Congress is considering legislation that is dividing the intellectual property community, pitting Hollywood against tech. The Senate's version of the proposed new law is S.968, Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011, or "PROTECT-IP". In the House, the bill is HR 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act, or "SOPA".
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the MPAA, the RIAA, the Screen Actors Guild, and several other film, music and other entertainment groups support the legislation, which is described as an measure that will help prevent online threats to economic creativity and theft of intellectual property. However, several tech, education, consumer protection groups and privacy advocates are vehemently opposed to the bill, including Google, Yahoo, Facebook, the Electronic Frontier Foundation ("EFF"), Public Knowledge and others. EFF describes the bill as "the worst piece of IP legislation we’ve seen in the last decade" and Public Knowledge describes it, when combined with the anti-circumvention provisions of the Copyright Act, as "a frightening combination."
According to the RIAA the law is needed, constitutes a necessary step in the evolution of IP enforcement provisions as digitization and high speed Internet access has increased, and permits the Justice Department to seize criminal websites engaged in criminal activity. On the other hand, some critics say the proposed legislation would require payment processers and advertising services to sever ties with Internet websites alleged to be violating intellectual property rights -- before the allegations are ever proven in court -- and the allegations do not even need to concern actual circumvention if intellectual property protections. That is, if passed, the new law would expand the scope of conduct to ensnare not only people who may aid circumvention by others, but also people who "possibly aid people who possibly aid circumvention."
SOPA, the House bill, was introduced in late October and the House Judiciary Committee is conducting a hearing on it this morning.
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