Fighting Internet piracy: CES takes on SOPA vs. OPEN debate

While thousands of tech vendors frantically demoed new gadgets and apps at the giant Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, a debate over the future of the Internet and how the government may regulate distribution of (often pirated) content was taking place down the hall.

With the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Online Protection & Enforcement of Digital Trade Act (OPEN) under debate in the House and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate, CES convened a panel including Congressional staff members, a musician, lawyers, a Web hoster, and a representative of the Copyright Alliance. It was moderated by former Rep Rick Boucher (D-VA). "While I really don't miss being in Congress, I really do miss being on the House Judiciary Committee and being able to take part in this particular debate," Boucher said in introduction. As Boucher explained, while PIPA and SOPA differ in some ways, they both would give the government ability to designate rogue websites, remove those sites from the Internet's domain name system, require search engines to remove the sites from results, prevent advertisers from doing business with the "rogue" sites, and lessen protections currently provided to site owners during Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown processes.