Security firm, Kaspersky Lab has resigned its membership of the Business Software Alliance over that organisation’s qualified support for the US Stop Online Piracy Act.
The BSA is broadly supportive of the Act, currently making its way through Congress, though president and CEO, Robert Holleyman expressed concern over its current drafting in a recent blog post. ‘Due process, free speech, and privacy are rights cannot be compromised…the security of networks and communications is indispensable to a thriving Internet economy,’ he wrote, adding that the Act ‘could sweep in more than just truly egregious actors.’
Kaspersky, however, opposes the Act in principle.’Kaspersky Lab would like to clarify that the company did not participate in the elaboration or discussion of the SOPA initiative and does not support it,’ the company said in a statement. It added that it would ‘discontinue its membership in the BSA as of January 1, 2012.’
For its part, the BSA said it was ‘disappointed to learn that Kaspersky Labs may not renew their membership in BSA, especially given we share many of their concerns over SOPA.’
The Stop Online Piracy Act is an attempt by the US government to shut down sites suspected of breaching copyright using commercial means. Among its proposals are measures to force payment processors such as PayPal and credit card companies to stop doing business with them. The Act would also require search engines to stop indexing offending sites and advertisers to stop advertising on them.
It’s controversial for many reasons, not least that it would allow rights holders to send letters to third parties such as search engines and credit card companies, demanding they stop doing business with sites they suspect of copyright infringement. If they refuse, the rights holder can then decide whether to ask for a court order compelling them to stop dealing with the site. There’s no requirement in the bill for a rights holder to prove that the site in question is operating illegally.
