GoDaddy is one of more than a hundred companies catching flak online for supporting the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Many website operators have threatened to move their domains away from GoDaddy, and Y Combinator founder Paul Graham has said SOPA-supporting companies will no longer be invited to the startup incubator's popular Demo Days showcase for investors.
A list of nearly 150 supporters released by the United States House of Representatives' judiciary committee contains broadcasting, publishing and trade groups expected to attend, including ABC television and the Country Music Association. But it also includes several initially eyebrow-raising entrants including a number of private law firms, First Amendment Coalition Executive Director Peter Scheer told Mashable.
SOPA is a hotly contested bill that would greatly expand the ability of U.S. law enforcement and copyright holders to deter and punish online copyright violations. The bill would enable companies and the U.S. Justice Department to effectively force American payment processors and ad partners to cease doing business with copyright-infringing websites that target American customers but operate from outside the United States.
Supporters of the bill argue that it is a necessary means of protecting intellectual property, but others say it's draconian legislation that goes too far and will drastically reshape the Internet's current architecture. While many agree that Internet piracy is a legitimate problem, the SOPA debate has largely turned into a standoff between Internet-freedom advocates — including sites and services such as Tumblr, Firefox and Reddit — and major consumer-content creators such as the Motion Picture Association of America.
"The game changer with SOPA is that it gives private entities an enforcement mechanism that previously only existed with a court order," Ross Dannenberg of the intellectual property law firm Banner & Witcoff said in an interview.
Ben Huh, founder of the popular Cheezburger Network websites, told Mashable on Thursday he was "very surprised" when he learned the day before that GoDaddy, where his company has registered more than a thousand domain names, had come out in full public support of SOPA. He said Cheezburger will move all of its domains away from GoDaddy if GoDaddy doesn't withdraw its support.
"I don't think they understand how poorly the bill is written and the consequences it will have for their customers," Huh said. "We've had a very good business relationship with GoDaddy and would love to keep working with them. But if they're going to support a bill that's going to recklessly kill Internet jobs, then we can't support them."
In a long Reddit thread that began on Thursday, more than a hundred other domain holders have said they will or already have transferred their sites away from GoDaddy.
The additional presence of several major law firms on the list of supporters is another sign of the powerful forces behind SOPA, Scheer said.
"Firms usually like to keep above the fray in terms of their own views and interests, but here they're signing on their own, which is uncommon," he said. "My guess would be that in this case two things are involved: the supporting companies are big and important, and also may be longtime clients of the firms that involve some personal alliances."
The presence of companies and groups like pharmaceuticals manufacturer Pfizer, cosmetics brand Revlon and the 60 Plus Association seniors' advocacy group may also come as a surprise to many casual SOPA observers.
But Danneberg said that Pfizer and Revlon are seeking through SOPA to make it easier to curb the sales of fraudulent pharmaceuticals to American customers through websites based offshore. Parker Higgins, an activist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), told Mashable that groups like the 60 Plus Association likely support the bill because they receive money from companies with a more direct interest in SOPA passing — in the 60 Plus Association's case, for example, from pharmaceutical companies.
The EFF — a donor-supported organization that says it defends digital rights in the public interest and is comprised of lawyers, analysts, activists and other technology advocates — strongly opposes SOPA. Higgins said that the rundown of official backers released by the House Judiciary Committee reveals whose interests SOPA serves.
"It's clear form the list of supporters that companies that would be granted broad immunity from the bill, or who would be granted the power to silence speech they don't like, have come out in its favor," he wrote in an email.
SOPA was originally introduced as legislation by Texas Republican representative Lamar Smith in October. The House Judiciary Committee announced this week that it would postpone further debate on the bill until early next year. Scheer called the delay a positive step.
"It's certainly good because as of now it's been much too complicated to be considered, vetted and acted upon under a lot of time pressure," he said. "It's one of those issues where both sides have legitimate concerns and the question is whether legislation is drawn in a way that adequately accommodates the need for copyright protection in certain areas, and the need for freedom of innovation and freedom of speech in others."
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