US government concerned about far-reaching anti-piracy law
The US government is skeptical about the controversial sopa legislation. In a statement, three advisers to the president say copyright protection is important, but they say the internet must remain “open and innovative.”
In the declaration the three advisers to President Barack Obama do not literally write that the American government does not support the controversial SOPA and Protect IP bills, but it is clear between the lines that the White House is not at all happy with it.
“We consider piracy on foreign websites a serious problem,” they write. “But we will not support legislation that negatively impacts freedom of expression, is bad for IT security or undermines an innovative internet.”
As far as the US government is concerned, the legislation should specifically target foreign sites that infringe intellectual property rights and cannot be addressed through US law. There are currently fears that the legislation will also be used to target US sites. For that reason, a number of sites, including Boing Boing, Reddit and XDA Developers, will go black on January 18 in protest. Wikipedia is also considering participating.
According to the White House, censorship must be prevented when tackling piracy on the internet. If payment processors, ad networks and search engines are to cooperate in tackling piracy, safeguards must be in place to prevent abuse. Involving such companies in tackling piracy is one of the proposed measures in the sopa and protect-ip bills.
According to the White House, blocking websites via DNS also has negative consequences for the reliability of the DNS system and the rollout of the more secure DNSsec protocol. Incidentally, the person who submitted the sopa law said last week that he would remove the relevant passage from the bill. The proposer of the comparable protect IP law would intend to do the same.
According to Reuters has criticized the White House statement for proponents of the two bills. The MPAA, an advocacy group for the film industry, admits the White House has a point, but adds “protecting American jobs is also important in these difficult economic times.”
The sopa law has already been watered down. Initially, copyright holders would be allowed to take piracy sites offline without court intervention. It was later decided that a court order was necessary for this. The two controversial bills have been widely criticized. They are intended to make copyright infringement on the internet impossible, but many companies and civil rights organizations believe the law goes too far.