en.wikipedia.org

Black banners confronted visitors to the English version of Wikipedia, reddit and several other websites this past Wednesday as part of the largest online political demonstration in history. The websites were protesting two proposed bills in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives: the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA).

If passed, SOPA and PIPA would allow Congress or copyright holders to take direct action against websites that are deemed to be infringing on copyright or intellectual property, or dealing in counterfeit goods like forged sports memorabilia. The bills were proposed and supported by both sides of the aisle,  as members of Congress, backed by various entertainment companies, sought a tool for stronger action against copyright infringement, up to and including blocking access to websites.

Opponents of the bill include the Wikimedia Foundation and reddit, as well as other tech giants like Google, Facebook, eBay, and Twitter. Their primary concern is that the bills are too open to interpretation. 

These companies share four main objections to SOPA and PIPA:

Their broad wording

SOPA and PIPA propose that websites which are found to be “committing or facilitating the commission of criminal violations” are liable to be punished. Under this condition, any website that has a link to another site that illegally possesses copyrighted content is held equally accountable. For websites that do not directly control what links are posted, such as Google, Facebook, reddit—or any site which accepts user comments or uses robots to crawl other sites—this broad umbrella makes them liable and would “criminalize linking” according to Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

DNS blacklisting

Blacklisting would make the unique address of an offending website invisible and unreachable by typing in the URL or searching on Google. This is a departure from current attempts to control copyright infringement where the website must simply remove offending content. Instead, what is proposed would remove any possiblity of accessing the website, essentially shutting it down.

Duty to monitor

Currently, for any copyright claim to be made, copyright holders must inform a website that it hosts copyrighted material, and prove that the claimer has ownership. SOPA and PIPA would legislate that websites must monitor themselves for any offending content or links, or otherwise risk being shut down in response to a single complaint. Not only would this force larger companies to divert resources into monitoring their content, but it may act as a barrier to smaller companies.

Freedom of speech

There are worries that DNS blacklisting coupled with vague wording on what constitutes an offending website has too much potential for abuse.  Civil libertarians have drawn comparisons to the Great Firewall of China, saying that while the intent is completely different, the effects could be the same.

Opponents to SOPA and PIPA are multinational, as the proposed bills would affect foreign websites as well as domestic ones. For example, the American company Verisign owns the registry for the suffix “.com,” so any website that uses “.com” is subject to SOPA and PIPA regardless of the website’s country of origin. If an offending link were posted on any .com site, the site runs the risk of being erased from the Internet before being given the chance to defend the allegations. It’s a shoot first, ask questions later approach.

In the wake of online protests, the strong opposition shown has caused supporters to waver. The number of congressmen and senators against SOPA and PIPA is growing rapidly, with many taking to Twitter to make their opposition publicly known. Republican Senator John Cornyn was quoted as saying, “Stealing content is theft, plain and simple, but concerns about the Internet and free speech necessitate a more thoughtful, deliberative process.” On Friday, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid postponed the upcoming Senate vote on PIPA. SOPA’s sponsor, Representative Lamar Smith, announced that SOPA would also be postponed, pending further review. He added that he was willing to rework the bill to precisely target only infringing websites.

While it seems protestors have thwarted SOPA and PIPA for now, one should expect to see them again in a new form. The MPAA, RIAA, and other proponents of the bills aren’t likely to give up on ensuring their copyrights are protected.