Business

Netflix’s Hastings does SOPA flip-flop

Reed Hastings, chief executive of Netflix, is a Stop Online Piracy Act flip-flopper, The Post has learned.

The CEO’s firm was an early supporter of the controversial SOPA bill, one person close to the measure said yesterday, but has backed away from that support as of late.

The Los Gatos, Calif., video-streaming company is now officially neutral.

But David Hirschmann, CEO of the Global IP Center at the US Chamber of Commerce,in Washington, told The Post, “Netflix sent a letter which was supportive of legislation that accomplished those [SOPA] goals.”

However, Netflix’s name was not on the list of 400 companies supporting SOPA provided to The Post yesterday.

A company spokesman said: “Netflix has not taken a position in SOPA. It is not correct to assume the company initially had a position.”

While Google, Wikipedia and other Web companies worked feverishly yesterday to destroy SOPA, Netflix and other tech companies opted out of the fray and keep their positions from public view — perhaps in fear of customer reprisals and political ramifications.

Interestingly, Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos and his wife, Nicole Avant, are helping coordinate President Obama’s re-election fundraisers in Hollywood.

Tinseltown studio chiefs are angry that Obama decided over the weekend to effectively torpedo SOPA in its present form, Deadline.com reported.

Apple also had zilch to say on the topic, publicly at least. An Apple spokeswoman deferred comment to the Business Software Alliance, which has said since November that the bill needs retooling.

SOPA is aimed at stopping the sale of counterfeit goods in the US via foreign Web sites, but critics say it will force companies to police the Web and is tantamount to censorship.

Microsoft’s own search engine, Bing, had no message on its position — unlike Google, which blacked out its logo to draw attention to the bill.

Web hosting company GoDaddy.com backtracked on its support for SOPA in December after a torrent of abuse. Yesterday its home page carried a “Stop SOPA” message.