SOPA Comes Under Heavy Opposition

WASHINGTON, D.C.: The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which would punish companies for posting pirated content online, has drawn opposition from Internet giants such as Yahoo, Google, Facebook and the Consumer Electronics Association, saying that it would give the government too much power to shut down websites.

The proposed bill would punish web firms if copyrighted movies, songs or software appear on their sites. The legislation provides the U.S. Attorney General and the Department of Justice unprecedented powers to cut off the funding of foreign or "rogue" sites that host pirated materials. The bill would also impose significant fines on those websites that link to those foreign piracy sites. While a bipartisan group of lawmakers is arguing that new laws are needed to help fight the illegal distribution of content, many web giants believe SOPA goes too far.

Earlier this week, nine tech firms signed an open letter to congress voicing their opposition to SOPA. In it, the companies argue that "the bills as drafted would expose law-abiding U.S. Internet and technology companies to new uncertain liabilities, private rights of action, and technology mandates that would require monitoring of web sites." The letter continued that the group is "concerned that these measures pose a serious risk to our industry’s continued track record of innovation and job-creation, as well as to our nation’s cyber security."

Google, Facebook, Yahoo and other Internet-based firms also used a media blitz to lobby their point, taking out full-page newspaper ads urging lawmakers to vote against the proposal.