Proposed bills against copyright infringement will only hurt innocent sites

Congress is looking into two bills, The Protect IP Act and the Stop Online Privacy Act, that have good intentions behind them, but could bring about significant harm to websites.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) introduced the bill and said it

• Gives the Department of Justice authority to go after a foreign Internet site that the DOJ alleges infringe U.S. property rights. The DOJ can get a court order requiring ISPs to prevent access to the infringing sites, and require payment processors (like credit card companies) and online advertising networks from doing business with such sites; and
• Empower owners of copyrights (and other rights), such as movie studios, to bring actions against any “Internet sites dedicated to infringement,” whether in the U.S. or overseas, and get a court order to stop payment processors (like credit card companies) or online advertising from doing business with such sites.

However, the bill reaches too far and attempts to bypass court orders. Instead of waiting for a judge to rule whether a website is infringing on copyright, websites will be immediately blacklisted when they are suspected. More details by Brian Dengler of Street Fight Mag are here.

Professors have written against the proposed bill, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation made a list of popular and important sites that could be blacklisted under the overarching power of SOPA. Their list includes:

• Etsy
• Flickr
• Vimeo

These sites are about people sharing art they've created. While copyright infringement is still an important issue, can't these politicians think of anything better to do than "Let's just give power to others to shut down websites at will and put off dealing with the core issue"?