Despite a mainstream media blackout, the tech community has done an amazing job organizing against the dangerous Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) currently being considered in Congress. Tech giants like Wikipedia spoke out in opposition and threatened to take their sites offline in protest. Reddit users organized a successful boycott of GoDaddy, which dropped its support after losing thousands of customers.
This week, Congress finally seemed to get the message. Sponsors of the bill began backpedalling on its most most controversial provision - the ability to blacklist sites accused of IP infringement.
Now, the Obama administration has weighed in as well - and it completely rejects the main provision of both SOPA and its Senate counterpart PIPA:
We must avoid creating new cybersecurity risks or disrupting the underlying architecture of the Internet. Proposed laws must not tamper with the technical architecture of the Internet through manipulation of the Domain Name System (DNS), a foundation of Internet security. Our analysis of the DNS filtering provisions in some proposed legislation suggests that they pose a real risk to cybersecurity and yet leave contraband goods and services accessible online. We must avoid legislation that drives users to dangerous, unreliable DNS servers and puts next-generation security policies, such as the deployment of DNSSEC, at risk.
The White House also echoes the concerns of free speech advocates and tech businesses, saying:
Any effort to combat online piracy must guard against the risk of online censorship of lawful activity and must not inhibit innovation by our dynamic businesses large and small...Any provision covering Internet intermediaries such as online advertising networks, payment processors, or search engines must be transparent and designed to prevent overly broad private rights of action that could encourage unjustified litigation that could discourage startup businesses and innovative firms from growing.
Mike Masnick at Techdirt, who has been front and center on this issue, calls this a big win:
Make no mistake about this: this is the White House asking for a hard reset of SOPA/PIPA and saying start again from scratch. This is an astounding turn of events, and a much stronger statement from the White House than anyone honestly expected. This is almost entirely because of the outcry that came out of the internet over the last few months. Without that, it is unlikely that the White House ever would have come out with such a strong position that questions the key provisions of these bills.
The fight isn't over yet. Although SOPA has been delayed in the House, it could still come up. Harry Reid appears to favor scheduling a vote on PIPA in the Senate. And as encouraging as it is, the White House statement leaves the door open to passing some form of the legislation.
But after glibly dismissing concerns about the bills for months, SOPA/PIPA supporters are now clearly running scared. Considering that the mainstream press have almost completely ignored this story, it's quite an achievement for alternative media and online activism.