The controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is dead and Wikipedia is back to normal (meanwhile, college students across the United States rejoice). Yet, the struggle to protect intellectual property rights continues. This morning on Roanoke talk station AM 960 WFIR, Rep. Bob Goodlatte, one of the co-sponsors of SOPA, defended the original intent behind SOPA and argued that American jobs remain at-risk until Congress acts to protect intellectual property.
One such company at-risk, Rep. Goodlatte argues, is Rosetta Stone, the well-known language-learning software, which is headquartered in Harrisonburg. According to Rep. Goodlatte, pirates are producing exact replicas of Rosetta Stone’s software–including the packaging–and selling them for lower prices. Customers buying these products are often unaware that they are not receiving the authentic product.
It’s not difficult to see how this can be a problem for software developers and investors: why spend the time and money researching and developing new products, like Rosetta Stone, if there is a real risk that pirates are going to cut into your profits later by producing cheap knockoffs that, unlike those infamous Central Park Rolexes, are often indistinguishable from the original?
The question remains, though, how can lawmakers adequately protect the rights of software developers and business people without overreaching to impair the creativity and ingenuity of the Internet? That was the problem with SOPA and PIPA, and that is the challenge that Rep. Goodlatte and his colleagues in Congress must still have in drafting new legislation.
Revisiting this issue, though, poses some potentially serious electoral issues for Rep. Goodlatte. The weekend before SOPA was withdrawn, he vigorously defended SOPA in an interview with the Roanoke Times:
“This is all about violations of criminal laws and giving law enforcement new tools to enforce those laws,” Goodlatte said.
Goodlatte and other proponents of the Stop Online Piracy Act argue that opponents are misrepresenting what the legislation actually would do.
“It only applies to foreign websites that are primarily engaged in basically stealing intellectual property,” Goodlatte said. “Many of the remedies in this bill are already available to companies if a website is in the U.S. This is designed to extend the reach.”
Contrast Rep. Goodlatte’s unflagging support for SOPA to the full-throated opposition SOPA received from both of Rep. Goodlatte’s opponents–Republican Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski and Democrat Dr. Andy Schmookler, who described the proposed law as both unconstitutional and an overreach.
Rep. Goodlatte hasn’t faced serious opposition from either party in several cycles. Just last year, Lt. Col. Kwiatkowski’s insurgent primary challenge seemed like a long-shot. Her libertarian views seemed outside the mainstream of the solidly Republican 6th District; Dr. Smookler’s “progressive” views even more so. But now, considering the inescapable reaction SOPA received–and that Rep. Goodlatte’s name was mentioned by a significant number of those protestors–as well as his continuing concern for intellectual property rights issues, it doesn’t seem implausible that the 6th District could be one of Virginia’s more exciting races this fall.
