“The White House waded into the red-hot online piracy debate with a statement Saturday that won’t satisfy either side,” Jennifer Martinez and Mike Zapler report for Politico.
“In a blog post penned by three administration officials, the White House said it opposes any bill that would make it easier for government to censor the Web or make the Internet less secure, but it stopped short of saying whether that includes two bills that have sent the tech industry into a panic,” Martinez and Zapler report. “If that sounds like a careful effort to walk a thin line, it is: Some of the president’s biggest supporters in Hollywood and Silicon Valley and beyond are sharply divided over the bills, and the White House needs a way to keep both sides happy.”
“The Stop Online Piracy Act in the House and Protect IP Act in the Senate are an attempt by business interests led by Hollywood to crack down on people pirating movies and music and stop the sale of knockoff goods,” Martinez and Zapler report. “But Web companies and Internet freedom activists have cried foul, saying the bills would put restrictions on the Web in a way that could destroy the fundamental openness of the Internet and prevent the next generation of Facebooks or eBays from getting off the ground.”
Martinez and Zapler report, “The administration did not take a definitive position on SOPA or PIPA on Saturday. But it was clear that the White House — while calling pirated movies and knockoff pharmaceuticals on the Web ‘a real problem’ in need of a legislative solution — isn’t enamored of either bill.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]