Web protests melt congressional support for anti-piracy bill

By John Rizzo

Congressional sponsors and supporters of two anti-piracy bills quickly became opponents after some of the Internet's biggest web sites went dark or protested the bill at their sites yesterday over concerns of censorship.

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate are supported by the entertainment industry, pharmaceutical companies and other heavy hitters, but the Internet giants Google, Facebook, Wikipedia, and others prevailed yesterday. On just one day, 18 senators, some of them sponsors, have dropped support or come out against PIPA. Several House members did the same with SOPA.

Wikipedia's English language site went dark, redirecting articles with a black and gray page titled "Imagine a world without free knowledge?" and an urging to contact congress. Today, a Wikipedia thank you page said, "You shut down Congress's switchboards. You melted their servers," and claimed that 162 million users viewed the black-out page.

Google covered the logo on its home page with a black rectangle, with a link asking, "Tell Congress: Please don't censor the Web!" WordPress, flckr, and Craigslist, all had instructions on how to contact Congress to oppose SOPA and PIPA. Wired redacted most of the words on its home page.

Other sites that went dark included Mozzila.org, which feature a big read "Take Action Now" button, Reddit, and the even the environmental group Greenpeace.

Hours after the web blackouts and protests began, congressional sponsors of the bills in both parties defected. Senate sponsors of PIPA, including Roy Blunt (Missouri), Marco Rubio (Florida), and Ben Cardin (Maryland), withdrew support. Another sponsor, Senator Bob Menendez (New Jersey), said he was willing to make changes. Senators Scott Brown (Massachusetts), Jim Demint (South Carolina), and Jeff Markley (Oregon) came out in opposition yesterday, and Senator John Cornyn (Texas) said Congress should slow down.

SOPA sponsors in the House also abandoned the bill. Representative Time Holden (Pennsylvania), an important sponsor, switched to opposing the bill yesterday. Representatives Ben Quayle (Arizona), Lee Terry (Nebraska), and Congressman Dennis Ross (Florida), all House sponsors, withdrew their support.

The bills would make web sites responsible for not only postings of copywrited material, but also of links to pirated material, as well as links to sites that advertise or in any way fund pirating. Sites, including social networking and search engines, that are found to have such links could be shut down under the previsions of the bills. Private companies could obtain court orders to block payments to sites suspected of containing pirated material or links.

Though congressional support has significantly weakened, the bills are still alive. The Senate's lead sponsor of PIPA, Patrick Leahy (Vermont), said he plans to introduce amendments within the next few days.