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the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), currently making its way through the House of Representatives, and its sister legislation in the Senate, the Protect IP Act (PIPA), which are supposedly intended to combat copyright violations on the Internet. Unfortunately, these bills are written so broadly so as to not only eliminate Internet piracy but replace the innovative and democratic aspects of the Internet with a tangled bureaucratic mess regulated by the government and corporations.While holding companies accountable for their role in copyright infringement is important, this legislation threatens to turn the whole Internet on its head, disrupting innovation in business and technology and muting democratic dialogue, by allowing copyright holders to unilaterally impose sanctions on companies accused of copyright infringement without due process. Based solely on an accusation (not a conviction, mind you) of a copyright violation, the U.S. Attorney General, and sometimes the copyright holding companies themselves, will be able to block access to and business transactions with websites accused of such violations. Financial institutions will be forced to stop transferring legal funds to accused websites, search engines will be forced to block accused websites, and advertisers will be forced to stop placing ads on accused websites. Moreover, the bill is written so broadly as to override the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which allows social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter to operate freely. Unfortunately, under SOPA, if a user on YouTube or Facebook were to mistakenly or unintentionally upload copyrighted material to the sites, those websites could also be shut down

"Teaching Copyright provides lessons and ideas for opening your classroom up to discussion, letting your students express their ideas and concerns, and then guiding your students toward an understanding of the boundaries of copyright law. In five distinct lessons, students are challenged to: Reflect on what they already know about copyright law. See the connection between the history of innovation and the history of copyright law. Learn about fair use, free speech, and the public domain and how those concepts relate to using materials created by others. Experience various stakeholders' interests and master the principles of fair use through a mock trial. Teaching Copyright will require your students to think about their role in the online world and provide them with the legal framework they need to make informed choices about their online behavior."

Ads are showing up everywhere. And creeping commercialism is prompting a growing debate about whether "ad pollution" is invading too much of consumers' space.

Here's an article that offers the other side of the issue the SOPA bill was written to address. A California appeals court yesterday rejected Universal Music's claim that video-sharing service Veoh didn't do enough to protect content owners. All eyes now turn to New York where another influential court is set to rule on the same issue-who should be responsible for copyright enforcement.

"Super Bowl Ad Analysis Worksheet  created by Frank W Baker, Copyright 2018 [permission is granted to duplicate for educational purposes]  See also "Using Super Bowl Ads In The Classroom""