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>>ANCHOR: Protesters picketed outside the offices of New York Senators Chuck Schumer
and Kristen Gillibrand in Washington today. They are in support of an Internet blackout
by Wikipedia and other sites in opposition to a new bill in Congress targeting Internet
piracy. The bill is called the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA. 13WHAM's Jane Flasch
joins us now to explain what it is and how it might impact Internet users.
>>REPORTER: Well, Ginny, the bill is supposed to attack pirated material, bootlegged movies
and music, that kind of thing, but the way it is written, many fear it could also shutdown
social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, even for users who are not engage in illegally
sharing content.
In 2002, this is how bootleggers operated, selling illegal copies of movies at Rochester
Public Market. Ten years later, rouge websites make it easy to find and download pirated
copies of movies, music and television shows.
>>ACTRESS: This is Frank.
>>It is so nice to meet you, Frank.
>>REPORTER: Last year online piracy of music cost the music industry an estimated $12.5
billion.
>>MIKE JOHANSSON: In the meantime, they're losing hundreds of millions and billions of
dollars.
>>REPORTER: RIT's Mike Johansson says legislation to fight piracy the way that it's written
now does not target the content, it targets the website hosting that content. And that
is what is drawing protest from large carriers like Wikipedia.
>>MIKE JOHANSSON: That's why people object to it so much. The legislation is so sweeping,
so draconian that it could literally shutdown vast portions of the Web, if the government
was so inclined. "They say the government should be able to
go in and preemptively shut down sites that are known carriers."
>>REPORTER: Take Youtube for example. If someone put up copyrighted images they did not own,
the government could shut down the entire site and then investigate. Youtube for everyone,
gone. Same for Facebook and for Twitter.
>>ART WHEAT: It's a bill put together by people who don't understand the Internet.
>>REPORTER: Art Wheat runs a Web development business and relies on social media sites
to find new customers.
>>ART WHEAT: I'm concerned that SOPA could put us out of business.
>>REPORTER: Wikipedia and other sites went black today to give Internet users a taste
of what it would be like if government shutdown sites first and then investigated later. President
Obama says he will not sign the bill as it's written, and late today one lawmaker sponsoring
it in the Senate and another sponsoring it in the House, they have both taken their names
off this bill and say it should be scrapped and started over with from scratch.