An image from the "Stop Online Piracy Act," introduced last week
(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — According to many reports emerging over the last week, tech companies, online freedom advocates and venture capitalists have united in opposition of an otherwise strongly supported bill introduced in the House last week, known as the “Stop Online Piracy Act” (also referred to as the E-PARASITES Act), a similar effort to the “Protect IP Act” currently under discussion in the Senate.
Opposition to MPAA-driven SOPA (the full 78 pages of which can be downloaded in PDF form here) comes from some of the usual suspects – the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge and others – but its support reportedly stretches across both parties, including the heads of many of the significant relevant committees.
According to reports, SOPA contains many of the same provisions as Protect IP, which many hosting providers consider a threat to their business because of its failure to consider some of the inherent conditions of multi-tenant architecture, and its lack of a safe harbor for service providers.
Protect IP was the main threat driving the creation of the Save Hosting Coalition (www.savehosting.org), a group devoted to getting the hosting business a seat at the table when it comes to the creation of legislation that could directly (and in some cases catastrophically) impact the industry.
The Save Hosting Coalition will be joining the WHIR for a webinar on Tuesday, November 1, 2011 (that’s today), at 1:00 p.m. The session is free to attend, and will include opportunities to ask questions and provide suggestions. Register to attend on the webinar signup page.
Both bills would let government order DNS providers to shut off access to sites believed to be hosting copyrighted content, and fail to take into account the impact of those sorts of shutdowns on sites hosted on the same equipment as completely unrelated sites.
Groups less focused on the hosting business impact feel the potential legislation could stifle innovation online. By making it easy to shut down sites that fall under the vague description of “facilitating infringement,” say opponents, they could stamp out a groundbreaking service like YouTube before it got started.
According to a Wired report on the legislation, an open letter urging MPAA CEO Christopher Dodd to reconsider the bill has already gathered some interesting and possibly unexpected support from venture capitalists, including representatives from Union Square Ventures.
About Liam Eagle
Liam Eagle has worked as a contributor to the Web Host Industry Review since its inception in 2000, and as editor since 2003. He has been editor of the WHIR's print magazine since its launch. His daily involvement in the gathering and reporting of Web hosting news and his regular interaction with Web hosting leaders gives him an uncommonly broad appreciation of the issues and tends facing the business. Through his WHIR blog, Liam spots Web hosting trends and offers opinions on the industry-wide impacts of major developments and the motivation behind big announcements. Follow him on Twitter @liameagle
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