Hollywood-Backed Piracy Bill to Be Revised by House Judiciary
January 18, 2012, 6:24 AM ESTBy Eric Engleman
Jan. 13 (Bloomberg) --The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee said he would remove a provision from a Hollywood- backed anti-piracy bill opposed by Google Inc. and Facebook Inc., one day after a similar move by his Senate counterpart.
Representative Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican, said in an e-mailed statement today that he would take out a requirement that Internet-service providers, when ordered by a court, block access to non-U.S. websites that offer pirated content or counterfeit goods. Opponents of the bill have said blocking websites could disrupt the Internet’s domain-name system.
“After consultation with industry groups across the country, I feel we should remove domain-name system blocking from the Stop Online Piracy Act so that the committee can further examine the issues surrounding this provision,” Smith said in the statement. “We will continue to look for ways to ensure that foreign websites cannot sell and distribute illegal content to U.S. consumers.”
Smith’s Stop Online Piracy Act and a similar Senate bill are backed by the movie and music industries as a way to crack down on online content theft. Google and Facebook are among Internet companies seeking to block the legislation, saying it will spur Web censorship and hobble the technology industry.
Senator Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat who heads the Senate Judiciary Committee, said yesterday he’s willing to hold back the ISP-blocking provision from his Senate bill, the Protect IP Act. Leahy said he would offer an amendment to further study the matter. The Protect IP Act was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee in May, and the full Senate is scheduled to hold a procedural vote on the measure on Jan. 24.
‘Censorship Regime’
Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, said yesterday that Leahy’s change doesn’t go far enough and reiterated that he would block the bill, saying the measure “establishes a censorship regime.”
Representative Darrell Issa, a California Republican and critic of the Hollywood-backed bills, has scheduled a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing for Jan. 18 on the effects of blocking access to websites on cybersecurity and the technology industry.
Members of the House Judiciary Committee including Issa offered some 60 amendments to the Stop Online Piracy Act last month before the committee adjourned for the holidays. Smith has not specified when the session will resume.
The House bill is H.R. 3261, and the Senate bill is S. 968.
--Editors: Andrea Snyder, Romaine Bostick
To contact the reporter on this story: Eric Engleman in Washington at eengleman1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Shepard at mshepard7@bloomberg.net
