Debate over Internet piracy legislation heats up

Washington -- A festering battle over legislation to crack down on Internet piracy promises to escalate sharply on Wednesday when Wikipedia and other websites have vowed to go dark in protest.

Two of California's biggest industries, Hollywood and Silicon Valley, are on opposite sides of the issue, putting heat on the state's two senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer. Both Democrats are co-sponsoring the legislation, known in the Senate as the Protect IP Act, or PIPA, and in the House as the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA. The Senate has scheduled a test vote on the legislation next week.

After simmering in obscurity for much of last year, the fight between Web content providers, such as movie studios and publishers, and technology companies that disseminate it, such as Google and Facebook, has grown intense.

Google and Facebook have raised alarms, fueling a wildfire in the blogosphere, but they will not join Wednesday's blackout. On Saturday, the White House weighed in, saying the legislation might harm "the dynamic, innovative global Internet."

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch has been blasting tech companies from his Twitter account, accusing them of stealing content. Murdoch tweeted on Saturday, "Piracy leader is Google who streams movies free, sells advts around them. No wonder pouring millions into lobbying."

On Sunday, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark argued on his blog that the legislation would provide a "means by which bad actors (with lots of money and lawyers) can take sites down."

What explains the sudden din? For Internet companies, it is the fear that they would be forced to police Web content.

Forced monitoring

Among the most controversial provisions, the original Senate bill would have allowed the Justice Department to force Internet service providers to block access to foreign websites that sell pirated content by filtering Web domain names.

That provision has been watered down to call for only a study of using domain-name filtering. But the Web companies still despise the notion of being forced to monitor websites.

Supporters argue that action is needed against criminal foreign websites that sell fake drugs, pirated movies and other counterfeits, and while they're at it, steal users' credit card information and infect their computers with malicious viruses.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he has spoken with Feinstein "at length" about the Senate bill. She is "in the eye of the storm in California, because that's where a lot of the theft of music and movies is taking place and also where Google and Facebook (are) headquartered," Reid said, promising changes so that the bill is "not just for the content people."

After voting for the bill in the Judiciary Committee last May, Feinstein has begun to raise concerns. She met in San Francisco last week with representatives of Google, Facebook and other tech companies. Spokesman Brian Weiss said Feinstein "is doing all she can to ensure that the bill is balanced and protects the intellectual property concerns of the content community without unfairly burdening legitimate businesses such as Internet search engines."

Several California House members in both parties, led by Darrell Issa, R-Vista (San Diego County), and including Reps. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, and Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto, are actively opposed, along with Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. Wyden contends the legislation would damage "the fundamental architecture of the Internet" and seek to monitor websites to an extent only attempted by China and Iran.

Alternate legislation

Wyden and Issa introduced competing legislation, called the Open Act, which they argue would still attack piracy but without harming the freedom of the Internet.

Richard Bennett, a senior research fellow at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank funded by the technology industry, said his group's 2009 study, "Steal These Policies," provided the foundation for the Senate and House bills. He called the criticism overblown and misinformed.

"The critics either don't understand what the bills do or are misrepresenting what the bills do," Bennett said, acknowledging that his group is in an "uncomfortable" position with its own sponsors.

"There's sort of a hysterical climate of criticism where people are objecting to something the bills don't do and are promoting noble causes like free speech and democracy," Bennett said, "but there is not much connection between what they are complaining about and what's in the legislation."

According to Issa, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., has promised that the legislation will not proceed until there are substantial changes. That puts the focus now on the Senate, where Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., is forging ahead to try to find a compromise.

E-mail Carolyn Lochhead at clochhead@sfchronicle.com.