14 DAY TRIAL // Internet and tech companies in general have been quite worried about a couple of proposed laws that are going through the legislative process in the US right now. PROTECT IP and SOPA as the two bills are dubbed would give copyright owners huge powers over any website with almost no limits on how they can wield it.
In essence, any company would be able to make a copyright claim against any website and that website would have to comply without any court getting involved, even if it believes it's acting in good faith.
What's more, it would give these companies the power to force ISPs, payments companies and so on to block access, payments or services to any website they deem, not the courts, to be infringing on their copyright.
In essence, websites would then have to strictly control any content they host and ensure that it does not infringe on someone's copyright. In practice, this would make sites like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter even Mozilla's Add-ons site impossible to run.
It's no surprise then that everyone in the tech industry has banded together to oppose the two bills.
AOL, eBay, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Mozilla, Twitter, Yahoo and Zynga have sent a co-signed letter to the US Congress voicing their concerns and opposition to the bills in their current form.
"Unfortunately, the bills as drafted would expose law-abiding U.S. Internet and technology companies to new uncertain liabilities, private rights of action, and technology mandates that would require monitoring of web sites," the nine companies wrote.
"We are very concerned that the bills as written would seriously undermine the effective mechanism Congress enacted in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to provide a safe harbor for internet companies that act in good faith to remove infringing content from their sites," they added in their letter.
Many websites, including Mozilla have also joined the "Stop Censorship" campaign and have 'censored' their logos in support. Industry leaders, law professors at prominent US universities and even plenty of politicians have opposed the bills which have been pushed by a band of media industry groups. Hopefully, for the sake of the internet, their efforts won't be in vain.