Rep. Lamar Smith said Friday that he will remove a controversial provision from the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) that would have required ISPs to block Web sites with infringing content.
"After consultation with industry groups across the country, I feel we should remove Domain Name System blocking from the Stop Online Piracy Act so that the Committee can further examine the issues surrounding this provision," Smith, the bill's author, said in a statement. "We will continue to look for ways to ensure that foreign Web sites cannot sell and distribute illegal content to U.S. consumers."
SOPA targets "rogue" overseas Web sites that traffic in illegal goods, from fake purses to prescription drugs. It would allow the Department of Justice to obtain court orders to go after these Web sites and, before today, would have required ISPs to block sites with infringing content. Detractors, however, were concerned that the bill was too broad and would've targeted legitimate sites.
Though DNS blocking will be removed, SOPA will still allow officials to "follow the money" and cut off payment options to foreign illegal sites, like credit-card processing or PayPal accounts. Search engines like Google and Bing would also still be required to remove infringing Web sites from their search results. Copyright holders could also still bring claims against foreign Web sites that steal their technology, products, or IP.
"Congress cannot stand by and do nothing while some of America's most profitable and productive industries are under attack," Smith said.
The move comes as Sen. Patrick Leahy said he would consider a similar move for the Senate version of SOPA, known as the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA). Rather than remove the DNS provisions outright, however, Leahy recommended that the DNS issue be studied before implementation.
SOPA has been a hot-button issue for weeks now, with opponents accusing Smith and other supporters of trying to break the Internet. Reddit is planning to go dark on Jan. 18 in protest of SOPA, and major tech firms like Google, Facebook, and Twitter have come out against the bill.
Smith has already made a few concessions on SOPA; he removed a private right of action that would have allowed an individual to request a Web site takedown if they suspected that site of hosting copyrighted data. But opponents remained concerned.
Also on Jan. 18, Rep. Darrell Issa will hold a hearing intended to examine the security issues surrounding DNS blocking. He and Sen. Ron Wyden were at the Consumer Electronics Show this week to criticize SOPA and push their own alternative, the OPEN Act.
The Senate is scheduled to address PIPA on Jan. 24; SOPA will likely be addressed by the House Judiciary Committee in the near future.