Controversial Copyright Bills Would Violate First Amendment–Letters to Congress

The authors submitted letters and legal memoranda to Congress explaining that proposed copyright legislation would violate the First Amendment and be struck down in court. We both felt compelled to write because of the threat to freedom of speech from the PROTECT IP Act in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (or SOPA) in the House.

Others have also come out to oppose the bills, including the leading civil liberties organizations (at home and abroad), venture capitalists, the leading technology platforms from Facebook and Google to Tumblr and Zynga, and (today) hundreds of entrepreneurs. In fact, a million people emailed Congress and well over 90,000 personally called their Members to oppose the bills, many during a coordinated “American Censorship Day” inspired by the bills’ free speech burdens, a day organized by Fight for the Future, Demand Progress, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge, and Mozilla, among others. Over 90 law professors have also come out against the Senate version and even more against the House version. The bills are not limited; they’re sledgehammers not scalpels.