Some readers in Naples might have noticed that Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that is like the Encyclopedia Britannica of the Internet, went dark today. The reason for that was that Wikipedia's founders wanted to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a piece of federal legislation currently under consideration that would shore up intellectual property protection, but, according to critics, would also infringe on free speech.

This post will take a look at SOPA and explore both the pros and cons of this piece of legislation.

The element of SOPA that companies like Wikipedia, Reddit and Mozilla Firefox are most upset with is that it would require websites to monitor user-uploaded content for material that may be copyrighted. They claim this would cost them too much money and pointed out that it may have a chilling effect on free speech, since it could preclude spoofs, parodies or commentaries that used copyrighted material.

On the other hand, we have copyrights for a reason. Artists, writers and singers deserve to be paid for the work they do; no one should expect to get the fruits of their labor for free. In a world where you can get most songs on iTunes for just $1.29, for example,  do we have an excuse to illegally download and share music anymore? Many people would say no. If we do not let companies and creative individuals have the right to earn money from their work, they will have no incentive to create. That would leave us without valuable cultural, artistic and social developments.

Do you have any thoughts on SOPA?

Source: The PBS NewsHour, "A World Without Wikipedia," Ray Suarez, Jan. 17, 2012