Every other year or so, the content industry (led by recording industry group RIAA and movie studio group MPAA) tries to sneak an "anti-piracy" bill through Congress. While content piracy is a problem (although not as big a problem as the industry groups claim), the policy proposals tend to be ill-considered, likely to be largely ineffective, and potentially seriously harmful. Most have been so badly conceived that any serious reflection tends to stop it in committee. Thus, it seems the new lobbying approach is to try to fast-track legislation before anyone notices.
In the case of the current proposal (called the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House version, and the Protect-IP Act in the Senate version), initial efforts seemed successful, the bills garnering lots of co-sponsors and being fast-tracked through the relevant committees without testimony from anyone other than content producers. Lots of lobbying and campaign contributions seemed to help things. However, Congress eventually has to post the bill's language, and when it did, and people looked at what was actually being proposed, strong and active opposition began. As before, portions of the Act seriously overstep civil rights; perhaps more critically for the major online companies opposing it, the Act has provisions that could seriously undermine the technological foundation of the Internet: the Domain Name System.
Today's news is that the concern, and furor, is enough that in the House, at least, one main sponsor has promised to drop the DNS-related provisions, and a leading opponent said that he had assurances that the bill in its current form is dead, and won't be reintroduced until a consensus is reached on a revised bill. It's also led the White House, which had strongly supported both bills until this week, to change it's mind, issuing a statement disavowing all its previously strong support for any bill “that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.” (One has to wonder whether they bothered to read the bill, or consider its consequences, when it was giving its full support - or was the support the result of the $1 million-plus in Obama campaign contributions from the entertainment industry?).
The Senate still plans a vote later this month, despite six Senators on the Judiciary committee saying that more time is needed to study the bill and its impacts.
So continue to raise the pressure on these folks, please. Also, a number of websites are going black on January 18th as a protest and a way of promoting opposition.
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