The Hill News

There’s a hearing in the U.S. House of Representatives this week that could determine the future of how we use the Internet. On November 16, the House Judiciary Committee will meet to discuss the Stop Online Piracy Act, referred to as SOPA. SOPA and its Senate counterpart, the Protect IP ACT (PIPA), sound innocuous enough and their goal is a good oneâ€"stopping offshore, online piracy and copyright infringement.
 
Unfortunately, this legislation severely threatens lawful, U.S. technology industries by overturning the existing laws that have helped fuel the tech boom of the last decade and instituting new regulations which would stifle innovation and job creation.  Both bills gut the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which for over a decade has helped Internet companies grow and flourish.  The DMCA is one of the big reasons companies like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter weren’t crushed in their early days by harassing lawsuits.
 

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