I saw an interesting copyright discussion on YouTube that should be watched by anyone who is maintaining an online business presence outside the USA.

It's about proposed US legislation (SOPA - Stop Online Piracy Act; and related PIPA - Protect IP Act) that will - if ever introduced in the US - have the power to have websites outside the US taken down and 'unlinked' from search engines, payment facilities etc if deemed to be enabling a 'theft of US property'.  The YouTube vision about this can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzqMoOk9NWc&feature=share

To get an idea of what SOPA and PIPA are all about, check out Wikipedia at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act

How can this affect us here in Australia? I will use one of my business interests as an example. As a registered marriage celebrant in Australia with a website promoting my celebrant business, I have developed my own web content using my own writing skills. However, I have seen firsthand that some Australian celebrants have 'lifted' large chunks of web content from US celebrant sites in building their own websites. 

Under this proposed US SOPA legislation, an Australian celebrant's online presence could be shut down if the American site owner discovers that their web content is appearing on the Australian celebrant's website. Under the proposed SOPA legislation, American based DNS servers, payment providers (i.e. Paypal), and advertisers like Google/Yahoo must sever links with any foreign website accused of thieving US property. As you can imagine, this would have widespread ramifications for online business owners both inside and outside the USA.

Of course, celebrants  (or anyone else for that matter) should not be stealing web content or anything else from other websites (theft of copyright material would breach Section 4 of the Federal Attorney-General's Code of Practice for Marriage Celebrants) but in the real world it is happening in some instances. Unfortunately!

Apparently the SOPA bill is currently on hold in the USA but it will be worth watching to see what happens in the future. Many people inside and outside the USA are concerned about the ramifications of this proposed SOPA bill.