Remember little Sophie Grace Brownlee? That was the little girl who sang the Nicki Minaj song Super Bass, was recorded by her mother and she uploaded it to YouTube. The little girl became an Internet sensation and appeared on The Ellen Show as well as other talk shows.

Did you know little Sophie Grace is a criminal? Yes at her young age she is a thief. Why? Because she didn't get permission from Nicki Minaj or her record company to perform the song, which violates YouTube's copyright policy. I know you think I'm joking but it's true. If YouTube was contacted by Nicki Minaj or her representatives, the video could have been pulled, or at the very least a warning could have been sent to them that there might be a copyright issue.

If you think this might be a silly or an aberrational thing, remember the Happy Birthday song. Legally, the song is owned by a company and you have to get permission and pay for use of the song. If you hear the song in a movie or TV show, you will see there is a special credit for the song. Of course, in private you can sing the song, and there isn't going to be a copyright police officer coming to your house if you sing it, but places like TGIFridays, Cheesecake Factory, and other public places that have birthday celebrations use a different song for birthdays.

I bring this up because as silly as it sounds that little Sophie Grace Brownlee is a criminal, if the SOPA law passes there wouldn't be some arbitrary pass for someone like that little girl. SOPA, for those who might not have heard of it, is a law before Congress which is supposed to Internet piracy. Like a lot of cutting edge laws before Congress, they rely on lobbyist who work for the interest of corporations to interpret the ramifications of laws and not common sense. In this case, the entertainment industry is concerned that individuals will use their content without permission and they will lose profit from it. The SOPA law puts heavy fines and jail time for people who violate copyright laws.

Now, I mention YouTube because if you want to see what this law will be like if it passes, take a look at YouTube's policy. If they followed the strict letter of their own policy, unless you create all the content of a video yourself, if you got any part of it from somewhere else without permission you are subject to getting the video blocked or even being banned from YouTube. The policy is very broad, to the point where if you think back to a year or two ago when another young person played a Lady Gaga song on the piano and became another Internet sensation (also appearing on Ellen) he was in violation of the policy because it wasn't his song he played. All of those girls that lip-sync to the camera or booty shake to some rap song; they are in violation of the policy. Technically, if you were to videotape someone walking down the street and they walked by a place playing music loud enough to hear on the street, it would be in violation because even though you didn't play the music you didn't get permission for the music to stream into your scene. If you think I'm exaggerating go to the copyright section of YouTube and read and watch the material they have there.

The SOPA law would be like that but on steroids, because it blankets everything. If you put a picture on your website you don't own you could be shut down. A link to a video you don't own could be in violation. Here is a real possible scenario that could occur; you write a critical article about an experience you had with Wal-Mart and you post a picture of yourself standing in front of the store sign. Wal-Mart gets wind of this and they could, under SOPA, shut down your site permanently and possibly sue you for defamation because you had their logo in your personal picture without their permission.

It was just in the last decade when record companies were so worried about 'on line piracy' that they asked for stricter laws to police the threat. People at the time thought it was silly and wouldn't effect them because they thought the law was for guilty people who amassed hundreds of thousands of music files. People stopped laughing when regular people were caught up, like the little girl who was fined a million dollars for her music files or the grandmother who faced jail time for her music. For every possibly legitimate bust of some pirate there were hundreds if not thousands of ordinary citizens who her harassed with threatening letters, taken to court or his with huge fines. It was an embarrassment.

SOPA threatens to label many people criminals for no reason.