1 December 2011Copyright

Tech companies voice SOPA concerns

The Business Software Alliance (BSA) and companies including Google, Mozilla, eBay and Twitter have raised concerns that the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) could threaten Internet companies and innovation.

A bipartisan group in the US House of Representatives introduced the new IP legislation in October 2011.

The group wants to allow the Attorney General to seek injunctions against foreign websites that profit from piracy and counterfeiting, to increase criminal penalties for traffickers of counterfeit medicine and military goods, and to improve co-ordination between IP enforcement agencies in the US.

Twelve politicians sponsored the legislation, including House Judiciary Committee chairman Lamar Smith and IP Subcommittee chairman Bob Goodlatte.

In a statement, Goodlatte said: “American inventors, authors, and entrepreneurs have been forced to stand by and watch as their works are stolen by foreign infringers beyond the reach of current US laws. This legislation will update the laws to ensure that the economic incentives … remain effective in the 21st Century’s global marketplace.”

On hearing the news, BSA president and chief executive officer Robert Holleyman said in a statement that the bipartisan group has “taken a good step by introducing legislation to address the problem of online piracy”.

However, Holleyman said in a blog post after attending a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee in November 2011 that the idea behind the legislation, which is to remove the ability of pirates to profit from theft, has to be “done with a fine touch”.

“As it now stands, however, [the legislation] could sweep in more than just truly egregious actors. To fix this problem, definitions of who can be the subject of legal actions and what remedies are imposed must be tightened and narrowed.”

Google copyright policy counsel Katherine Oyama testified at the hearing. She called the legislation “overly broad” and said that it would undermine the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by sweeping in “innocent websites that have violated no law” and imposing “harsh and arbitrary sanctions without due process”.

Aol, eBay, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Mozilla, Twitter, Yahoo! and Zynga Game Network wrote to the US Congress in November 2011 to express their concerns about the legislation.

The group said it was particularly concerned that the legislation would “seriously undermine” the DMCA’s safe harbour for Internet companies that act in good faith to remove infringing content from their sites.

Responding to Google’s objections, House Judiciary Committee chairman Smith said in a statement that the objections “should come as no surprise”, as Google had recently settled a federal criminal investigation into the company’s active promotion of rogue websites that sell illegal prescription and counterfeit drugs.

He added: “Given Google’s record, their objection to authorizing a court to order a search engine to not steer consumers to foreign rogue sites is more easily understood.”

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1 February 2012   The US Congress has postponed its consideration of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) after online protests aimed at the anti-piracy legislation.