Wyden Nixes Anti-Piracy Bill, For Now

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Sen. Ron Wyden has put the kibosh, at least temporarily, on a controversial anti-piracy bill that would have allowed the government to shut down domain names that allegedly host sites dedicated to copyright infringement.

"Deploying this statute to combat online copyright infringement seems almost like using a bunker-busting cluster bomb, when what you need is a precision-guided missile," Wyden said late last week. He vowed to block the bill unless it is changed, effectively ensuring that the measure will not come before the entire Senate this year, although it recently cleared the Judiciary Committee by a 19-0 vote.

Digital rights advocates, dozens of academics and others had warned that the measure could result in the takedown of sites that had nothing to do with piracy, given that more than one Web site can operate under a single domain name. A coalition of more than 40 law professors raised that exact prospect in a letter outlining their opposition to the bill. "Indeed," they stated, "many web hosting services operate hundreds of thousands of websites under a single domain name."

The Electronic Frontier Foundation called the law "a reckless scheme that will undermine global Internet infrastructure and censor legitimate online speech."

The proposal garnered support from groups like the Recording Industry Association of America, Motion Picture Association of America, the Newspaper Association of America, and a host of unions. The NAA said the law's "narrowly tailored provisions" would not interfere with free speech online.

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