Enough, Already: The SOPA Debate Ignores How Much Copyright Protection We Already Have

[Commentary] In the past weeks, Americans have been realizing that the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) might not have been the Great War, but a short battle in hostilities of grander proportions.

This is not the first time copyright policy-making has lacked balance, lost its sense of proportion, or threatened civil liberties. It's just the first time the Internet has won. Two things are missing from the current conversation. First, the recent debate all but ignores the broad arsenal of responses to copyright infringement already available to rights-holders, without SOPA. Second, the public has not been informed on how America's free trade negotiations have been used to circumvent the democratic process, accomplishing much of what SOPA was meant to do. If the United States continues its dalliance with censorship as copyright enforcement, it will be the laughingstock of other countries, which see how disproportionate our enforcement of copyright has been, relative to our protection of other freedoms. As one Chinese man commented, "I've come up with a perfect solution: You can come to China to download all your pirated media, and we'll go to America to discuss politically sensitive subjects."