White House Says It Opposes Parts of Two Antipiracy Bills

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said Saturday that it strongly opposed central elements of two Congressional efforts to enforce copyrights on the Internet, all but killing the current versions of legislation that has divided both political parties and pitted Hollywood against Silicon Valley.

The comments by the administration’s chief technology officials, posted on a White House blog Saturday, came as growing opposition to the legislation had already led sponsors of the bills to reconsider a measure that would force Internet service providers to block access to Web sites that offer or link to copyrighted material.

“Let us be clear,” the White House statement said, “online piracy is a real problem that harms the American economy, threatens jobs for significant numbers of middle class workers and hurts some of our nation’s most creative and innovative companies and entrepreneurs.”

However, it added, “We will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.”

The bills currently under consideration in Congress were intended to combat the theft of copyrighted materials by preventing American search engines like Google and Yahoo from directing users to sites that allow for the distribution of stolen materials. They would cut off payment processors like PayPal that handle transactions.

The bills would also allow private citizens and companies to sue to stop what they believed to be theft of protected content. Those and other provisions set off fierce opposition among Internet companies, technology investors and free speech advocates, who said the bills would stifle online innovation, violate the First Amendment and even compromise national security by undermining the integrity of the Internet’s naming system.

Though the Obama administration called for legislation this year that would give prosecutors and owners of intellectual property new abilities to deter overseas piracy, it also embraced the idea of “voluntary measures and best practices” to reduce piracy.

Whether Congress can produce a compromise is uncertain, particularly in the House of Representatives, where Republicans have fought bitterly over the antipiracy legislation and party leaders, who control the chamber, are loath to offer further opportunities for intraparty battles.

The Motion Picture Association of America, the Hollywood lobbying group that has been most visible in its support for the current bills, said in a statement on Saturday that it welcomed the administration’s call for antipiracy legislation. But, the trade group added, “meaningful legislation must include measured and reasonable remedies that include ad brokers, payment processors and search engines.”

Hollywood and the music industry have broad political support for their efforts, and the Chamber of Commerce and labor organizations have pushed for the legislation. But they often find themselves facing off against the libertarian views of leaders in the technology industry.

Opponents of the House bill, the Stop Online Piracy Act, and the Senate bill, the Protect IP Act, have focused most of their attention on the proposed blocking by Internet service providers of Web sites that offer access to pirated material.

In December, a group of influential technology figures, including founders of Twitter, Google and YouTube, published an open letter to lawmakers saying that the legislation would enable Internet regulation and censorship on par with the government regulation in China and Iran.

That argument struck a chord with the Obama administration, which through the State Department and other channels has been pushing other countries to loosen restrictions on Internet access.

In its statement Saturday, the White House said any proposed legislation “must not tamper with the technical architecture of the Internet.” Parts of the bills that provide for filtering or blocking through the Domain Name System — the Internet’s address book — could drive users to unreliable routes through and around the blocked sites, the White House said. That would “pose a real risk to cybersecurity and yet leave contraband goods and services accessible online.”

The statement did not threaten a presidential veto, but it made plain what types of piracy enforcement measures the White House would not accept.

The statement was attributed to Victoria Espinel, the intellectual property enforcement coordinator at the Office of Management and Budget; Aneesh Chopra, the administration’s chief technology officer; and Howard Schmidt, a cybersecurity coordinator for the national security staff.

Bills to Stop Web Piracy Invite a Protracted Battle

When the Obama administration announced on Saturday its opposition to major elements of two Congressional bills intended to curtail copyright violations on the Internet, the technology industry, which has been loudly fighting the proposed legislation, could declare victory.

But few people in Silicon Valley or Hollywood consider the battle over.

The Motion Picture Association of America, which represents Hollywood studios and is a principal proponent of the antipiracy legislation, suggested that it would continue to push the administration to approve a modified version of the bills, known as the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect Intellectual Property Act. “Look forward to @whitehouse playing a constructive role in moving forward on #sopa & #pipa,” the association posted on its Twitter feed Saturday night.

Some leaders of the movie industry were not as diplomatic. The chief executive of News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch, in a flurry of Twitter messages in the hours after the White House announcement, accused President Obama of capitulating to the technology industry. “So Obama has thrown in his lot with Silicon Valley paymasters who threaten all software creators with piracy, plain thievery,” he posted on his Twitter feed.

The antipiracy bills presented a difficult test to a young, disorganized and largely politically inactive technology industry. It is unclear that companies like Facebook andGoogle, left to themselves, could have swayed members of Congress or the White House without using the Internet to marshal opposition from technologists, entrepreneurs and computer-adept consumers. Opposition came from a vast spectrum, including computer security specialists who worried about a provision to tinker with Internet addresses and venture capitalists who feared the legislation would thwart the innovation of technology start-ups.

The opposition has been fueled by some of the most innovative pieces of the Internet — Twitter, Facebook, Reddit.com and even the I Can Haz Cheezburger? sites. “Looks like the Internet is winning a battle against some really bad potential law,” wrote Craig Newmark, the founder of Craigslist, the online classified advertising site, in a blog post on Sunday.

Markham C. Erickson, executive director of NetCoalition, whose members include Google and Yahoo, said Sunday that it was too soon to dismiss entirely the House or Senate versions of the antipiracy bills. “I think the White House statement is very strong and it helps, but, no, I don’t think it’s dead,” Mr. Erickson said by telephone from Washington. “We will continue to have to educate as many members as possible.”

He said it was still an open question whether his group would seek to kill the bills or push for major changes.

Several Internet companies, including AOL, Facebook, Google and Yahoo, endorse an alternative that seeks to punish foreign Web sites that engage in copyright infringement through international trade law. That bill is co-sponsored by Representative Darrell Issa, Republican of California. Last week, Mr. Issa said that his party’s leader, Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, had assured him that the Stop Online Piracy Act would not come up for a vote until there was consensus. For technology companies, that holds out the promise of returning to the drawing board. For Hollywood and other media companies challenged by piracy, it defers the prospects of antipiracy legislation.

“We have a chance to reset the legislative table to find out what kind of legislation is needed,” Mr. Erickson said. “We have an opportunity to step back, recalibrate and understand what the problem is.”

Several prominent Web sites and start-ups that have been among the most vocal opposition to the bills say they will not let up on their online advocacy soon.

The comments by the administration’s chief technology officials was a sign that government officials were beginning to pay attention to the cries of concern from the technology industry about the bills’ ability to enable censorship and tamper with the livelihood of businesses on the Internet.

“It’s encouraging that we got this far against the odds, but it’s far from over,” said Erik Martin, the general manager of Reddit.com, a social news site that has generated some of the loudest criticism of the bills. “We’re all still pretty scared that this might pass in one form or another. It’s not a battle between Hollywood and tech, its people who get the Internet and those who don’t.”

Mr. Marin said that Reddit is planning a sitewide blackout on Wednesday to protest the bills — an effort joined by a number of other sites, including MoveOn, BoingBoing, a popular technology and culture blog, and the Cheezburger Network, a collection of several dozen Internet humor sites, including I Can Haz Cheezburger? and FailBlog.

In New York, the New York Tech Meetup, an eight-year-old organization of nearly 20,000 people who work in the technology industry throughout the city, is planning a protest Wednesday afternoon outside the Manhattan offices of Senators Charles E. Schumer and Kirsten E. Gillibrand of New York, who co-sponsored some of the proposed legislation.

The rallying of the Internet and heavyweights in the technology world was significant because it is one of the few times that the industry has united around a focal point, said Jonathan Zittrain, a professor at Harvard Law School who studies how the Internet affects society.

Although certain hot button issues, like tax credits, patent policies and net neutrality, have driven industry leaders to Washington in the past, the Stop Online Piracy Act “awakened the entire tech world,” he said. “They are realizing just how big this fight was becoming.”

Michael O’Leary, executive vice president of the Motion Picture Association of America, said by telephone from Washington that his group was disappointed by parts of the White House statement but hoped the Obama administration would follow through on its stated commitment to stop copyright infringement.

“They believe piracy is a problem, that legislation is needed.” Mr. O’Leary said. “We take them at their word.”

He said the association opposes the alternative bill sponsored by Mr. Issa and Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, because it would be cumbersome. The group will continue to lobby for the existing House and Senate bills, he said. “I don’t think we need to go back to the drawing board,” he said. “What we have here is a good framework.”

Several people involved in the technology industry, including Fred Wilson, a venture capitalist in New York whose firm, Union Square Ventures, has invested in a number of popular Web properties like Tumblr, Twitter and Etsy, expressed hope for a mutually beneficial outcome.

“What I’d love to see happen, is that the people from the entertainment industry, those who have a lot invested in the SOPA and PIPA legislation, get together with a group of people from the technology industry who have been actively fighting against this thing and talk about the right way to solve the problem,” he said. “I’m certainly not declaring victory yet.”

Pablo Chavez, a director of public policy at Google, said in a statement, “Like others, we believe Congress wants to get this right, and we know there are targeted and smart ways to shut down foreign rogue Web sites without asking U.S. companies to censor the Internet.”

Mr. Martin of Reddit echoed those sentiments, saying that he would be willing to work with government officials to draft legislation that would help prevent copyright infringement without threatening the livelihood of Reddit and similar sites.

“The Internet is disruptive and chaotic and it does allow things that are bad like unauthorized piracy, but the answer is not to have the federal government enforce potentially bad bureaucracy and legislation,” Mr. Martin said. “That’s not the way to actually solve anything.”