advertised as they are today, which would decrease customer awareness, leading to some great products, which could provide much value for consumers, not being heard off, thus not being consumed. Also, the advertising the companies would do, would be more expensive, and some of the extra costs would be passed on to the consumers through an increase in price.
Overall, SOPA is not a very beneficial act very society in general. Although I can see how the pirating that occurs today can hurt some citizens of a nation, the amount that would be negatively effected after the introduction of this act would much greater that what would be helped. SOPA is not good for anyone!