Congress seeks to tame the Internet

Ever since the days of Napster, the recording industry and movie industry have treated the Internet as a place on the map marked “Here be dragons.” For the last decade, Hollywood and big music have spent time not innovating, but trying to get the U.S. Congress to help them tame the Internet. Over the years, they’ve floated a variety of legislative mechanisms to do that. The latest is a House bill called the Stop Online Piracy Act. SOPA, as it is known, has Internet advocates boiling — and with good reason.