The ground is beginning to shake beneath the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) Internet censorship bill, introduced by House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith last month.
The bill, formerly called the E-PARASITE Act, intends to wipe the Internet clean of copyright infringing websites, yet critics argue SOPA’s impact would be far greater—affecting both legitimate and illegitimate websites, with doubtful effectiveness, while endangering cybersecurity.
The bill has bipartisan support in both chambers of Congress, and is backed by power of the entertainment industries.
Yet one of its main supporters, the Business Software Alliance (BSA), which represents the world’s software and hardware industries, withdrew its support on Nov. 21, just five days following a Nov. 16 House hearing.
“Last week, when the committee held a hearing on SOPA, I listened carefully to members’ statements and questions as to how this balance would be achieved. It is evident from what I heard that much work remains ahead for the Committee,” wrote BSA president and CEO Robert Holleyman on the BSA official blog.
Holleyman states while he firmly opposes piracy, as SOPA currently stands “it could sweep in more than just truly egregious actors.”
Viacom followed soon after, however, releasing a video calling for support for SOPA on Nov. 22, outlining the impact piracy has had on the film and television industries.
Opposition to the bill was fueled by new findings that SOPA could harm cybersecurity—among the concerns raised by Holleyman.
The findings were outlined by Leonard Napolitano, director of the Center for Computer Sciences & Information Technologies, in a letter to congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, following a review by he and his staff.
Napolitano states SOPA “would negatively impact U.S. and global cybersecurity and Internet functionality,” in addition to delaying overseas adoption of DNSSEC, which will close security holes in the Internet’s current DNS system.
He adds that SOPA’s mandates “are unlikely to be effective,” noting one of his staff members characterized it as a “whack-a-mole” approach “that would only encourage users and offending websites to resort to low-cost workarounds.” This statement was on grounds that users can use basic software or other tricks to get around blockades SOPA would establish.
Censoring the Internet
SOPA is similar to a bill in the Senate, the highly-controversial PROTECT IP Act (Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011). PROTECT IP was formerly known as the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA), which was surrounded by similar controversy.
When the bill was introduced on Oct. 26, Smith (R-Texas) stated, “Rogue websites that steal and sell American innovations have operated with impunity,” noting many websites behind this operate in foreign countries and are beyond reach of U.S. law.
“American IP industries provide 19 million high-paying jobs to the U.S. economy and account for more than 60 percent of U.S. exports. It’s time to stop online piracy and start protecting American jobs and innovations,” Smith stated.
SOPA, like PROTECT IP, requires Internet service providers to block access to websites that have a primary focus on copyright infringing material. Copyright holders could request money from the infringing sites, and the websites could be made inaccessible in the United States.
According to digital rights organization, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the bills could blacklist entire Web domains.
SOPA takes this a step further, however, since “Under this bill, service providers (including hosting services) would be under new pressure to monitor and police their users’ activities,” states the EFF, adding that websites that do not monitor their content carefully enough “are now under threat, even though the DMCA expressly does not require affirmative policing.”
