SOPA Internet bill: Newspapers and op-ed writers pile on
It鈥檚 been a tough few days for the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA), the twin bills currently winding their way through the House and the Senate, respectively, aimed at increasing the government鈥檚 ability to hamstring copyright infringers and other counterfeiting ne鈥檈r-do-wells. Although the bills enjoy bipartisan support in Washington, opposition from groups equating their enforcement with online censorship has been strong 鈥� and the backlash is growing.
On Monday, Wall Street Journal columnist L. Gordon Crovitz (formerly the paper鈥檚 publisher) wrote an op-ed decrying SOPA and PIPA, , 鈥淭hese bills would go so far to protect copyright that they would strangle the Internet with regulation. The Web would be transformed from a permissive technology where innovation is welcome to one where websites are shut down first, questions asked later.鈥� Crovitz concluded that 鈥淗ollywood鈥� (the Motion Picture Association of America and other groups who are the bills鈥� primary backers) wanted to suppress technology. He likening SOPA to arguments from the 鈥�80s that the VCR would suck the lifeblood out of the entertainment industry.
Crovitz鈥檚 position isn鈥檛 necessarily the Journal鈥檚 official line, of course, but it鈥檚 the latest in a string of denunciations of SOPA and PIPA in mainstream publications. On Sunday, The New York Times carried an editorial against the bills which flatly , 鈥渢he definition of wrongdoing in the 鈥楽top Online Piracy Act鈥� introduced in the House is too broad 鈥� like its Senate companion, the 'Protect IP' bill, it has serious problems that must be fixed.鈥�
The LA Times, the hometown paper of the MPAA, wrote an even sterner piece against SOPA the day before that, that it 鈥済oes 鈥� down the wrong path, weakening protections for companies 鈥� including those based in the United States 鈥� that enable users to store, publish or sell goods online.鈥�
Of course, the press for SOPA and PIPA hasn鈥檛 been all bad. Last week, more than 300 companies, including NBC/Universal, Pfizer, and the NBA, signed a letter in support of the bills. And on Monday, Forbes published an op-ed by 鈥渢ech capitalism鈥� writer Scott Cleland which was generally supportive of the bills' aims and methods. Cleland that 鈥渨ith fixes to ensure the legislation only targets rogue websites and does not create unintended problems by requiring actual website blocking or traffic filtering, support for online anti-piracy legislation is likely to strongly consolidate as the bills progress.鈥� On the other hand, it鈥檚 worth pointing out that Forbes a different op-ed piece later that day with the title, 鈥淗ow Congress and the Entertainment Industry Plan to Kill the Internet and How Citizens, Reddit Users, and a Few Senators Are Fighting Back.鈥� Perhaps we could say that coverage has been mixed.聽
Pretty much everyone 鈥� including the aforementioned newspapers as well as tech titans such as Google and Yahoo 鈥� agrees that stopping online piracy is a noble motive. And everyone agrees that copyright infringement on the Internet is a huge problem for content creators (the Times reported in its editorial, for example, that more than 40 billion music files were illegally shared in 2008). But in spite of the bills鈥� popularity in Congress, all these groups have argued that infringement should be policed using less sweeping methods. SOPA and PIPA still have bipartisan support, but as they get closer to a vote 鈥� which could come before Congress breaks for the holidays 鈥� the bills鈥� opposition continues to gather steam.
