On January 20, 2012, the United States Senate shelved the Hollywood backed proposed legislation known as the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) aimed at curbing the out of control Internet piracy, especially overseas distributors of pirated movies and music. In broader terms the proposed act aimed at fighting trafficking of intellectual property and counterfeit goods. However, online opposition to the proposed act grew louder before the Senate vote on the issue.
Google led the opposition to the adoption of the proposed legislation. The search engine behemoth covered its logo with a black band in protest, days before the Senate hearing date. Facebook also joined the parade. Combined audience represents approximately 800 million worldwide.
Industry suggests that policing the Web should be left to the industry. They think educating the masses is the best way to control piracy. To this end, many free online courses offer code learning courses. The Union Square Ventures spent $2.5 million on Codecademy to teach people basic programming skills. Stanford and MIT offered some of their class material including video free on YouTube. There are many other free courses available online to beginners as well as more experienced.