What Is This SOPA Business? And Why's Everyone Talking About it?

If you watched the news, or tried to Google something yesterday, you inevitably come across something about SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act). There was a black out - a form of protest that was started by Redd.it, the social news website where users share links to interesting stories and content, and supported by Wikipedia. Websites quite literally shut down, they turned off the internet!! Not really, but the black out was a way of protesting Congress' proposed legislation to deal with copyright violations, an effort that has been largely driven by the entertainment industry.

But what is SOPA really? And how did this all start? Give me a real life example that I can understand already! Enter: Clay Shirky. Shirky is a professor at NYU and one of those rare individuals who can break down even the most complicated topic and make it seem so simple. Check out his TED Talk on SOPA, what it means for us and ultimately, what it means for innovation and creativity on the internet.

http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf

[ted id=1329 lang=en]