White House Opposes [parts of] SOPA
The Obama administration announced that it was opposed to parts of two bills endorsed by Congress to enforce copyright protection on the Internet.
The White House said, “Let us be clear, online piracy is a real problem that harms the American economy, threatens jobs for significant numbers of middle class workers and hurts some of our nation’s most creative and innovative companies and entrepreneurs. … [However,] We will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.”
This comes after efforts by the founders of YouTube, Twitter and Google to tell Congress that the two proposed bills would censor and regulate the Internet similar to government regulation in Iran and China.
It is uncertain if Congress can reach a compromise and pass anti-piracy bills to fight the stolen copyrighted materials and to allow private individuals and companies to sue to stop theft or protected content. At this point it seems like SOPA will require some sort of makeover as opponents to the bill continue to gain momentum.
