OVERNIGHT TECH: Piracy battle escalates in Senate

By Gautham Nagesh - 01/19/12 07:48 PM ET

THE LEDE: Support for the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP (PIPA) continued to erode on Thursday as legislators felt the wrath of the Internet community, which has rallied against the legislation.

The headline came from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who called for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to shelve the bill rather than continue with the procedural vote scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. As of this posting, Reid still planned to move ahead with the vote, though the situation continues to develop.

Meanwhile, the list of senators and representatives opposing the piracy bills continued to grow, with some supporters such as Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-Calif.) acknowledging "legitimate concerns" from critics. But Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) remains confident in his ability to find a path forward; he is currently in negotiations with Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and others over the Domain Name System and search engine block provisions as part of a manager's amendment expected next week. It is unlikely that slight changes to the bill's language will be enough to satisfy its many vocal critics.

Leahy applauds piracy crackdown, Anonymous retaliates: Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) was quick to congratulate the Justice Department for shutting down MegaUpload.com, one of the world's most popular file-sharing websites. The site's seven employees were charged with criminal copyright infringement, conspiracy to commit racketeering and other charges. Each faces up to 55 years in prison.

Leahy said the arrests were possible because the site is covered under domestic laws, and questioned why foreign sites shouldn't be given the same treatment via PIPA and SOPA. But the vigilante hacker group Anonymous struck back, claiming credit for attacks on the websites of the Justice Department, the Recording Industry Association of America and Universal Music Group, among others. The group promised more attacks as the night continues, with targets named including the Motion Picture Association of America and the FBI.

Paul de Sa leaving FCC: The Federal Communications Commission announced Paul de Sa, the chief of the Office of Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis (OSP), will leave the commission in February. Before joining the commission, de Sa was a partner at McKinsey & Company. He received a doctorate in theoretical physics from Oxford University, was a Kennedy Scholar at MIT, and a post-doctoral Research Fellow at Harvard.

Smith slams OPEN Act: House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) took aim at the rival online piracy legislation offered by opponents of SOPA as an alternative on Thursday. Smith said OPEN would be less effective than his bill as well as bad for small business and ineffective.

Said Smith: “Illegal counterfeiting and intellectual property theft costs the U.S. economy $100 billion and thousands of jobs every year. The Wyden-Issa OPEN Act expands government, does not do enough to combat online piracy, and may make the problem worse. The OPEN Act creates loopholes that make the Internet even more open to foreign thieves that steal America’s technology and IP without protecting U.S. businesses and consumers. It amounts to a safe harbor for foreign criminals who steal American technology, products and intellectual property."