Irelands SOPA and Why You Should Be Concerned

You couldn’t really have missed the recent events stateside, and the global response which followed the Stop SOPA campaign this January (we wrote about it here just in case you did miss it).

Right on the heels of SOPA in the US, we see a very similar piece of legislation being proposed here in Ireland. Read the details here.

Sean Sherlock, Ireland’s Junior minister for innovation is in the process of drafting the final wording for this law – which doesn’t need the votes or any okay from the Irish public. It is being enabled through a statutory instrument – which requires no vote, no referendum or public discussion, as the minister in charge is the only one required to authorise it.

This in itself is pretty scary, but the sheer ambiguity of the proposed law itself is possibly even more scary. The intention of the act, is to give some power to copyright holders who wish to address copyright infringement online. Most people will not have an issue with this principle. However, the broad nature of the wording in this case, means that copyright holders (music labels, film studios, anyone who owns content) could feasibly take action to the limit and force websites, ISP’s, social media sites (or anyone they perceive as being responsible for their copyright being infringed) into court – where judges can take action to have them stopped.

Judges know what they are doing right? Well we are not so sure, citing the case in 2009 when a judge in an Irish court gave Eircom the right to block users access to The Pirate Bay – without notifying them, or giving them the chance to represent themselves. This is a worrying precident.

This law is due to be brought into being by the end of this month – shockingly short notice for any real discussion on the matter. McGarr Solicitors took the issue online, setting up the stopsopaireland.com site in an effort to increase general awareness of the proposed law and to garner the support of the Irish population in preventing it from coming into effect.

To us (and to over 45K others who signed the online petition against this law) this seems like bad news for Ireland – for Irish citizens, for Irish businesses generally and especially to those involved in businesses online. In Dublin, we have European offices for huge online companies like Google, LinkedIn and Facebook – and it has to be said, that our unfriendly stance on such issues could have a very negative effect on these (and other) technology companies investing and setting up in Ireland. If the act is passed in it’s current format, then this will potentially make it very difficult for all sites, especially those like Youtube and other social media sites, to operate at all.

We urge everyone to take a look at this law, and make their own mind up. Public opinion can make a difference, as shown with SOPA in the US.

Update
There have been some updates of note since we first wrote about this issue. Now there are over 70K signatures in opposition to the proposal and there is a debate scheduled to discuss this issue in the Dail. Let’s hope that sense prevails!