As anyone who has been on the internet the past day has noticed, many websites are taking a stand against SOPA. What is this act and how will it affect PR professionals?
This article from PR Daily lays everything on the line:
Sharing and social sites
SOPA threatens all that content, as long as it resides on a .com, .org or .net domain. All it takes is for a user to upload a video, a photo or a presentation that violates someone’s copyright—even if it’s someone singing a cover of a song at a party—and under SOPA, Internet service providers could be ordered to block the domain name.
When YouTube goes dark, so will the links embedded on your own site and any others that lead to your YouTube videos. Ditto photos on photo-sharing sites and presentations on sites like Slideshare and Scribd.
Let’s take it one step farther. Imagine launching a contest for your fans to submit content (like Doritos does for its Super Bowl commercial). And suppose one of those videos includes a snippet of a song used innocently and that you don’t recognize as copyright-protected. Your client’s own site should be blocked as a result.
The legislation includes no due process at all; there is virtually no appeal process for an organization whose site is blocked.
Search engine optimization
Your clients have probably spent a fair amount of time and money optimizing for search. Some of that expenditure may be your agency’s own billable time. Under SOPA, however, sites like Google would be required to alter their search results to exclude non-U.S. websites that host offending content. The investment those clients made will vanish if their sites no longer appear on search engine results pages.
Advertising
Ad services like Google AdSense would be required to reject ads or payment from the sites that host offending content, which could affect your clients’ strategies for generating income.
Payments
If your client accepts online payments via their websites using PayPal or other services, those payments could stop. PayPal and its peers could be required to shut down the accounts of non-U.S. websites that host offending content.
Finding talent
PR practitioners are finding greater uses of voiceover talent for everything from podcasts to videos. Voice casting sites host clips from voice talent. Sometimes these individuals read copyrighted works, which would lead to an order for ISPs to block access to the domain.
These sites have led to voice talent from rural areas getting work, but according to one of these sites—Voice123—the result would be to “drive work back to cities and put thousands out of work.” It would also limit the range of talent to which you have access.
The voice talent issue is also an example of the scorched-earth approach SOPA takes. It would be only a matter of time before other legitimate content that communicators need vanishes from the Web.
What do you think about SOPA?
