Proponents of new federal legislation to fight online piracy looked like they had the votes in Congress, but they suffered a serious setback on January 18. On that day an estimated 115,000 websites and 14 million users participated in an Internet protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate. Websites including Google and Wikipedia urged their users to petition their lawmakers. Users did so in sufficient numbers to persuade several lawmakers to withdraw their sponsorship of the bills, which remained on hold at press time.
One of the most vocal opponents of SOPA and PIPA has been the Center for Democracy & Technology, a Washington, D.C.–based nonprofit. And playing a key role at CDT has been its general counsel, David Sohn. Previously an associate at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr and commerce counsel for Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), he joined CDT as staff counsel in 2005 and became GC last year. We recently spoke with Sohn about his group’s opposition to SOPA and PIPA, and what he thought would be better ways to protect the interests of copyright owners. An edited version of our interview follows.
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