Protests Grow Against US Anti-Piracy Bills,
by Glen Shapiro, LawAndTax-News.com, New York
Friday, January 20, 2012
A number of websites, including Wikipedia, Google, Facebook, Mozilla and Reddit,
have joined in a protest against the pending Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and
PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the United States House of Representatives and Senate,
respectively.
Opposition from within the internet sector to the proposed parallel bills had
been growing since the bills were drafted, but the matter did not appear to
be urgent until it was learnt that the PIPA is scheduled to be presented to
the full Senate on January 24, while it is suggested that the House of Representatives
will also begin a mark-up of the SOPA next month.
The bipartisan legislation aims to crack down on rogue websites dedicated to
providing access to unauthorized downloads, streaming or sale of copyrighted
content and counterfeit goods, ranging from new entertainment releases to pharmaceuticals
and consumer products. They are often foreign-owned and operated, and therefore
outside of American jurisdiction.
According to estimates, intellectual property theft costs the US economy more
than USD100bn every year. Supporters of the bills include television networks,
music publishers, the film industry and book publishers.
The legislation would provide the Department of Justice (DOJ) with an expedited
process for cracking down on websites accused of "enabling or facilitating"
piracy. There would be an authorization for the serving of an issued court order
on search engines, payment processors, advertising networks and internet service
providers.
The leading sponsor of the SOPA in the House, its Judiciary Committee Chairman
Lamar Smith (R - Texas) reconfirmed his support for legislation which contains
“provisions that ‘follow the money’ and cuts off the main
sources of revenue to foreign illegal sites". "It also protects consumers from
being directed to foreign illegal websites by search engines. And it provides
innovators with a way to bring claims against foreign illegal sites that steal
and sell their technology, products and intellectual property,” Smith said.
Remedies are limited to eliminating the financial viability of the site, and
a previous stipulation in the proposed legislation that access to the websites
should be blocked by using the Domain Name System (DNS) has been deleted. DNS
has previously been used, for example, in China, and means that, effectively,
a website vanishes from the internet.
However, internet companies still fear that they would be forced to police
web content. There have been comments that sites such as YouTube would need
to close down immediately after the legislation was passed, and that, overall,
the bill's sponsors have not understood the internet's architecture or comprehended
the bills’ real implications.
For example, in a statement, Google has said that “we oppose these bills
because there are smart, targeted ways to shut down foreign rogue websites,
without asking American companies to censor the internet”.
A further statement from Wikipedia expressed the opinion that the bills, if
passed, “would be devastating to the free and open web”. It professed
that “legal scholars and others” have advised that the legislation
has the “potential to significantly change the way that information can
be shared through the internet.”
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