SOPA Issues To Be Discussed At Upcoming House Hearing

Members of the U.S. House of Representatives will conduct a hearing later this month to discuss the issues that the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) (and similar legislation) is trying to address.

Rep. Darrell Issa of California, Chairman of the House’s Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, announced the hearing today. On January 18th, the full committee will

“…examine the potential impact of Domain Name Service (DNS) and search engine blocking on American cyber-security, jobs and the Internet community. In light of policy proposals affecting the way taxpayers access the Internet, the hearing will also explore federal government strategies to protect American intellectual property without adversely affecting economic growth.”

The witness list includes Union Square Ventures co-founder Brad Burnham (Union Square has invested in numerous tech companies, such as Twitter, Foursquare and Zynga), Lanham Napier of Rackspace Hosting and Aleis Ohanian of Reddit.com. As GigaOm points out, this is more representatives from the tech industry than the earlier SOPA hearings involved.

SOPA has a companion bill in the Senate, the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA). As Tech President reports, Senator Harry Reid is planning to introduce that bill on the senate floor on January 24th.

For more on SOPA, see our previous stories below.

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About The Author

Matt McGee

Matt McGee joined Third Door Media as a writer/reporter/editor in September 2008. He served as Editor-In-Chief from January 2013 until his departure in July 2017. He can be found on Twitter at @MattMcGee.