Heritage Foundation supports freedom of speech: comes out against SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act)

Pro-copyright group takes SOPA to task
by Declan McCullagh
December 21, 2011

The Heritage Foundation, probably the nation's most influential conservative advocacy group, has long been a reliable ally of large copyright holders. But not when it comes to the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act.

The venerable think tank, which enjoys close ties with the Republican Party and inspired President Reagan's missile defense program and the GOP's welfare reform effort, warned today that SOPA raises important security and free speech concerns.

"The concern with SOPA is that it enforces private property rights at the expense of other values, such as innovation on the Internet, security of the Internet, and freedom of communication," James Gattuso, Heritage's senior research fellow in regulatory policy, told CNET this evening. While SOPA addresses a "very real problem," he says, it's not necessarily the right solution.

Unlike some Washington advocacy groups that are predictably anti-copyright, Heritage has historically taken the opposite position. It called the Motion Picture Association of America's decision to sue peer-to-peer pirates a "wise choice," and suggested that disrupting P2P networks to curb piracy, an idea that some politicians actually proposed, is a step "in the right direction."

Heritage's criticism is important because SOPA author Lamar Smith of Texas, who has become Hollywood's favorite Republican, is almost certain to win committee approval in early 2012. Then the bill's fate will rest in the hands of the Republican House leadership--which could chose to delay a floor vote indefinitely if the GOP appears divided...