The House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing tomorrow on the Stop Online Piracy Act, a measure that would give the U.S. attorney general and copyright holders new powers to cut off financial support to “rogue websites” accused of trafficking in goods spanning knockoff watches to fake pharmaceuticals to pirated movies.
The House bill and a similar Senate measure have pitted the nation’s top Internet companies against the U.S. film and music industries, which want the government to halt counterfeiting and intellectual-property theft. Web companies say the proposed legislation would require them to police the Internet, jeopardizing the growth of online services.
“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 websites,” Google, Facebook, Yahoo Inc. and EBay Inc. wrote in a letter today to leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary committees.
“We are concerned that these measures pose a serious risk to our industry’s continued track record of innovation and job- creation, as well as to our nation’s cybersecurity,” the companies wrote in the letter. It was also signed by AOL Inc., Twitter Inc., LinkedIn Corp., Mozilla Corp. and Zynga Inc.
