MPAA: Online copyright bill critics out of bounds

Critics of legislation that would expand the government's authority to go after websites dedicated to copyright infringement have a history of opposing attempts to enforce intellectual property protections online, according to the Motion Picture Association of America.

The movie industry lobbying group singled out Consumer Electronics Association CEO Gary Shapiro, who has spoken out against the Senate's PROTECT IP Act and the Stop Online Privacy Act in the House.

Both bills would allow the government to demand third parties such as online advertising networks and search engines cut off access to foreign websites dedicating to infringing activities. Shapiro and other tech leaders have argued the bills would stifle innovation and impose an undue burden on Web firms.

But the MPAA published a blog post Thursday pointing to previous statements from Shapiro predicting similarly dire consequence following the passage of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act in 1998 and the Supreme Court's decision in the Grokster vs. MGM case in 2005.

MPAA senior executive vice president for global policy and external affairs Michael O'Leary said there is no shortage of critics of any effort, regardless of how narrow or reasonable, to enforce U.S. intellectual property laws online.

He said those argument are typically "couched in overstatement and hyperbole" such as current claims the two bills mentioned would end the Internet as it currently exists.

"That argument has been thrown against the wall so many times and been proven wrong each time," O'Leary said. "These folks have been wrong before, been wrong every time....and they're wrong again in the context of the rogue sites bill."

Shapiro said lawmakers on the House and Senate Judiciary Committees rely heavily on contributions from the content industries and argued copyright laws reflect the influence of their lobbyists on an upcoming episode of C-SPAN's The Communicators.

O'Leary also decried what he called the false tension between content and technology, noting the inordinate amount of technological innovation that goes into making and delivering motion pictures. He said the furor over the copyright bills warrant greater attention from the public.

"This is just starting to feel so inside the beltway that we think it's something people should take a look at," O'Leary said.