Google on Wednesday voiced its concern about a bill intended to crack down on pirated content online, arguing that it could threaten online innovation. The search giant was not alone, however; other major tech companies like Mozilla, Facebook, Twitter, and Yahoo, also took issue with the Stop Piracy Online Act (SOPA).
"We strongly support the goal of the bill—cracking down on offshore websites that profit from pirated and counterfeited goods—but we're concerned the way it's currently written would threaten innovation, jobs, and free expression," Pablo Chavez, director of public policy at Google, wrote in a blog post today.
Google copyright policy counsel Katherine Oyama is scheduled to testify this morning in front of the House Judiciary Committee, whose chairman, Lamar Smith, introduced SOPA. In her written testimony, Oyama said Google is concerned "that the bill sets a precedent in favor of Internet censorship and could jeopardize our nation's cybersecurity." SOPA, she continued, "poses a serious threat to our industry's continued track record of innovation and job-creation."
Yesterday, eight tech companies joined with Google to voice similar concerns: AOL, eBay, Facebook, LinkedIn, Mozilla, Twitter, Yahoo, and Zynga.
"We are very concerned that the bills as written would seriously undermine the effective mechanism Congress enacted in the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) to provide a safe harbor for Internet companies that act in good faith to remove infringing content from their sites," the companies wrote in a letter to the committee. "While we work together to find a way to target foreign 'rogue' sites, we should not jeopardize a foundational structure that has worked for content owners and Internet companies alike and provides certainty to innovators with new ideas for how people create, find, discuss, and share information lawfully online."
What would SOPA do? Supporters, like the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), argue that it will help copyright holders shut down Web sites that contain pirated content. Detractors argue that the provisions are vague and could target U.S. companies and Web users, not just international criminals.
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.
In a recent op-ed, RIAA chief Cary Sherman argued that some of the arguments against SOPA were hyperbolic and said victims must "follow a strict set of rules when notifying payment processors or ad networks that are funding the rogue site."
In his opening statement during today's hearing, meanwhile, Rep. Smith basically suggested that Google has been guilty of incidents that SOPA would stop. He pointed to Google's recent $500 million settlement over AdWords sales that allowed U.S. residents to access ads for online Canadian pharmacies.
Google, he said, has "sought to obstruct the Committee's consideration of bipartisan legislation. Perhaps this should come as no surprise given that Google just settled a federal criminal investigation into the company's active promotion of rogue websites that pushed illegal prescription and counterfeit drugs on American consumers."
Rep. Mel Watt, meanwhile, also urged detractors to stop the "hyperbolic" claims. "I don't like or love" everything in this bill, he said, but it's a good start.
The hearing is ongoing and will also include testimony from: Maria Pallante, register of copyrights for the U.S. Library of Congress; John Clark, chief security officer at Pfizer; Michael O'Leary, senior vice president of policy for the MPAA; Linda Kirkpatrick, group head of customer performance integrity at MasterCard; and Paul Almeida, president of the AFL-CIO's department of professional employees. Stay tuned for more details.