SOPA: Google Warns Lawmakers That Online Piracy Bill Could Depress Investment

By Jasmin Melvin
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Google Inc warned U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday that proposed legislation to crack down on foreign websites selling pirated U.S. movies, music or other counterfeit goods goes too far and could depress investment.

The legislation has pit Internet giants, consumer groups and first amendment advocates against the U.S. copyright industries, including Hollywood studios and record labels, who have long argued for tougher protection.

A U.S. House of Representatives bill would allow a private party to go straight to a website's advertising and payment providers and request they sever ties.

"A corporation, a copyright 'troll,' or anyone with an axe to grind could send a notice... without first involving law enforcement or triggering any judicial process," Google policy counsel Katherine Oyama told a House Judiciary Committee hearing.
She urged lawmakers to instead work on legislation that cuts off revenue to rogue sites via the courts and avoids the "collateral damage" built into the current form of the bill.

Google was the only witness against the bill on a six-person panel at the hearing.

Google, Yahoo! Inc, Facebook, Twitter, eBay Inc and other Internet companies ran full-page advertisements in major newspapers on Wednesday, urging lawmakers to rethink their approach.

Proponents of the legislation say current law leaves few options for copyright holders whose products end up on foreign websites.

"It's a choice between protecting American creativity and jobs or protecting thieves," Michael O'Leary, in charge of global policy and external affairs for the Motion Picture Association of America, told the hearing.

The U.S. Justice Department, under the bill, could also request court orders to compel U.S. search engines and other sites to block domain names or search results.

But Google told lawmakers that too many innocent websites could fall victim to the legislation without due process.

Investors and venture capitalists in a study issued Wednesday by consulting firm Booz and Co overwhelmingly said they would not invest in Internet start-ups if new laws allowed websites to be sued or fined for pirated digital content posted by users.
Google's Oyama said the current language of the Stop Online Piracy Act unintentionally sweeps in a considerable number of lawful websites with its broad definition of a site that is dedicated to stealing U.S. property.

"As long as there is money to be made pushing pirated and counterfeit products, tech-savvy criminals around the world will find ways to sell these products online," she said.

"Ordering ISPs and search engines to 'disappear' websites will not change this fundamental reality," Oyama said.

A copyright bill cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee in September, but without the notice procedure that allows parties to contact payment providers and advertising services of infringing websites.

(Reporting by Jasmin Melvin; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)
Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions.

Comments

[therevelator]

04:30 AM on 01/14/2012

Wow... this is pathetic....
I'm a webmaster/programmer....and I can appreciate the need for protecting software... but common this is once again a ploy to fool the American people (like the patriot act) into thinking it will actually help/protect. No.. what it will do is allow the GOV to control, censor.... control, censor...prosecute...dominate... the American people. It will mean no more comments on huffington post..no more youtube..no more facebook... no more twitter... no more voicing your opinion.... because that opinion could get your but thrown in court.. or better yet.... hmmmmmm... this seems all too coincidental that it comes right along side the NDAA...kind of creepy... we have FEMA camps in every state...and oh wait... who said they were closing GITMO??

[pitchblack00]

11:08 AM on 12/09/2011

This is all so f*cked up, i download stuff all the time, but it doesn't mean i don't buy legally anymore, no download beats having physical CD of your favorite band, or a movie or a game, book whatever. It's just people are very unlikely to pay for a download alone, i'd honestly would rather get that for free.

[constitutional 1]

09:49 AM on 11/18/2011

"The U.S. Justice Department, under the bill, could also request court orders to compel U.S. search engines and other sites to block domain names or search results".

Hello China

[guytaur1]

06:52 PM on 11/17/2011

http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/business-it/web-giants-condemn-internet-blacklist-bill-20111117-1njye.html

The view from Offshore.

[Copeland Sean]

06:49 PM on 11/17/2011

It's very frustrating that laws regarding the internet are being created by people who hardly understand the internet. Most senators and congressmen are don't actually use the internet, so they need to but out of this. Beside, increased censorship will not stop piracy, if anything it will anger people and drive them to want to pirate more, pirates can and will register domain names much faster than the government can block them, plus many non-piracy websites will be blocked. All these bills are are censorship. It will be a real shame if these bills pass.

[guytaur1]

06:46 PM on 11/17/2011

This is big.
This makes the US a bigger blocker of freedom of speech on the internet than China.
How much interference in communications of another country before war is declared?

[emily00011]

05:12 AM on 11/18/2011

What's even bigger is the US trying to impose its laws on people outside of the border. At least the EU is showing a tiny backbone in this matter. Who knows how strong it will be though.

[Eva fate]

05:11 PM on 11/17/2011

The important part here isn't just piracy. I understand why people are upset about piracy, although I personally think a lot of piracy can be stopped most effectively by using different business models...

The point here is that these laws would allow your government and ISP to censor what you're viewing online, and to track your viewing habits. The potential for abuse, such as your ISP making a deal with Pizza Hut saying "we will make sure that when our users do any type of search for pizza, your name comes up first," or "we will block Domino's online ordering site from (date) to (date)." is high. In many smaller towns and rural areas, there is still only one ISP, and blocks could be structured to hide their nature, such as making it look like a DDOS attack or like the site was having problems. Users in areas like mine would have no idea. It could be done with politcal information as well, especially under the patriot act- The government could start blocking websites for protest groups. This is just not a good road to go down. Other solutions can be found to piracy and cybercrime issues.

[seojimjames]

11:38 PM on 12/25/2011

ah the dots are connecting.....now you re talking.

[be practical]

04:37 PM on 11/17/2011

I'm not against being punished for violating copyright laws, but this proposal allow anyone to demand a site be shut down. Guilty until proven innocent? We have courts to deal with this stuff. I don't need the government in my living room while I browse the web. What next, they'll tell me I can't read Huffington Post because they don't like the content. GOP'ers keep telling me they're for less government and less regulation. If this is so why do I always feel like they're throwing more government and regulations at us..

[seojimjames]

11:43 PM on 12/25/2011

btw - this can and has been done before - in 1999, I had my a retail scooter site shut down mysteriously by yahoo for copyright infringement complaint from metallica's general counsel for naming my italian scooters metallica red metallica blue etc ..since they were metallic italian scooters....no warning just disappeared one morning and along with it our investment and income....so it is already a law everyone is familiar with ....especially lawyers with no sense of humor.

[lw1]

04:21 PM on 11/17/2011

Google has made a amazingly giant fortune linking to illegal downloads and other copyright infringing material.

Of course they are against being prevented from doing this.

[Eva fate]

05:15 PM on 11/17/2011

Uh huh, because content creators, massive corporations, open source users and creators, etc. Don't make up the majority of Google's userbase. Go look up the top searches- I'm willing to bet none of the top 20 contain the words torrent, rapidshare, piratebay, or other words that mean someone is looking to download pirated content.
I bet at least two of them are things like "where can I watch the trailer for this new film that the film's creators released online?" or "When does this artist's new CD become available?"

[lw1]

01:41 AM on 11/18/2011

Try searching for "where can i download free music" - many of the 855,000,000 responses will be illegal downloads.

[nobodyzhome]

05:58 PM on 11/17/2011

Really? Where's your numbers to back that up?
Show me what percentage of their income comes from these sites?

Anyone, ANYONE, can come in here and make claims such as yours. Very few can back them up. Where do you stand?

[lw1]

02:15 AM on 11/18/2011

Just google "how much traffic on the internet is pirated?" if you really want to know how much illegal content is out there. It is a significant amount. I don't need to name an exact amount and I did not in my first post but it was illegal music downloads that brought folk to the internet in droves.
Now the prates are using significant amounts of internet babd width. If you deny that is a fortune, you are are best being unrealistic.

[therevelator]

04:42 AM on 01/14/2012

dude.. give it up.... you don't have an argument here. Seriously.... web guru's.. SEO experts... webdevs....it's what we do on a daily basis... its how we do our jobs!! are you kidding me!!

[vesaversa1]

04:00 PM on 11/17/2011

I am totally against Internet censorship by congress .

[lw1]

04:28 PM on 11/17/2011

Stoping pirating is NOT censorship.

[God bible]

04:50 PM on 11/17/2011

is not just about that but it would make the internet more vulnerable for cyber attacks and such.

[Copeland Sean]

06:39 PM on 11/17/2011

It does a lot more than stopping piracy. It gives the government the right to censor any website with copywrite material, this includes youtube videos, facebook pages, tumblr sites, and many other websites, Piracy will continue despite this anyway, because all pirates have to do use a new domain name. I'm completely against piracy, but this bill doesn't help, it just allows the government to block sites, which is censorship, plain and simple.

[relians]

03:21 PM on 11/17/2011

who is pushing more regulations now?

[GoldsteinD]

02:53 PM on 11/17/2011

What the hell are civil courts for? This bill is nonsense

[lw1]

04:29 PM on 11/17/2011

Civil courts are for the rich and can take a long time to achieve anything. Piracy is rampant and the civil courts are having little effect.

[BicPentameter]

07:17 PM on 11/17/2011

Piracy is rampant? By whom? Are you doing it? Your family? Your friends? Your neighbors? Oh no of course not, it's some other people.We've got to control THEM. Let's let the government control what we see, say, and think. That will protect us.

[emily00011]

05:14 AM on 11/18/2011

are you a t r oll for the hollywood? Do you even kn ow what you are talking about?

[getoffmedz]

02:38 PM on 11/17/2011

This drive for copyright protection has gone a bit over-board.

[lw1]

04:27 PM on 11/17/2011

Not if you are a content creator who does not want your work stolen.

[Eva fate]

04:59 PM on 11/17/2011

I'm all for not stealing people's work, but I think a lot of the problem comes down to the economy and the environment created by content creators who aren't tech savvy.
I never see people pirating content if they have the money and the product is available in the format they want. Music was a problem for a long time- DRM protected CDs and no legal market for Mp3s helped push people to pirate.
The other problem is that the cost of EVERYTHING keeps going up, and of course content creators want to charge competitive prices, but the average wage, adjusted for inflation, keeps going down, especially for teens and young adults, who are most likely to purchase certain types of content and who's social scene often revolves around having seen or heard it. It's the same thing people saw in other times and places- crime goes up when people are underpaid, and if corporations want people to buy their stuff, they need to hire.

Almost no one is against paying content creators. Look at authors who've released books on open source licenses and then asked people to pay for them- They still make LOTS of money. But people in general might not want to pay middle men anymore. The sad fact is that music artists who sign with major labels make little to no profit on their CDs or MP3's, which is why so many people feel pirating them is okay.

[getoffmedz]

11:17 AM on 11/18/2011

There are sufficient laws to protect y'all.

[JWoode]

01:50 PM on 11/17/2011

Keep this up and people will dig out old VCR's for TV and tape recorders for radio. The local video stores would boom again.. People would start to appreciate the entertainment value or whistling and humming again.

[FabulousTahoe]

12:32 PM on 11/17/2011

Why is the RIAA and MPAA backing a bill that virtually ALL of the content creators they represent are opposed to? Justin Bieber and his friends should demand that their labels pull out of these associations or they will go independant: I bet you congress backs off REAL fast. If they don't, the content stream that generates all the new talent in the industry will be choked off and the customers will stop buying.

[lw1]

04:31 PM on 11/17/2011

Has there really been a lot of new talent generated by the internet?

[Eva fate]

05:03 PM on 11/17/2011

Actually, yes. And a lot of business models that depend on the internet that involve creating content, such as webcomics, might get hurt by this bill. Many webcomics, which can be simple and small or graphic novels with excellent art and compelling stories, rely on Adspace to make money. Many of those content creators get millions of hits a day from people using sites like 4chan, reddit, tumblr, etc. to repost a comic they particularly liked.
Web comics usually have the name or site address in the panel border somewhere. That means that when someone sees something they like, they'll go to that site to read the whole comic. That's just one example of a new, creative business model that's contributed to culture that might be harmed by this bill.

[FabulousTahoe]

05:54 PM on 11/17/2011

Justin Beiber, Lady Gaga, Grayson Chance, the Lonely Island, and many more got their start doing cover songs on YouTube... ALL of them would be outlawed by the proposed bill.