The Internet is one of the few things in the world that is actually everywhere. Millions of people use the Internet every day for more reasons than a single person can imagine; 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 vast expanse of web content and copyrights, and this is where online piracy comes into play. Online piracy is the illegal use or distribution of copyrighted content, such as music, movies, and can even include pharmaceuticals. Millions of dollars are stolen every year through illegal music downloads. Millions of dollars stolen from industries that make most of their money from copyright. There are already laws in place to combat piracy, including the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) which was signed into law in 1998. Although it has had an impact on stopping online piracy, there are a few things that restrict this law: it only has jurisdiction over US websites and is outdated compared to our fast-paced society. This is why at the end of 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 to force companies payment or advertising companies to stop providing their services to piracy websites” (“Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)” 2). Websites that illegally infringe copyright will find themselves in court with fines ranging from $200 to $150,000 per violation. What makes the bill controversial is... middle of paper ... the risks of disrupting the underlying architecture of the Internet” (Phillips). If SOPA is ratified, the Domain Name System (DNS) will need to be reprogrammed to filter websites for violations. Reprogrammed could be understood as writing a little more code for the program, but on a major scale. This could leave the DNS vulnerable to cyberattacks, while rendering security policies obsolete. It would also force users to use DNS servers that are not guaranteed to be secure and reliable. Either way, SOPA is not guaranteed to work, according to Elmira Bayrasil, who wrote in a Forbes article that "entrepreneurs in developing countries face insurmountable obstacles that hinder the operation of their businesses... Entrepreneurs from developing countries around the world are finding ways around the roadblocks, which is the only thing SOPA will be” (Bayrasil).