Introduction

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), also known as House Bill 3261 or H.R. 3261, is a bill that was introduced in the United States House of Representatives on October 26, 2011, by House Judiciary Committee Chair Representative Lamar S. Smith (R-TX).

Further information: SOPA in Wikipedia.

The full text of the Bill (Library of Congress) is also available at Scribd: Stop Online Piracy Act and the PROTECT IP Act.

It is useful to analyse this act closely because it is causing a lot of controversy, and because it may have an impact also for foreign customers of, and service providers to U.S. Citizens.
In particular, it may infringe Article 19. Freedom of opinion & expression; to seek & receive information of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.


Objective

To promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation by combating the theft of U.S. property, and for other purposes.

Parties

U.S. institutions and citizens, and their foreign customers and service providers making use of the Internet.

Issues

- There is a lot of controversy about this Act, as can be observed from http://storify.com/topics/sopa-pipa

- The European Parliament resolution on the EU-US Summit of 28 November 2011 Stresses the need to protect the integrity of the global internet and freedom of communication by refraining from unilateral measures to revoke IP addresses or domain names (par. 25)

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Stop Online Piracy Act