Right now, the U.S. Congress is considering legislation that could profoundly affect the future of the internet. It's called the Stop Online Piracy Act.

The fact is that this legislation as written won't stop piracy. But it would pose a serious threat to social media and user generated content sites (like YouTube) across the internet. It could also undermine some of the core technical systems underlying the internet, creating new cybersecurity risks.

As a non-profit committed to keeping the web open and accessible to all, Mozilla wants to ensure that this legislation does not jeopardize the foundational structure of the Internet.

So we've done two things so far:

1) Earlier this week, we wrote a joint letter with Facebook, Google, Twitter, eBay, Yahoo! and other technology companies publicly opposing this legislation -- and placed ads in various influential newspapers across the country.

2) We also joined other organizations in a day of action on November 16th -- when hearings were being held in the U.S. House -- to draw attention to the issue and get people to contact their representatives.

But these are only the first steps toward ensuring that the proposed legislation does not pass as currently written.

If you'd like to get involved, please sign up using the form on the right. We'll be in touch with ways to help in this campaign along with our other efforts to defend and improve the Web.

If you are not in the U.S., please pass this page along to anyone you know in the States -- and I'd encourage you to sign up anyway, to stay informed about what we're up to.

Dear Chairman Leahy, Ranking Member Grassley, Chairman Smith and Ranking Member Conyers:

    The undersigned Internet and technology companies write to express our concern with legislative measures that have been introduced in the United States Senate and United States House of Representatives, S. 968 (the “PROTECT IP Act”) and H.R. 3261 (the “Stop Online Piracy Act”).

    We support the bills’ stated goals — providing additional enforcement tools to combat foreign “rogue” websites that are dedicated to copyright infringement or counterfeiting.  Unfortunately, the bills as drafted would expose law-abiding U.S. Internet and technology companies to new uncertain liabilities, private rights of action, and technology mandates that would require monitoring of web sites.  We are concerned that these measures pose a serious risk to our industry’s continued track record of innovation and job-creation, as well as to our Nation’s cybersecurity. We cannot support these bills as written and ask that you consider more targeted ways to combat foreign “rogue” websites dedicated to copyright infringement and trademark counterfeiting, while preserving the innovation and dynamism that has made the internet such an important driver of economic growth and job creation.

    One issue merits special attention. We are very concerned that the bills as written would seriously undermine the effective mechanism Congress enacted in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to provide a safe harbor for internet companies that act in good faith to remove infringing content from their sites.  Since their enactment in 1998, the DMCA’s safe harbor provisions for online service providers have been a cornerstone of the U.S. Internet and technology industry’s growth and success.  While we work together to find additional ways to target foreign rogue sites, we should not jeopardize a foundational structure that has worked for content owners and Internet companies alike and provides certainty to innovators with new ideas for how people create, find, discuss, and share information lawfully online.

    We are proud to be part of an industry that has been crucial to U.S. economic growth and job creation. A recent McKinsey Global Institute Report found that the Internet accounts for 3.4 percent of GDP in the 13 countries that they studied, and, in the U.S., the Internet’s contribution to GDP is even larger. If Internet consumption and expenditure were a sector, its contribution to GDP would be bigger than energy, agriculture, communication, mining, or utilities. In addition, the Internet industry has increased productivity for small and medium-sized businesses by 10%.  We urge you not to risk either this success or the tremendous benefits these new platforms have brought to hundreds of millions of Americans and people around the world.

    We stand ready to work with the Congress to develop targeted solutions to addressing the problem of foreign rogue websites.

    Thank you in advance for your consideration.

    Sincerely,

    AOL
    eBay
    Facebook
    Google
    LinkedIn
    Mozilla
    Twitter
    Yahoo!
    Zynga