The whole world is talking about how Wikipedia and several other important sites went on a blackout for a day, as they were all protesting SOPA and PIPA. However, there are still a lot of people who are unaware of what these terms mean.

Well, for starters, SOPA stands for Stop Online Piracy Act, while PIPA denotes Personal Information Protection Act.

What exactly are these acts?

These acts, if they come into proper existence, will mean that any owner of intellectual property, will have the upper hand on sites of international origin, against whom they hold a copyright claim. The results of such a blacklisting could be so severe that such a site would no longer show up on search engines, would have no advertisements posted on it and might even have the internet service provider to the site, themselves recommend that people not to onto the site anymore!

Now, coming onto what would happen, if SOPA and PIPA were to be put into effect. For starters, the world of social networking would be severely affected, as sharing of music and photos would become difficult. Blogs of all kinds, private as well as those of companies would have to live in the constant fear of copyright violations.

Moreover, if a company, even after giving proper credit, where it is due, utilises the graphics from another website, they could face consequences that would not just be severe, but could also lead to the complete shutdown!

Dark times are coming, and we have no choice but to wait things out, as of now.