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Piracy Bill Backer Stands Fast

  • Reuters, Friday, January 13, 2012 12:05 PM

Amid intense criticism from Google and Facebook, Reuters talks with the lawmaker behind a far-reaching online piracy bill. "It is amazing to me that the opponents apparently don't want to protect American consumers and businesses," Republican Representative Lamar Smith tells Reuters. Before the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee -- which Smith chairs -- the Stop Online Piracy Act aims to fight online piracy of pharmaceuticals, music and other consumer products by allowing the Department of Justice to seek federal court injunctions against foreign-based Web sites.

Under the bill, if a judge agrees that Web sites offer material that violates U.S. copyright laws, Internet service providers could be required to block access to foreign sites, while U.S. online ad networks could be required to stop ads and search engines barred from directly linking to them. Top Web companies, therefore, fear such a bill could bring the Internet to a standstill. Reddit chief executive Alexis Ohanian, for one, has said it would "cripple the Internet."

According to Smith, Web counterfeiters cost American consumers, businesses, inventors and workers around $100 billion a year, though, as Reuters notes, critics accuse him of exaggerating.

Read the whole story at Reuters »

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