CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS – TECHNOLOGY & COMMUNICATIONS
Jan. 17, 2012 – 2:23 p.m.
Reid Says He Will Not Delay Vote on Controversial Online Piracy Measure
By Alan K. Ota and Keith Perine, CQ Staff
As dozens of websites go dark Wednesday to protest a fast-moving bill to crack down on online piracy, Senate Majority Leader
Six Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee sent Reid a letter Jan. 13 calling on him to delay a scheduled Jan. 24 cloture vote on a motion to proceed to the bill. The Republicans said the vote is premature because they have lingering concerns about the bill that need to be addressed.
But Reid, D-Nev., is intent on pushing through another major legislative protection for intellectual property, and he is using this procedural vote to keep pressure on lawmakers to forge a deal.
“The vote currently is, and will remain, scheduled for Jan. 24, 2012,” Reid wrote in a Jan. 13 response to
Reid agreed that there are “legitimate concerns” related to cybersecurity raised by the legislation, but he urged the Senate bill sponsor, Judiciary Chairman
For the cloture vote to succeed, Leahy will have to rework his bill to attract the support of the six Republicans, as well as other senators, such as Minority Whip
A number of conservative Republicans remain hopeful that Reid will delay the cloture vote, said a senior GOP aide, who predicted that the procedural vote will fail to attract the necessary 60 votes to clear the way for debate.
Dozens of prominent websites — including Wikipedia, Reddit and Mozilla — are planning to go dark Wednesday to protest the legislation (
Many technology companies insist the proposed legislation would stifle free speech and stem the growth of the Internet, but many content providers say it is a good approach to combating online theft of copyrighted products that cost the U.S. economy tens of billions of dollars annually.
Movie studios, recording labels and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have been pushing for quick action on the legislation. It would give the Justice Department and intellectual property holders new tools to combat copyright infringement by foreign-based sites, including the opportunity to seek court orders to bar U.S. payment processors and advertising companies from doing business with such sites.
Opposition to Bills
The legislation has dozens of Republican and Democratic cosponsors in both the House and Senate. The Senate Judiciary Committee approved the bill by voice vote on May 26, 2011, and panel leaders have sought since then to address concerns that have been raised about the legislation.
“Hiding behind the black box of self- censorship does not resolve the problem that is plaguing American business and hurting American consumers,” Leahy said of the planned online protest.
Reid Says He Will Not Delay Vote on Controversial Online Piracy Measure
Critics of the legislation contend that several provisions are overly broad and could impair the Internet.
In the face of technology sector opposition, Leahy and his House counterpart, Judiciary Chairman
Hollywood movie studios and other business supporters of pending online piracy legislation are acquiescing to the decision to drop the domain name-blocking language.
“The reality . . . today is that [domain name system] filtering is really off the table for this legislation,” said Paul Bringer, senior vice president and chief technology policy officer for the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). “And the MPAA is now supportive of the sponsors moving forward, and [domain name system] filtering is not part of that moving forward position.”
But critics of the bill, including the White House, are still concerned about the wording of other provisions, such as one that would allow the Justice Department to try to block search engines from steering domestic Web users to infringing foreign sites.
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said his company is taking the “extraordinary action” of blacking out its popular website to demonstrate its “opposition to this destructive legislation.”
“While we regret having to prevent the world from having access to Wikipedia for even a second, we simply cannot ignore the fact that [the House bill] and [the Senate bill] endanger free speech both in the United States and abroad and set a frightening precedent of Internet censorship for the world,” he said.
The House Judiciary Committee began marking up Smith’s bill in December. Smith said Tuesday that he expects the panel to resume working on it in February, though the bill faces bipartisan opposition from California Republican
Smith complained in a written statement Tuesday that some critics “appear not to have read the bill.”
“The Stop Online Piracy Act only targets foreign websites that are primarily dedicated to illegal activity,” Smith said. “It does not grant the Justice Department the authority to seek a court order to shut down any website operated in the U.S.”
Anne L. Kim contributed to this story.