A groundswell of anger from the tech community and Internet users over proposed laws to curb Internet piracy has Washington politicians, including Sen. Michael Bennet, distancing themselves from the measures.

The bills in the House and the Senate will come into sharp focus for uninitiated Internet users today as online encyclopedia Wikipedia goes dark for 24 hours in protest.

Google also plans to place a link on its home page alerting users about the legislation. Facebook opposes the proposed law as well.

In essence, the bills would enable the U.S. Department of Justice to shut down websites that “engage in, enable, or facilitate” copyright infringement.

Supporters include the motion picture industry, the recording industry, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and big unions — all of which say international Internet piracy is killing jobs in America.

Of major concern to the legion of angry technology startups, Wikipedia, Google and tweeters all over the world are the unintended consequences of censoring search engines. They also worry the measures chill advertising revenue and give too big an advantage to large companies with well-funded legal departments.

“In general, this is too broad a hammer to go after piracy,” said Vikas Reddy, co-founder of Occipital Inc., a Boulder-based technology company.

Reddy is among a handful of Colorado entrepreneurs who signed a letter in opposition. “There will be a lot of collateral damage if this passes in terms of censorship abilities available to the (U.S.) attorney general.”

All the anger — blogs and Twitter are chirping about the U.S. becoming an Internet censor like Iran or China — means the proposals, called the Protect Intellectual Property Act in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House, may never make it to a floor vote.

Last year, the Senate version passed unanimously out of a committee with broad Republican and Democratic support. Bennet, a Democrat, was among 40 co-sponsors of the legislation. He also has received at least $370,000 in campaign contributions from the entertainment industry, through the third quarter of 2011.

But Tuesday, Bennet backed away from supporting it in its current form. His staffers say they didn’t understand the rush to vote on it, without hearing from stakeholders.

“Recently, several Coloradans have raised valid concerns about potential unintended consequences that could result from the bill as it is currently written,” Bennet said in an e-mail statement. “Because of the complexity and technical nature of this issue, we should come to an agreement that protects against online piracy but that avoids these consequences before we move forward.”

Sen. Mark Udall, also a Colorado Democrat, does not support the measure. He said Tuesday that it could be “a bill looking for a problem.”

“Three things that concern me is that it would chill free speech, it would kill innovation and undermine Internet security efforts,” he said. “The government could censor Internet search results, and it encourages lawsuits by private parties.”

A vote is scheduled for next week on the measure in the Senate, though Bennet and others are trying to delay it to gather more information and hear people out.

Rep. Jared Polis, a Boulder Democrat and an Internet entrepreneur, has been a leading opponent of the measure. In protest, Polis entered the lyrics of “The Internet Is for Porn” into the Congressional Record in December.

“I think most observers from the Internet sector didn’t think this bill had a real chance of passing,” Polis said Tuesday. “But it’s a real threat, it’s not just a crazy bill Congress is talking about. … It has become a realistic threat.”

He is sponsoring an alternative that attempts to stop Internet piracy and addresses some concerns about censorship

In recent weeks, the ramifications of how the law could be implemented have driven fear into just about every Internet startup in the country.

“These bills are hundreds if not thousands of pages and it only became clear recently in terms of the awareness of what’s in it,” said Dave Jilk, founder of Standing Cloud Inc. in Boulder, which manages application software in a “cloud” network. “It was presented as this common-sense and innocuous thing, but if you read about what it does … it’s scary.”

Allison Sherry: 202-662-8907 or asherry@denverpost.com



What’s at issue

The Internet property-rights acts being considered by Congress:

Stop Online Piracy Act: Being debated by the House Judiciary Committee. SOPA would give the Justice Department and copyright holders such as music companies or movie studios the ability to get court orders to effectively shut down targeted offshore websites that engage in or facilitate copyright infringement. In protest, Wikipedia says it will shut down its American site for 24 hours today.

Protect Intellectual Property Act: Similar but less-stringent legislation in the Senate.

SOPA and Protect IP Act

SOPA and PIPAAbout the Stop Online Piracy and Protect Intellectual Property acts being considered by Congress:

What are they? The Stop Online Piracy Act is being debated by the House Judiciary Committee. The Protect Intellectual Property Act is similar but less-stringent legislation in the Senate.

How would they be shut down? The court could order Internet service providers to block access to so-called rogue sites, bar online advertisers and payment companies from doing business with the sites and prohibit search engines from listing them.

Who wants SOPA and why? Content creators such as Hollywood and the music industry say that despite successful efforts domestically to crack down on piracy, outlaw hosting and link sites have moved offshore and made it much tougher for authorities to shut them down. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce says it stifles American innovation and labor unions say online piracy costs U.S. jobs.

Who opposes SOPA and why? Tech companies, including Google, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, say it will stifle Internet innovation and job creation and threaten cyber security. Small startups fear they could be immediately shut down or face insurmountable costs trying to defend themselves. Some legal experts fear it amounts to censorship. The Denver Post