Stop Online Piracy Act

Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) or H.R. 3261 is a bipartisan bill introduced at the United States House of Representatives by Congressman Lamar Smith, House Judiciary Committee Chairman and co-sponsored by 31 other Representatives including John Conyers (D-Mich.), Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and Howard Berman (D-Calif.) on June 26, 2011. The bill aims to promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation by combating the theft of U.S. property, and for other purposes such as intellectual property rights protection of U.S. businesses particularly in the film, music and software industry against online piracy and counterfeiting.

A legislative hearing was conducted by the House Judiciary Committee on November 16, 2011 to examine the various issues related to proposed Stop Online Piracy Act. According to the statement released by Cong. Lamar Smith, the bill is not targeting technology but it is concentrated on "preventing those who engage in criminal behavior from reaching directly into the U.S. market to harm American consumers." He pointed out that "protecting America’s intellectual property will help the country's economy, create jobs, and discourage illegal websites." A full committee mark-up on the was held on Dec. 15, 2011.

Provisions

Under the proposed bill, the Department of Justice through the Attorney General is authorized to ask for a court order against the owners, operators, domain name registrants of foreign websites to stop their operations if found conducting or facilitating online piracy including copyright infringement, unauthorized fixation and trafficking of sound recordings or videos of live musical performances, the recording of exhibited motion pictures, or trafficking in counterfeit labels, goods, or services.

Section 102 of the bill stipulated that search engines, ISP, and other services ordered to stop doing business with suspected violators of online piracy and counterfeiting cannot be sued in court while Section 103 of the bill gives copy right holders the right to ask an injunction for third parties such as payment processors and advertisers to stop doing business with suspected websites selling pirated products. Under section 104, domain name registrar, registry, ISPs, search engines, internet advertisers, etc. that voluntarily take action and stop doing business with infringing websites are given legal immunity. In addition, any copyright holder who misrepresents that a website is dedicated to infringement or a if a respondent to an infringement claim knowingly misrepresents that a site is not dedicated to infringement will be liable for damages including attorneys fees and court costs.

Supporters

According to a statistics conducted by the Center for Responsive Politics, the film, music and TV industry have spent more than $ 91 million to fund the lobbying for the approval of SOPA. The entertainment industry claimed that internet criminals are stealing from hard working Americans by using foreign websites that are illegal. The Stop Online Piracy Act is supported by different organizations including:

• Motion Picture Association of America
• U.S. Chamber of Commerce
• Better Business Bureau
• National Consumers League
• 43 State Attorneys General
• National Fraternal Order of Police
• AFL-CIO, the Independent Film and Television Alliance
• American Federation of Musicians
• Directors Guild of America
• International Brotherhood of Teamsters
• Screen Actors Guild

Oppositions

Several organizations are against the bill citing that it could put individuals and companies under suspicion by just linking an article to a suspected infringing websites. They also argue that it could harm businesses providing web services. Opposing organizations include:

• Google
• Yahoo
• Facebook
• eBay
• Twitter
• Human Rights Watch
• Public Knowledge
• Free Press
• Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Computer and Communications Industry Association
• Consumer Electronics Association
• Americans for Job Security
• Demand Progress and Consumers Union