Sen. Leahy (right) and Rep. Smith (left) vow to press forward with their bills. | John Shinkle/POLITICO SOPA, PIPA authors pooh-pooh protests

The authors of controversial piracy legislation are dismissing website blackouts planned for Wednesday as a “publicity stunt” designed to “stoke fear” among the public.

Wikipedia, Mozilla, Reddit, WordPress and some 7,000 other websites are vowing to go dark Wednesday to protest Rep. Lamar Smith’s Stop Online Piracy Act in the House and Sen. Patrick Leahy’s PROTECT IP Act in the Senate.


But Smith and Leahy vowed Tuesday to press forward with their bills — and they both pooh-poohed the protests against them.

“Every year, American businesses and the American economy bleed billions of dollars to online infringement and piracy,” Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, said in a statement. “Tomorrow, some U.S.-based websites that will not be affected by the PROTECT IP Act have announced that they will self-censor their content. At the end of the day, it is still American businesses, American consumers and American workers that are feeling the brunt of this problem.”

Leahy said that “much of what has been claimed about the Senate’s PROTECT IP Act is flatly wrong and seems intended more to stoke fear and concern than to shed light or foster workable solutions. The PROTECT IP Act will not affect Wikipedia, will not affect Reddit, and will not affect any website that has any legitimate use. A foreign rogue website is clearly defined as one that has no real purpose other than infringement. Theft and fraud on this scale undermines consumer trust in online transactions."

Leahy added: “Perhaps if these companies would participate constructively, they could point to what in the actual legislation they contend threatens their websites, and then we could dispel their misunderstandings. That is what debate on legislation is intended to do, to fine-tune the bill to confront the problem of stealing while protecting against unintended consequences.”

Smith singled out Wikipedia for spreading what he considers false information about SOPA.

“It is ironic that a website dedicated to providing information is spreading misinformation about the Stop Online Piracy Act,” the Texas Republican said in a statement. “The bill will not harm Wikipedia, domestic blogs or social networking sites. This publicity stunt does a disservice to its users by promoting fear instead of facts.”

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 6:26 p.m. on January 17, 2012.