The Obama administration said Saturday that it opposes numerous elements of Internet piracy bills being passed around Congress to enforce copyrights on the internet.

The law has pitted Hollywood against Silicon Valley because the bill would force Internet service providers to block access to websites that offer or link to copyrighted material. The bills would also allow private citizens and companies to sue to stop what they believed to be theft of protected content.

Companies such as Google, Yahoo and Facebook have questioned the legislation, writing in a letter, "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," the letter stated.

In a blog post on the White House website Saturday, officials said, "Any effort to combat online piracy must guard against the risk of online censorship of lawful activity and must not inhibit innovation by our dynamic businesses large and small."

Opponents of both bills -- the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act -- have focused most of their attention on the blocking by Internet service providers of websites that offer pirated material.

Hollywood and the music industry have broad political support for the laws, despite many liberals in those industries and elsewhere who feel the bills are unfair and could lead to Internet censorship.

While President Obama opposes many elements of this bill, he has supported and signed many pieces of legislation in the past that he didn't totally agree with, either. There will always be a way around any type of legislation that gets signed into law, and the same will probably occur with this.

Read more at the San Francisco Chronicle.

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