The Internet is one of the few things in the world that is truly everywhere. Millions of people use the Internet every day for more reasons than one person might think; to connect with family and friends, find information for a research paper, or make the perfect chicken marsala recipe. The Internet is made up of a huge expanse of web content and copyrights, and this is where online piracy comes in. Online piracy is the illegal use or distribution of copyrighted content, such as music, movies, and can even include pharmaceutical products. Millions of dollars are stolen every year from illegal downloads of music alone. Millions of dollars stolen from industries that make most of their money from copyright. There are already laws to combat piracy, including the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) which was enacted in 1998. While it has been effective in stopping online piracy, there are a couple of things that limit the act; it only has jurisdiction over American websites and is outdated compared to our fast-paced society. That's why in late 2011 the House of Representatives introduced bill HR3261: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). The goal of this bill is innocent: to stop online piracy and protect property on the Internet. SOPA was designed to give the Department of Justice “the ability to require U.S.-based Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block users from accessing foreign piracy websites and force payment companies or companies advertising companies to stop providing their services to piracy websites” (“Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)” 2). Those websites that illegally infringe copyright would find themselves in court with fines of $200 to $150,000 per violation. What makes the bill controversial is…that it is in the middle of paper…that it risks compromising the underlying architecture of the Internet” (Phillips). If SOPA were ratified, the Domain Name System (DNS) would have to be reprogrammed to filter websites in case of a violation. Reprogrammed could be understood as writing additional code for the program, but on a larger scale. It could leave DNS vulnerable to cyberattacks while making security policies obsolete. Furthermore, it would force users to use DNS servers that are not guaranteed safe and reliable. In any case, SOPA is not guaranteed to work in the first place, according to Elmira Bayrasil, who wrote in a Forbes article that "Entrepreneurs in developing countries face insurmountable obstacles that hinder the management of their businesses. ..Entrepreneurs in the developing world find ways around obstacles, which are the only things SOPA will do” (Bayrasil).