Maybe you recall hearing about the PROTECT-IP Act, the $200 million Hollywood-funded Senate bill that aims to stop online piracy by doing things like giving copyright owners and the government the ability to hijack websites and censor search engine results that meet vague definitions of copyright infringement. SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act, also known as the E-PARASITE Act) is the House version of the bill, and as of yesterday, it’s been undergoing hearings attended by both Hollywood lawyers and internet companies in preparation for a final showdown that will determine the future of the net. Despite the fact that previous legislation like the DMCA and the NET Act have provided amble ability to go after infringers, and that the copyright industry has grown both in profitability and jobs (PDF) — even in light of the 2008-2009 recession — lobbyist lawyers were stacked against their Silicon Valley opponents during the hearings, which began yesterday. Reports say that a lone member of the bill’s witness opposition, Katherine Oyama of Google, was placed in a “punching bag” type arrangement with the MPAA’s 5 corporate spokespersons. EFF is live-tweeting the events, which seemed, according to Ars’ Nate Anderson, “designed to shove the legislation forward” and ostracize any who criticize the bill as sympathetic to piracy. Google, Foursquare, Mozilla, Tumblr and every other internet company that’s worth a damn aren’t siding with pirates, of course. They’re trying to point out the unprecedented danger this bill poses to free speech and the ongoing stability of the internet itself. The process the bill proposes for eliminating “rogue” sites involves essentially nullifying the “safe harbor” clause of the DMCA, making websites and search engines responsible for censoring content and allowing the government to meddle with the DNS (Domain Name Systems) of the sites being targeted. For the unacquainted, DNS are like the roadmaps of the web, taking th 19 hr 5 min ago