New U.S. Site-Blocking Bill Introduced

On January 18, 2012, the internet was abuzz with a major online protest targeting the then-pending Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA). The two bills, if either had passed, would have created a site-blocking regime that would have required internet service providers to block access to suspected foreign pirate sites.

It was one of (if not the) largest online protests in history. Google, Reddit and Wikipedia were all involved and countless other sites, both small and large, participated in the protest. The result was that the bills were defeated and the topic of site blocking became virtually taboo in the United States.

However, a great deal has changed in the past 14 and a half years. In 2019, the EU passed its own site-blocking legislation in spite of similar protests. Other nations such as India, Australia, the United Kingdom and Canada have also passed or implemented similar rules.

It’s in that light that the United States is once again revisiting the issue. It did so first in January of this year when Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) introduced a new site-blocking bill. According to the Congressional record, that bill has not progressed. However, last week, Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA) introduced a similar bill, this one entitled the “American Copyright Protection Act of 2026.”

The bill repeats some of the language of the previous bill but also offers more information on who would be subject to the site blocking regime, how it would operate and what protections would be in place to prevent it from being abused.

As such, it’s important to examine the bill and see how it compares both with previous efforts in the United States and with existing site-blocking regimes around the world.

Understanding the Bill

The bill itself is fairly straightforward. The goal is to create a system through which rights holders can petition the courts to order various internet service providers to block access to suspected pirate sites.

If passed as is, the bill would compel all internet service, domain name service (DNS) and virtual private network (VPN) providers with over 100,000 U.S. subscribers. Not covered by this are root nameservers operators and top-level domain registries. It would also not impact bars, restaurants, airports, universities, libraries and other places that provide internet access to the public.

In order to get a site blocked, a rights holder would first have to file a petition with a district court designated by the Judicial Conference to hear such cases. They would then have to show that the site is infringing or likely to infringe their rights, that they gave good-faith notice to the site and its domain registrar, that the infringement has or will cause injury and that the site’s operator is outside the United States.

Finally, they would have to show that the site exist primarily for the purpose of infringing or otherwise has little to no legitimate purpose.

Once that is shown, the court can then issue the blocking order, which service providers would have 14-30 days to implement and would be valid for 12 months, but can be renewed if the infringement continues.

For service providers, this prevents them from being held liable for the alleged infringement or for any harm that comes from the blocking order. The bill also provides a way for sites that are blocked unjustly to seek modification and damages.

Finally, courts can not tell service providers how to implement the blocking order. There is no requirement that they use a particular technology or method so long as the order is complied with.

In short, it’s a fairly standard site-blocking regime. But it raises the question: Why is the issue being revisited now?

A Different World

As I discussed when writing about the EU site-blocking regime, the SOPA/PIPA protests in January of 2012 resulted in a massive backlash against site blocking. However, most of that backlash was digital only. Sure, Google, Reddit and Wikipedia got a massive number of users to sign petitions and send emails, but that was it.

Lamar Smith, the Republican Representative that was most connected with the bills was reelected three more times. That includes later in 2012. No one was voted out of office or otherwise faced consequences for their involvement in the bills.

Second, by now, much of the world’s population is under some form of site-blocking regime. Though the systems have not been perfect and there have been issues with over-blocking, the internet remains largely as free and open as it was before 2012. The alarmist fears of a broad censorship regime never materialized.

The SOPA/PIPA backlash was largely driven by an unrealistic fear of how the law would be implemented. It’s now clear that the fear was unfounded. Couple that with the fact that the internet of 2026 has a much higher level of mistrust of Google and other tech companies and it’s unlikely that the same tactics will work again.

But that still doesn’t answer the question of why the issue is being revisited now. While, clearly, enough time has passed that legislators are willing to poke this particular bear again, it’s the industry that is likely the biggest reason.

As we discussed in April 2024, the Motion Picture Association (MPA) announced that it would begin working with Congress to create new site-blocking legislation in the United States. Clearly, rights holders believe (rightly or wrongly) that site blocking is a powerful tool for reducing piracy and improving legitimate sales.

To be clear, we have seen the industry abandon practices that were not working. For example, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) launched a massive litigation campaign in the early 2000s targeting suspected file sharers. Five years later, they abandoned the campaign as it failed to achieve its goals.

Many countries have had site-blocking regimes for over a decade. Rights holders have clearly seen some benefit from those regimes, enough so that they are willing to push for them to be replicated in the United States.

While this is by no means a definitive verdict on the effectiveness of site blocking, it is still interesting that the major rights holders are pushing for it, even going out on a limb in the United States, after a decade of it being available.

Bottom Line

In the end, the biggest obstacle for this bill is not the threat of another SOPA/PIPA protest. It’s the currently political climate that has left Congress all but paralyzed, especially on the verge of a midterm election.

But the fact that there are now two bills reaching for the same goal is a sign that the issue isn’t likely to go away with the midterm elections. There will be another bill and another. Many copyright reforms, such as the Copyright Claims Board, took many years and multiple bills to pass. The fate of one particular bill is much less important than the presence of the issue.

It seems likely to me that, sometime over the next few years, we will see a site-blocking bill with real traction. While I’m not naive enough to predict the outcome of a particular bill passing, I will say it is much more likely in 2026 than it was in 2012. I don’t see a SOPA/PIPA-style protest happening, and even if it did, Congresspeople would be much more comfortable ignoring it.

We are in a very different world than we were in January of 2012. The MPA knows that, these representatives know that and so does everyone else in Congress.

While nothing is certain, it’s very likely that a site-blocking bill will become law in the United States sometime before the end of the decade. What remains to be seen is how and what precise form it will take.