SOPA act far too broadly worded, could be abused

This week, discussion on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) — a U.S. House measure under consideration — has reached a fever pitch. Concerns over the bill granting broad powers to the federal government to censor elements of the Internet have raised a maelstrom of criticism and thrust the bill squarely into the spotlight.

On Wednesday, several prominent websites took action to protest the measure — most notably Wikipedia, which had its U.S. website go dark for the day. Google joined the protest with a censored logo, although the popular search engine still allowed users to run Internet searches. Even so, the effect was overwhelming. People heeded the message and contacted their congressmen to register concerns over the legislation. The impact was felt almost immediately.

On Tuesday, the SOPA measure had 80 supporters and 31 opponents in the house, as tracked by Propublica.org. By this morning, legislators’ opinions on the matter had shifted with Propublica.org tracking 63 supporters and 122 congressmen in opposition. That opposition isn’t drawn along party lines. Dislike of the current version of SOPA is something a majority of members of both parties can agree on ... at least after hearing the concerns of the people.

We agree with the sentiment of the majority. SOPA and its sister bill in the Senate, the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), are too broadly worded and would give the federal government far too much control over what’s allowed to be seen on the Internet. That’s a dangerous road to travel. The government should not control what information its people can and cannot see.

If nothing else, the intentions of SOPA are noble, at least in theory. Foreign-based websites can offer copyrighted material like songs, movies or TV shows that are produced here. Because those sites are based outside of the country, they are not subject to our laws. So SOPA and PIPA propose to allow a federal judge to force U.S.-based Internet service providers and search engines to block those sites that are deemed to have pirated content.

The act has the potential to be abused.

How can we narrowly define what constitutes piracy that should require blacklisting? In SOPA, the act was so broadly worded that it appeared to subject websites to being blocked simply if users of that site, knowingly or unknowingly, uploaded copyrighted material. Is any portion of any copyrighted material “piracy”? Or is that fair game under the notion of “fair use”?