US legislation aimed at curbing online piracy, which had appeared to be on a fast track for approval by the US Congress, appears likely to be scaled back or jettisoned entirely in the wake of critical comments over the weekend from the White House, people familiar with the matter said.
The legislation, known as the Stop Online Piracy Act in the US House of Representatives and the Protect Intellectual Property Act in the US Senate, has been a major priority for entertainment companies, publishers, pharmaceutical firms and many industry groups, who say it is critical to curbing online piracy that costs them billions of dollars a year.
The legislation is designed to shut down access to overseas Web sites that traffic in stolen content or counterfeit goods.
Internet companies have furiously opposed the legislation and have ramped up their lobbying efforts in recent months, saying the legislation would undermine innovation and free-speech rights and compromise the functioning of the Internet.
Some Internet advocates have called for a boycott of any companies that support the legislation and several popular Web sites have vowed to black out their sites -today in protest.
With public sentiment on the bill shifting in recent weeks and an implicit veto threat now emerging from the White House, congressional staffers are resigning themselves to writing replacement language or possibly entirely new bills.
The White House said in a blog post over the weekend that it would not support “legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.”
Three key sections of the existing legislation seem likely to remain, a person who was familiar with the matter said.
They comprise provisions aimed at getting search engines to disable links to foreign infringing sites, cut off advertising services to those sites and cut off payment processing.
However, critical provisions that would require Internet service providers to cut off infringing sites through a technology known as Domain Name Service (DNS) blocking are now likely to be eliminated.
Critics have said such measures would only encourage people to navigate the Web in riskier ways, with modified browsers or other tweaks that could lead to their Internet sessions getting hijacked by scammers.
Lawmakers had already been coming around to the realization they would have to hold back on the DNS-blocking provisions.
Before the holidays, an amended version of the House bill had added a “kill switch,” or provision that service providers would not have to block a site if it did “impair the security or integrity of the system.”
On Thursday, US Senator Patrick Leahy, who is sponsoring the Senate bill, said he planned to propose amending it so that the ramifications of blocking access to a site be studied before implementation.
On Friday, US Representative Lamar Smith, who is sponsoring the House bill, said he planned to remove altogether the provision that would require service providers to block access to infringing foreign Web sites.
A Google official said in congressional testimony in November last year that the company did not necessarily oppose disabling search engine links and cutting off advertising.
However, it is not clear if eliminating the DNS-blocking provisions alone will be enough to mollify critics.
“Like many other tech companies, we believe that there are smart, targeted ways to shut down foreign rogue Web sites without asking US companies to censor the Internet,” a Google spokesperson said on Monday.
In addition to concerns about the technical ramifications of DNS blocking and the practical issues associated with disabling services to individual Web sites, many in the Internet business fear the bills create far too much leeway to shut down Web sites without sufficient due process.
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