In June, Verizon received 180 requests from copyright holders to either remove infringing material from its Web servers or to terminate user accounts -- up from one or two such requests a month earlier this year.
The bills also would essentially change the burden of proof for Web sites where users could post infringing material from "presumed innocent" to "presumed guilty".
Compliance with the Stop Online Piracy Act would require huge overhead spending by Internet companies for staff and technologies dedicated to monitoring users and censoring any infringing material from being posted or transmitted.
In response, Catherine Mathis, a spokeswoman for the Times Company, issued a statement yesterday saying that as things stand the Times Company has no legal choice but to "remove the infringing material from our database".
Google has fought attempts to make it remove websites that have proved to be infringing entirely from its search results, arguing that this would amount to an attack on freedom of expression.
For a quirky diversion, cab it to the Museum of Counterfeit Goods (Supalai Grand Tower, 26th Floor, 1011 Rama 3 Road, +66 2 653 5555 ; book your visit 24 hours ahead) for slick displays of 4,000 items infringing copyrights, from fake handbags to copy watches.
The TPP would also undermine "fair use" limitations intended to protect freedom of speech from overzealous copyright enforcement, harshen criminal prosecution for whistleblowers and journalists, and open the door for global internet censorship by setting up a system to remove allegedly "infringing" content from the web without a court order.
"At the present time, there is no E.U. unfair competition legislation providing for protection against trade secret theft, nor is there an E.U. law to prevent infringing products from entering the market," Barry M. Granger, a DuPont vice president, wrote in a Washington filing.
While it's true that the vast majority of video on YouTube is "home-made", or at least not the mainstream content produced by large commercial rights holders, there's no denying that there is lots of infringing material from the big studios and broadcasters up there too.
Sopa also calls for search engines to remove infringing sites from their results.
