What if website owners were responsible for all material they have links to

[PerttiMe]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Learn_more

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Quotes:

SOPA (the "Stop Online Piracy Act") and PIPA (the "Protect Intellectual Property Act" ) are bills in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, respectively. These bills are presented as efforts to stop copyright infringement committed by foreign web sites,

SOPA and PIPA would put the burden on website owners to police user-contributed material and call for the unnecessary blocking of entire sites. Small sites won't have sufficient resources to defend themselves.

For example, in its current form, SOPA could require Wikipedia to actively monitor every site we link to, to ensure it doesn't host infringing content. Any link to an infringing site could put us in jeopardy of being forced offline.
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Somebody put the situation quite nicely on a mountain bike forum:

They can already do this (force you to remove links or material) through DMCA, and it's not hard. DMCA process says someone has to send a notice saying "this link item is infringing, take it down, or we will take you down." SOPA/PIPA changes this to "we took down your whole site becuase you had an item that was infringing. thxbye."

This seems like a serious threat against websites where USERS (us) share information and other material of interest.

[Dennis Toth]

On the surface the bills seem harmless but when you look at how it could affect the flow of information by allowing sites to be shut down for posts to them it opens the door to government/extremist control or manipulation of the information on the net. These are not good bills.
Goggle has a petition to sign, also you can send input to your congressmen.

Best,       DennisT

[Randy Powell]

These bills sure give lots of material for conspiracy theorists. Seems like a great way to keep information from circulating under the guise of protecting intellectual rights. A good example of the law of unintended consequences (or perhaps intended if your thought process goes that way).

[john e. holliday]

And who says the government can't go in and register on sites, so they can input stuff to cause the demise of sites???  You know the CIA and other government agencies that do things under handedly when they want to.

[Douglas Ames]

IOW - Your website is guilty of... until proven innocent by you. Online piracy? The Chinese are masters at it.

[Steve Helmick]

Ya think that this might have been a reaction to the revolutions in Egypt, Libya and other places? The timing seems pretty uncanny, especially with our own "Tea Party" and "Occupy" events.

That reminds me, I need to visit my local ammunition dealers. I'll need to check the stocks and make a list.  Steve   

[Randy Powell]

Tell me, where in the Constitution does it give the right of the government to regulate information?

OK, we need to get off political comment before Sparky gets cranky.

[Larry Cunningham]

Latest similar development - Google is changing their "privacy" policy, basically saying now they will merge your info from various applications "for better service" (e.g. directed ads?), more likely easier, better data mining for them.

I used to greatly respect Google, but they've got the Big Biz mentality nowadays.

Apparently you'll have to sign on to an agreement about this to continue to use their applications after January.

L.

"The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him." -Robert Benchley