Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA) called into question

Update: The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) bill has been delayed until 2012. SOPA known as H.R.3261 is a bill that was introduced in the United States House of Representatives by Texas Representative Lamar Smith. The bill is divided into two parts and talks about fighting foreign rogue websites that fall outside of the U.S. jurisdiction. This is all in an attempt to combat copyright infringement, and focus on increased penalties to combat intellectual property theft by digital means. The House Judiciary Committee had scheduled a hearing on for November 16, 2011. What's crazy about this bill is that it would make foreign infringing websites unauthorized streaming a felony. On the flip side would foreign countries begin to block United States sites in return. YouTube, Tumblr and Facebook, amongst many that host user content will be responsible for ensuring that their users do not post infringing material by doing away with the safe harbor provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).