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TEXT HERE NEWS Online protests stop SOPA


T e US Congress has postponed its consideration of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) aſt er online protests aimed at the anti-piracy legislation.


Online encyclopaedia Wikipedia, search engine Google and blogging platform WordPress all took part in the online protest against the legislation on January 18.


US Representative and House Judiciary Committee chairman Lamar Smith introduced SOPA into the US House of Representatives in October 2011. Eleven other politicians backed the bill, including IP Subcommittee chairman Bob Goodlatte. PIPA was introduced into the US Senate.


T e anti-piracy legislation would have allowed the Attorney General to seek injunctions against foreign websites that profi t from piracy and counterfeiting, to increase criminal penalties for traffi ckers of counterfeit medicine and military goods, and to improve coordination between IP enforcement agencies in the US.


At the time, Goodlatte said: “American inventors, authors, and entrepreneurs have been forced to stand by and watch as their works are stolen by foreign infringers beyond the reach of current US laws. T is legislation will update the laws to ensure that the economic incentives … remain eff ective in the 21st century’s global marketplace.”


But opposition to the legislation soon gathered momentum. Google copyright policy counsel Katherine Oyama testifi ed at a hearing on SOPA. She called the legislation “overly broad” and said that it would undermine the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by sweeping in “innocent websites that have violated no law” and imposing “harsh and arbitrary sanctions without due process”.


T e opposition to SOPA achieved an important victory on January 13 when Smith said he would be removing the requirement for Internet service providers to block access to certain foreign websites, which was one of the more hotly contested provisions in the bill.


He said: “Aſt er consultation with industry groups across the country, I feel we should remove Domain Name System blocking from SOPA so that the committee can further examine the issues surrounding this provision. We will continue to look for ways to ensure that foreign websites cannot sell and distribute illegal content to US consumers.”


On January 18, Wikipedia instigated a 24-hour blackout. Visitors to its English-language website were greeted with a black page and white text that said “imagine a world without free knowledge”, as well as links to more information.


6 World Intellectual Property Review January/February 2012 www.worldipreview.com


©iStockphoto.com / doram


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