A few weeks ago, we detailed the House’s debate over the E-PARASITE/SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) bill. The Senate judiciary committee has already passed its own version of the bill, known as PROTECT IP, but the House flavor would grant copyright holders sweeping powers to force websites hosting allegedly-infringing content offline without the need for a trial or even a court order. Search engines could be ordered to de-link sites, payment processors to suspend financial transactions, and DNS providers to prevent site access.

According to the content creation industry, laws like SOPA are a requirement if copyright is to be preserved. In testimony before Congress yesterday, the US Registrar of Copyrights, Maria Pallante, testified that SOPA might not be sufficient to preserve US interests and that “additional measures or adjustments may be needed.” As Ars Technica reports, Pallante had previously been viewed as a measured, moderate voice who understood the importance of free use and the need for flexible copyright solutions. Her full written testimony [PDF] and analysis of SOPA is also online.

An alliance of tech companies including AOL, Ebay, Facebook, Google, Mozilla, Twitter, and Yahoo have taken a determined stance against the legislation, noting that while they support the bill’s goal of providing additional enforcement tools to combat piracy, E-PARASITE would “expose law-abiding US internet and technology companies to new uncertain liabilities, private rights of action, and technology mandates that would require monitoring of web sites.” It could also cripple the DMCA’s “safe harbor” provision, which protects neutral websites from being held liable for the actions of their users.

Hollywood, the RIAA, and their Congressional lapdogs have responded by claiming that Google and the other companies that oppose SOPA are pro-piracy organizations who profit too much from illegal content to ever be willing to seriously work towards solving the problem. Such rhetoric undermines claims that SOPA is a measured solution, or that it wouldn’t be used to attack sites the content industry feels are problematic without the pesky issue of due process. Had SOPA been law in 2007, Viacom wouldn’t have had to sue YouTube (and lose). Instead, it could’ve filed the appropriate claims with the Attorney General’s office and had the site de-listed and taken offline.

Michael Fricklas, Viacom’s general counsel, has stated that it’s easy to tell if a site is hosting infringing content and that freedom of speech isn’t automatically protected there. “I don’t think there is a first amendment right to speak on a site that is engaged in pervasive copyright infringement (assuming that there are plenty of places to speak).”

Fricklas’ opinion is laughably out-of-step with everything the Supreme Court has ever ruled on topic of free speech, but SOPA avoids court orders and judicial oversight. Thus far, the sizeable coalition of tech companies, law professors, and politicians from both sides of the aisle has had little luck winning a seat at the table. Of all the groups opposed to SOPA, Google was the only company invited to yesterday’s hearing — and it was on the altar as a sacrifical lamb and object lesson.

E-PARASITE, if it passes, will give Hollywood and the RIAA the legal equivalent of Mjölnir. It’ll destroy any international perception that the US is capable of neutrally administering the internet and spark the wholesale abandonment of US-based DNS providers in favor of international options that are harder to track. There are major powers girding for battle on both sides of the debate, but thus far, the content industry has the rhetorical upper hand.