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ESL / EFL Cloze Activity - Intellectual Property by Sean Banville

Several websites like Wikipedia and Reddit went 'dark' on Wednesday to against the proposed anti-piracy legislation called SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act). Many other sites SOPA but did not “go dark” in Wednesday’s 24-hour protest. These Mozilla (owner of the Firefox web ), Facebook, eBay and Google. A bill in the US Senate, the Protection of Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) would U.S. copyright holders to get court against foreign websites that steal from them. Sites that abuse copyright would not be able to use many online advertising networks or credit card services. It is now the bill will get the support of the sixty senators it needs in a vote on Tuesday, January 24th.

The entertainment, pharmaceutical and fashion strongly support the bills. They billions of dollars every year to copyright violators. Internet companies oppose the bills, saying they will to censorship that would damage the Internet by discouraging new online start-ups. A letter to Congress by 130 technology entrepreneurs and executives their concerns. It said SOPA and PIPA would "hurt economic growth and innovation in legitimate services that help people , communicate, and make money online". Wikipedia has said it would continue the fight. It on its front page: "We're not yet." It also said: “More than 162 million people saw our message asking if you could a world without free knowledge.”