SOPA bill somewhat relaxed, now opposed by Obama administration

Posted January 14, 2012 by Joannes Truyens in Industry News, News.

The highly controversial SOPA bill has been amended to exclude one of its more contested provisions, and the opposition now includes the Obama administration.

The opposition to the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) continues to mount and is showing some results. One of the more contested provisions which would require internet service providers to block access to certain foreign websites, has been dropped. In addition, the Obama administration has spoken out against the bill.

Lamar Smith, the Texan representative who introduced the bill, stated on his website that he feels “we should remove DNS blocking from SOPA so that the Committee can further examine the issues surrounding this provision. We will continue to look for ways to ensure that foreign websites cannot sell and distribute illegal content to U.S. consumers.”

In its current form, SOPA still allows for action to be brought against websites that infringe on copyrights. Theoretically, that even stretches to – say – a walkthrough for a game someone posted to Youtube.

The amendment follows significant outcry from the videogame industry, which includes statements from Epic Games, Riot Games, Mojang, nVidia, Red 5 Studios and GoodOldGames.com. The consensus seems to be that, while piracy is an issue that needs to be dealt with, SOPA is far too strict and comes with grave ramifications for ordinary customers.

Joining the opposition is the Obama administration, which has issued a communiqué that states the following: “While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.”

While not binding in any way, this is indeed a strong signal against SOPA that might carry some weight when the legislation is discussed at the hearings scheduled for January 18th.

We’ll be sure to report on the results for SOPA right here at BeefJack.

Tagged as Obama, SOPA, Stop Online Piracy Act