A new House bill intended to crack down on pirated content online has created quite the firestorm. Though it has, not surprisingly, received ringing endorsements from the music and film industries, some tech and consumer groups are concerned that it could cripple the Internet.
For years, regulators have tried to come up with an effective way to shut down Web sites that contain pirated content. However, the anonymity of the Web, as well as the fact that many offending sites are located overseas, have complicated the matter. Congress has pushed several legislative solutions, including the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act and the Protect IP Act, but the latest proposed solution is The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), introduced last week by a bi-partisan group in the House.
Among the more controversial provisions is a section that would allow rights holders to contact the financial institutions that do business with a particular Web site and ask them to shut down access because of infringing content. If you ran a Web site that used PayPal or accepted payment via MasterCard, for example, and someone thought your site contained pirated content, they could contact PayPal or MasterCard and have those companies cut off access to your site, effectively shutting down your business.
Bill sponsors said the legislation targets "foreign Web sites that steal and sell American innovations and products," and focused on the safety implications of someone selling fake medicine or military goods.
The Motion Picture Association of American (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of American (RIAA) both championed the bill.
Chris Dodd, a former senator and current president and CEO of the MPAA, said in a speech last week that "the online theft industry relies on advertisers, payment processors, Internet service providers, and search engines—legitimate businesses that in my view debase themselves when they knowingly act as accomplices to digital theft. They are acting as accessories in the theft. We need to spread the message in the digital community and in the entertainment community that these activities hurt working Americans—and that we will not tolerate them."
Cary Sherman, president and CEO of the RIAA, said the bill "is a first step towards a brighter day when these rogue offshore websites can no longer duck accountability under U.S. laws, all the while providing a critical boost to the marketplace for legal digital music services."
The cable industry voiced its support, with National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA) president Michael Powell saying the bill provides "reasonable tools that will protect copyrighted goods," but not everyone in the tech industry was as enthusiastic.
The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) joined with the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) to voice concern that the bill "puts lawful U.S. Internet and technology companies at risk by creating new liabilities, opening the door for vague new technology mandates, and imposing significant costs on small businesses."
"It would create a new, unprecedented private right of action regime for intellectual property," CEA and CCIA said in a letter to Congress.
Both groups said they support the concept of protecting U.S. trademarks and copyrights from "rogue" Web sites, but did not believe SOPA was the way to address it. As written, the bill is "an alarming step backwards in Internet policy," they said.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) had some stronger words for the bill sponsors, arguing the SOPA would "break the Internet," kill jobs, and possibly stop the creation of the next Twitter or Tumblr.
"Let's make one thing clear from the get-go: despite all the talk about this bill being directed only toward 'rogue' foreign sites, there is no question that it targets U.S. companies as well," wrote EFF's Corynne McSherry.
Payment processors have five days to cut off support for allegedly offending Web sites, which McSherry said is not enough time to make sure that only the infringing part of a Web site is cut off, so "your whole Web site will be under assault."
Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), copyright holders can request that Web sites, like YouTube, remove what they believe to be infringing content. Those sites must immediately remove the content in order to not be liable for copyright infringement. If it infringes, it remains offline; if the site finds that it's legitimate, it goes back up.
That process works for legitimate Web sites like YouTube, but SOPA sponsors say their bill goes after "rogue" sites that would ignore DMCA takedown notices or might not be subject to U.S. law. Detractors, however, argue that the bill would have unintended consequences and might prompt rivals to issue bogus takedown notices simply to gain a competitive business advantage.
"Indeed, services that have been specifically found legal, like Rapidshare, could be economically strangled via SOPA. You can file a counter-notice, but you've only got 5 days to do it (good luck getting solid legal advice in time) and the payment processors and ad networks have no obligation to respect it in any event," McSherry concluded.
Gigi B. Sohn, president and co-founder of Public Knowledge, also argued that SOPA would "overturn the long-accepted principles and practices [of the DMCA] in favor of a one-sided enforcement mechanism that is far more broad than existing law while not attempting to protect the rights of anyone accused of copyright infringement."
She expressed concern that anyone who wrote about or linked to a site suspected of containing infringing content "could also become a target of government action."
The House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on SOPA on November 16.