Obama Administration is debating a real issues concerning online piracy by responding back over the weekend, including the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), the Protect IP Act and the Online Protection and Digital Enforcement Act (OPEN). Yesterday came words from White House that a key House hearing originally scheduled for Wednesday will be delayed till there is a “consensus” on the bill.
SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act), an act, if passed would give U.S. federal government the power to disable a website that it founds to be in copyright violation law. The White House seems most concerned with DNS-blocking which is becoming the stepchild of SOPA provisions.
“Any effort to combat online piracy must guard against the risk of inline censorship of lawful activity and must not inhibit innovation by our dynamic businesses large and small.”, the statement says. “We must avoid creating new cybersecurity risks or disrupting the underlying architecture of the internet.”
The White House’s mentioned in the statement that the Administration calls on all sides to work together to pass hound legislation this year that provides prosecutors and rights holders new legal tools to combat online piracy originating beyond U.S. borders. “We expect and encourage all private parties, including both content creators and internet platform providers working together, to adopt voluntary measures and best practices to reduce online piracy.”
In related news, the planned blackouts to protest SOPA and PIPA seem increasing with the popular news sharing website, Reddit and Humor website, I Can Has CheezeBurger, announced that it will go black on January 18th.
