Members of Congress have continued their back and forth war with prominent internet engineers and investors from companies like Google and Twitter in the months leading up to the House Judiciary Committee’s vote on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) Friday.
The law, if enacted, would allow the U.S. Justice Department to seek court orders against websites that either enable or facilitate copyright infringement involving the illegal solicitation of intellectual property over the internet. It would also force Google to make these websites invisible.
The legislation has received support from Hollywood actors, directors and media firms that want to put an end to the free distribution of their movies and other forms of intellectual property.
On the other hand, many prominent internet companies have opposed the legislation, claiming it prevents new innovation and imposes too many technological barriers on the web.
A group of Internet based companies, including Google, Twitter, PayPal and Wikipedia sent an open letter to Congress Thursday opposing SOPA. Earlier this week, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) responded to the criticism that has been coming out of Silicon Valley in recent months after the legislation was initially introduced.
“The bill defines rogue sites as foreign websites primarily dedicated to the sale and distribution of illegal or infringing material or foreign websites that market themselves as websites primarily dedicated to illegal or infringing activity,” Mr. Smith said in a press release Wednesday.
“Companies like Google have made billions by working with and promoting foreign rogue websites so they have a vested interest in preventing Congress from stopping rogue sites. In August, Google paid half a billion dollars to settle a criminal case because of the search engine giant’s active promotion of foreign rogue pharmacies that sold counterfeit and illegal drugs to U.S. patients,” the chairman added.
Mr. Smith went on to point out that American intellectual property accounts for “19 million high-paying jobs to the U.S. economy and account for more than 60 percent of U.S. exports,” and that it was in the best interest of Congress to prevent those industries from possibly losing profit.
Members of the House Judiciary Committee met with representatives from Facebook, Microsoft and other internet companies after the bill was initially drafted. Based on their input, SOPA was amended to account for only the “foreign rogue websites” that Chairman Smith mentioned in the press release.
Still, concerned internet stakeholders, a group of 83 internet companies and investors sent an open letter to Congress Thursday to express their concern with the bill.
“Censorship of Internet infrastructure will inevitably cause network errors and security problems. This is true in China, Iran and other countries that censor the network today; it will be just as true of American censorship,” the letter reads.
“The US government has regularly claimed that it supports a free and open Internet, both domestically and abroad. Senators, Congressmen, we believe the Internet is too important and too valuable to be endangered in this way, and implore you to put these bills aside,” the letter states.
The House is set to conduct a vote on SOPA Friday.
