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In case you haven’t heard, there’s a lot of buzz right now about SOPA and PIPA and trying to figure out exactly how it will affect your personal and business online presence. If you are a small business owner, you may just think these new bills apply to the rampant music and movie piracy that occurs online. However, the truth is that SOPA and PIPA are much bigger than just music and movies and could present a real threat to the online arm of your business.

What Are They?

Essentially, SOPA and PIPA are two different political bills addressing online piracy, with the former active in the House of Representatives and the latter being sent to the Senate. Although they are different bills, the nuts and bolts are largely the same, giving law enforcement agencies the ability to shut down websites that they believe are guilty of distributing illegal copies of copyrighted materials. If passed, these new laws will be a great help to companies that wish to protect their intellectual property. At the same time, many people are criticizing SOPA and PIPA because they seem to go above and beyond simple copyright infringement and make it appear that any website could be deemed guilty through normal everyday business and posting.

Why Is It Important?

You’re probably already saying that you don’t have any content on your website that is copyrighted, but the new bills clearly state that everything on your domain is under your responsibility. This includes comments that random visitors could leave on a blog post. Before SOPA/PIPA, if a copyright holder thought you were using a piece of content illegally, they would simply ask you to take it down before going to the cyber-police or starting a judicial process. With the new bill, it will be more like guilty until proven innocent as the authorities will shut down your website first and ask questions later. In addition to the loss of visitors and income you could have from a single day of being offline, there could be other ramifications if you are found guilty of copyright infringement.

Not only could you be facing hefty fines, but you may also find your website on a blacklist. Being on a SOPA or PIPA blacklist would mean that your website may no longer show up in search results, you may lose access to payment processors (think PayPal and others), and some ISPs may block visitors from reaching your website even if they know the address. In short, all of these potential punishments take away the whole reason of being on the Internet in the first place: visibility and profits.

What Should You Do?

If I’ve done my job, you should now be thinking about what should be done to prevent SOPA or PIPA from bringing your business to a screeching halt. The obvious answer is to make sure that you have no copyrighted material on your websites, but this is easier said than done. You may need to set up comment moderation to start patrolling your guest comments and keep an eye open for areas where unintentional content may pop up. As the bills have not yet passed, you could also let your local representative know how you feel about SOPA and PIPA.

The biggest problem with SOPA and PIPA is that they are too excessive. The new bills would make some of the most popular websites, such as Facebook and YouTube, illegal, with countless pieces of copyrighted content being shared everyday.

Your Turn

Share in the comments and lets us know what you think about the proposed changes.