'Stop censorship!' Google takes on Congress over 'draconian' online piracy bill

Tech giants including Google Inc took aim today at U.S lawmakers proposing anti-piracy legislation which they say promotes censorship.



The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) 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.



The 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.

'American Censorship Day': The Electronic Freedom Foundation placed this banner on its website today to raise awareness about its campaign to stop the bill

'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, whose executive chairman Eric Schmidt called the bill 'draconian' during a speech in Boston on Tuesday, was the only witness against the bill on a six-person panel at the hearing.



The company, in solidarity with tech giants Yahoo! Inc, Facebook, Twitter, eBay Inc and others ran full-page advertisements in major newspapers on Wednesday raising awareness about the bill.



Blacked out: Blogging site Tumblr even censored words on its own content feeds in a message to lawmakers

It also banded together with AOL, eBay, Facebook, LinkedIn, Mozilla, Twitter, Yahoo and Zynga to file a formal complaint in a letter to key lawmakers.



'We support the bills' stated goals. Unfortunately, the bills as drafted would expose law-abiding U.S. Internet and technology companies to new uncertain liabilities (and) mandates that would require monitoring of web sites,' read a statement in the letter.



Meanwhile, as CNN Money reported, other critics, including websites BoingBoing, Reddit and the Electronic Grontier Foundation, launched an effort to combat the proposal by placing 'Stop censorship' titles over their own logos.



The network even showed how blogging site Tumblr blacked out words on its own content feeds. A message at the top of users' dashboards read: 'Stop The Law That Will Censor The Internet!'



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

Fighting back: Google policy counsel Katherine Oyama urged lawmakers today to work on alternative legislation to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)

Author: Representative Lamar Smith (R-Texas), sponsor of the bill

'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 on 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.

Ms 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,' Ms Oyama said.

