SOPA MAY HAVE been put on hold, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a hot topic. Students across campus gave the Fulcrum their say on the proposed legislation, letting us know what they think about SOPA, Bill C-11, and Internet copyright rules in general.
“I use Wikipedia every day for my academic studies and I know I’m not supposed to. Wikipedia is my lifeline.”
—Chris Salloum, third-year political science student
What’s interesting about SOPA and PIPA is that both bills are largely supported by big-name Hollywood production studios who are aiming to compensate for lost sales due to file sharing. It’s important to remember that many of these same production studios were originally founded in the early 1900s on the East Coast but relocated to California in order to avoid being liable to motion picture copyright and patent laws. If this legislation were to become law, we could potentially see the uprooting and relocation of U.S. Internet giants like Google, Wikipedia, and Reddit to greener (and less censored) pastures. This is problematic in that the fragile U.S. economy relies heavily on the revenues produced by Silicon Valley, which is exactly the demographic that SOPA and PIPA intend to target.”
—Alex Robinson, fourth-year criminology student
“This will hinder our rights as people in the sense that we should have accessibility. At what point does it stop? If it does get passed, then other things will get passed that will also limit our access to accessible information, our freedom of speech, and our right to information.”
—Michelle Stock, fourth-year political science student
“I feel this is simply the government’s way of working around our right to freely express ourselves in order to maintain some sense of ‘order,’ but really it’s just them exerting their right to censor.”
—Caesey Shakes, fourth-year communication student
