The SOPA Hearing Is the Most Interesting Video on the Internet Right Now

Members of the House Judiciary Committee have been scratching their heads all morning -- some of them with iPhones in hand -- trying to figure out exactly how far-reaching the potential for censorship in the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is as they markup the bill.

Members of the House Judiciary Committee have been scratching their heads all morning -- some of them with iPhones in hand -- trying to figure out exactly how far-reaching the potential for censorship in the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is as they markup the bill. The hearing started at 10 a.m. but will continue throughout the day as lawmakers discuss the 60 or so amendments set to be proposed. Among them:

• Darrell Issa would like to strikethrough the language that would allow the government to block domain names of and the wording that would require search engines to remove links to of allegedly infringing sites.
• Jared Polis wants to add language that would forbid "protecting the intellectual property rights of pornography." Civil rights advocates would remind you that the First Amendment even applies to smut, with the exception of truly obscene content like child pornography.
• Zoe Lofgren, among other requests, would like the bill to include a more specific definition of what it means when the bill says it's "dedicated to theft of US property."

Mike Masnick has a full list of proposed amendments at TechDirt, and we've embedded a livestream of the hearing below, in case you like to watch lawmakers duke it out over legal language. We think it's fascinating, especially with a bill so hotly contested as SOPA.