I genuinely don't get what all the fuss is about. I woke up this morning to the news that Wikipedia (and a handful of others sites) was going to be offline for 24 hours in protest at this thing, but little information on what it actually is.

I finally found information about it on the BBC news website. From what I can make out, this bill will make it easier to prosecute those who facilitate the illegal download and distribution of copyrighted material. A good, wholesome idea - people work hard on movies, music, books etc. It's only fair they be paid for their work rather than it be stolen.

However, all the calls against this bill seem to be along the lines of "this is censorship". I don't get that. Can someone please help me make the leap from stopping copyright theft to censorship.

Of course, usually I could get this information from Wikipedia...

Here...

Under the notice-and-takedown approach to copyright infringement embedded in the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, Web platforms aren't expected to actively police the content uploaded by their users: They're only expected to comply with requests to remove specific identifying files identified by rightsholders. Under SOPA, however, a site can be branded as "dedicated to theft of U.S. property" if, in the statute's bizarre wording, its owner "is taking, or has taken deliberate actions to avoid confirming a high probability" of infringement. Sites merely accused of insufficient diligence risk being starved of revenue from ad networks or payment providers.

These dire consequences provide a powerful incentive for legitimate sites to implement some form of automated monitoring of user uploaded content, lest they be accused of "deliberately avoiding" awareness of infringement. Sites that do so can be expected to modify their terms of service—lengthy blocks of legalese, which users seldom read closely—to authorize such scans. As many analysts have pointed out, the friction and overhead costs involved in implementing such filters burden both innovation and legitimate "fair uses" of copyrighted content. But such scanning may also have unanticipated knock-on effects on the level of legal privacy protection to which user communications are entitled.

Much infringing content is posted on the public Internet for all to see. But infringement can just as easily occur in more limited, private forums. A pirated file can also be sent as an e-mail attachment, shared exclusively with a circle of friends on a social network, or uploaded to a cloud storage site behind a password wall. A comprehensive scan would have to include these as well—potentially affecting how content is treated under both federal statute and the Constitution. In short, SOPA incentivizes private cloud providers to change their practices in ways that may lower legal barriers to government acquisition of private communications—even for investigations having nothing to do with copyright.

Slashdot

I don't buy that it is censorship. Why should sites be allowed to put up whatever they like, or link to other sites that facilitate intellectual property theft?

Yes, there will be additional costs for websites. But on the flip side, at the moment websites are able to benefit from music, movies or other such items, which draw in visitors and get the ad revenue, without paying a dime to the people who make the movies, record the music or write the books. These people require protection - current anti-piracy legislation isn't doing the job. Don't believe me - take a look at how easy it is get hold of illegal copies of material.

This isn't an issue of censorship. If I were to take a book, copy it, print it and distribute it I could expect to be in trouble for copyright theft. Why should it be any different because I did it online?

It might, possibly, be a privacy issues, with people's files getting scan prior to upload. But that assumes the ability to upload your files is a right - but is it? Expression and free speech isn't curtailed - blogs and such where files are not uploaded won't be affected. This issue is whether you have a right to upload your own material. I would argue getting your original works to a wider public is not a right. Once it is in the public domain, however, you do have a right to be protect from having it stolen.

That's the thing, sites aren't allowed to put up what they want and do need to comply with copyright law. Take down notices and cease and desist letters are widely used and abused.

It's like the war on drugs. Making stricter laws will do nothing to curb the problem of infringement. Years of ever increasing copyright laws have proven this(just like years of escalation in the Drug War have). In fact, it's likely that the new amount enactment of laws will lead to an increase in piracy.

Mike Masnick over at Techdirt has a very lovely write up on the problems with SOPA/PIPA:

The broad definitions in the bill create tremendous uncertainty for nearly every site online. This sounds like hyperbole, but it is not. Defenders of the bill like to claim that it is "narrowly focused" on foreign rogue infringing sites. Nothing could be further from the truth. While PIPA targets only foreign sites, the mechanism by which it does so is to put tremendous compliance and liability on third party service providers in the US. SOPA goes even further in expanding the private right of action to domestic sites as well. We've already seen how such laws can be abused by looking at how frequently false takedown claims are made under the existing DMCA. Of course, under the DMCA, just the content is blocked. Under SOPA all money to a site can be cut off. Under PIPA sites will just end up in court. Or, with both laws, an Attorney General can take action leading US companies to have to effectively act as network nannies trying to keep infringement from being accessible. None of this is good for anyone building a startup company these days. The massive uncertainty around this, combined with the need for a huge legal department sitting in "the garage" as a startup begins, will certainly slow down the pace of innovation in the US, while likely driving it elsewhere.

And the definitions are ridiculously broad. Under SOPA, you can be found "dedicated to the theft of US property" if the core functionality of your site "enables or facilitates" infringement. The core functionality of nearly every internet website that involves user generated content enables and facilitates infringement. The entire internet itself enables or facilitates infringement. Email enables or facilitates infringement. They have significant non-infringing uses as well, but the definition leaves that out entirely. Under SOPA, there's also a risk if you take "deliberate actions to avoid confirming a high probability" of infringement on a site. Of course, it's not at all clear how one takes deliberate actions to avoid taking action. The only way to read this clause from a tech company perspective is that it requires proactive monitoring, which is effectively impossible for a user generated content site. PROTECT IP's definitions are equally broad, again using the "enabling" or "facilitating" language.


The risk of these broad definitions on perfectly legitimate companies is not theoretical: Defenders of both bills continue to insist that they're only meant to deal with the worst of the worst. If that were really true, the definitions would be a lot tighter and a lot more specific. Even if this is the intention of the authors of both bills, the simple fact is that the very broad definitions in the bill, mean that any entrepreneur today will need to take significant compliance costs just to avoid the possible appearance of fitting the criteria.

Defenders also like to brush off the idea that a bill like this would target something like YouTube. But we know that's not accurate since Viacom is still engaged in a huge lawsuit against YouTube, in which Viacom's claims certainly appear to cover the definitions found in these bills. While it seems unlikely that anyone would try to shut down YouTube completely, given the public outcry it would create, the real fear is what happens to the next YouTube, or just the fear that a rights holder could strike into any company by threatening them under the private rights of action in each bill. It becomes a form of legalized extortion. Threaten to bring action under these bills, and watch tech companies crumble.

And, already there are indications that companies are interested in bringing broad actions for infringement against organizations that most people would consider perfectly legal. Advertising giant GroupM recently asked its entertainment industry customers to compile a list of "sites dedicated to infringement," not unlike what's found under PROTECT IP. Universal Music, Warner Bros. and Paramount were three key providers to that list, which ended up covering a large number of perfectly legitimate sites including the famed Internet Archive (widely recognized as the library for the internet). It also included numerous innovative startups that are frequently used by content creators to get their works out, such as SoundCloud and Vimeo. Even more worrisome, it included a variety of publications and blogs, including Vibe Magazine, the quintessential hip hop and R&B magazine founded by Quincy Jones, as well as Complex, a popular lifestyle magazine recently recognized as one of the most valuable startups in New York.

Even worse, it appears that Universal Music also included the personal website of one of its own top artists, 50Cent. The hiphop star has a personal website as well as a website owned by Universal Music. The personal website is much more popular... and it appeared on the infringement list. Suddenly, you can see how letting companies declare what sites are dedicated to infringement can lead to them looking to stifle speech and competition.

Similarly, Monster Cable, who has stated its support for PROTECT IP, has put together its own list of "rogue sites" and it, rather stunningly, includes sites like eBay, Craigslist, Costco and Sears. It even includes consumer rights groups like Which? in the UK, and various popular shopping search engines like PriceGrabber.

These companies clearly take an expansive view of what constitutes "dedicated to infringement," and have no problem suggesting they would like to stop these sites. Internet companies and site owners have every right to be extremely afraid of what laws like PIPA and SOPA would do when they give much more power to these private companies to take actions that could shut down these sites, tie them up in court or merely cut off their funding and advertising.

That uncertainty has very real and quantifiable effects on jobs in this country. President Obama has noted that the internet adds approximately $2 trillion to the annual GDP (pdf). The amount of jobs created by the tech industry are massive, and represent a large percentage of all new job creation today. IDC has predicted 7.1 million new jobs and 100,000 new businesses created in the next four years from the tech sector. An astounding 3.1 million people are employed thanks to internet advertising -- jobs that simply did not exist a decade ago.

And these jobs go way beyond just the jobs at tech companies themselves. The important thing in tech platforms is not in how many jobs are at those companies, but how many jobs they enable elsewhere. eBay has been said to have empowered 750,000 people to build their own small businesses. Facebook's app platform has, by itself, created somewhere around 200,000 new jobs (pdf). It's likely that Apple's iOS app platform has created significantly more than that, given how popular it is. Google's tools have been shown to create $64 billion (with a b) in additional economic activity.

Do we really want to stifle all of that growth and activity with regulations that will stifle innovation and jobs, even (as noted above) as the evidence shows that merely adapting and providing a better service makes everyone better off?


That uncertainty has extreme and quantifiable effects on investment in new startups. A very detailed look at the uncertainty in the cloud computing space, prior to and after the decision in the Comedy Central v. Cablevision case, which effectively set the framework for the legality of cloud computing, showed much greater investment when the law was clarified to be in favor of letting these new services thrive. Take that away, and investment in this engine of growth likely would be much lower. Considering that politicians claim to be so concerned about the economy and jobs these days, the idea that they would push forth a bill that quantifiably would reduce investment in one of the only sectors creating new jobs is really stunning.


Broadly expanding secondary liability is a dream for trial lawyers, but will be a disaster for business. There's been a move, associated with these bills to somehow demonize important concepts of safe harbors from secondary liability. The suggestion is that secondary liability somehow "allows" bad activity. Nothing is further from the truth. Illegal activity is still illegal. The point of safe harbors from secondary liability is blaming the party actually doing the action that breaks the law. We don't allow people to sue AT&T because the telephone was used in commission of a crime and we don't sue Ford because someone crashed their pickup truck into another car. Liability should be properly applied to the parties doing the action that breaks the law. The safe harbors have just made that clear -- and allowed innovation to flourish. Empirical studies have pointed out that "the rich informational ecosystem we know today... is a function of the 'breathing space' Internet intermediaries currently have under the law."

Other studies have shown that pulling back on such secondary liability safe harbors would mean that investors would need an astounding 13x to 20x return on investment to make the risk worthwhile. That triples or quadruples the standard risk level that most angel investors deal with.

The key way that both PIPA and SOPA function are to drastically scale back that breathing space, by attaching secondary liability and compliance costs to US companies, in an attempt to keep users from infringing via other sites. That would represent a massive shift in the legal framework that has allowed the internet to flourish, and yet no research or studies have been done to look at the possible impact of all of this.


The technical measures described in both bills is tremendously problematic. Looking to use DNS blocking is just a bad move. It's why a group of core internet infrastructure experts spoke out very early on (about COICA, in the pre-PIPA days) to explain how DNS blocking would set back a decade or more's worth of work on online security standards, would make people less safe online, and has the risk of fragmenting the internet. It's why the founder of the world's largest independent DNS provider, OpenDNS, in charge of protecting one-third of all schools in the US, has noted that under these laws, he likely wouldn't have started the company, or might have started it in another country.

Having a judge determine the best network architecture is a bad idea. SOPA's attempt to address the "DNS blocking doesn't work" argument by adding a vague standard in which courts can order sites to take "reasonable measures" to block even more is also not encouraging. Does anyone really think that we want some judges determining what are "reasonable measures" for managing how the internet works? Wouldn't it be better to trust the long line of experts, drop any thought of DNS blocking, and move on?


Going down the slippery slope of censorship is fraught with peril, both domestically and abroad. Supporters of the law get angry any time people bring up censorship, but as law professor Derek Bambauer has made clear, any effort to block content is a form of censorship. What we can argue is whether or not this form of censorship makes sense or is a policy that people think makes sense. But no one should deny that bills that lead to blocking access to websites is a form of censorship.

There is reasonable debate as to whether or not this level of censorship goes violates the First Amendment. Constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe has argued that it does violate the First Amendment. Well over 100 of the country's top legal scholars have made the same argument. Arguing on the other side is well respected First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams... but even he admits that under SOPA and PIPA protected speech would get censored. He just deems that as acceptable collateral damage, as being merely "incidental." We can argue over whether or not it really is incidental, as we've already seen actions against sites under current law that seek to stifle large amounts of protected speech outside of any infringement.


The functional setup of such site blocking -- via DNS blocking -- is effectively identical to how the Great Firewall of China works. While the intended purpose is obviously different, the actual mechanism for blocking is nearly identical. This creates significant cover for repressive regimes to resist any diplomatic efforts by the US to push back against attempts by the US to promote internet freedom. Furthermore, we have seen how countries, such as Russia, have used copyright law to censor political opposition, using the law to go against activists challenging the government. Even if the intended purpose of SOPA and PIPA are to protect against infringement, opening up the door to censorship for one purpose makes it nearly impossible to avoid it being used for other purposes. It also basically gives the perfect blueprint for repressive regimes. They merely need to claim that their Great Firewalls are designed to stomp out infringement, and then can use it to intimidate and block political opponents. Adding to that is the massive expansion of the diplomatic corp. pushing for greater enforcement, and it's almost as if we're begging countries to set up their own Great Firewalls that will certainly be abused.

Countries abroad are watching us, and already noting the seeming hypocrisy concerning our statements. Media in other countries, who already are known for suppressing speech and censoring the internet, are already mocking the US for even considering such legislation at the same time as the US State Department claims to be promoting internet freedom. Talking about the importance of internet freedom on the one hand, while pushing countries to put in place the very tools that will be used to undermine internet freedom is not a particularly consistent message. This can be seen in VP Joe Biden's recent speech on internet freedom that presents all the arguments for why SOPA and PIPA should not be supported (in an unintended manner).

Changing what counts as a felony for copyright, without understanding the implications or common usage of technology puts many at risk. This does not apply directly to PIPA, but its companion legislation in the Senate, S.978. Similar provisions are found in SOPA as well, making certain forms of "streaming" a felony. Supporters of these actions insist that they're merely harmonizing criminal and civil copyright laws, since the felony parts of the criminal copyright statute cover reproduction and distribution, but not performance. What they fail to recognize (or admit) is that there's a reason why performance rights were left out, and it's because it's pretty ridiculous to think of a felony performance in normal contexts. But it becomes even more troublesome in the online context, because "performance" is so vaguely defined in an era when streaming works via a simple one-line embed. To embed a video is no different -- from a technical standpoint -- from linking to a video. And most people would have significant problems with the idea that you could face five years in jail for merely linking to content you have no control over. Yet, the streaming portions of SOPA and of S.978 make that entirely possible. Merely putting a single line of code on a site, pointing to content on another server that you have no control over, potentially makes you a felon. This will have massive unintended consequences and puts at risk millions of Americans who embed videos all the time.

In case you missed that, if it were up to the entertainment industry, you would even be without Archive.org, one of the most important sites on the Internet. But I hope that at least begins to explain some of the many problems revolving around such bad legislation. And even if the legislation was passed, do you honestly believe it's going to have any effect on copyright infringement? Any effect whatsoever?

The answer is an obvious and resolute NO. It will not.

There's a difference between fair use and copyright infringement, which SOPA does not address.

If Stephen Colbert quotes something you've written as part of a joke, that is fair use. If a website takes SHREK and puts it up and invites users to download it free, that is copyright violation.

Between the two extremes I've given there is a vast gray area. Generally, comedians and satirists are permitted to get away with taking a portion of your work. Websites that use a clip here and there are probably also safe. I know that Youtube takes down videos that violate copyright laws if the owner complains, but the internet is so vast, it would be impossible to enforce SOPA and also leaves the door open for the pirates to move to the Ukraine or China, where they probably already are.

And like spammers, if you shut them down here, they pop up there.

Spammers are a great analogy for why Stone's "it won't make a difference" arguement doesn't wash. When spammers pop up and violate Foolmoon, do we allow them to get away with itm because we'll never stop them all? No, we remove the offending post, and Dax and Helice deal with the spammer, fully in the knowledge that there will be more to deal with in the future. And when there is, we deal with those too.

The wording of SOPA could probably benefit from being tightened up. But the privacy and censorship furore is total nonesense, and Wikipedia et al are only suddenly they have to actively take responsibility for their content.

That's an apples-oranges argument right there. When spammers hit, do we shut down the entire site and wait until its safe to pop our heads up again?

I've posted some of the many problems with SOPA. The general problem with it is it panders far too much to the entertainment industry(and if you follow the money, it's easy to see why the supporting legislatures brought it forward) without providing necessary safeguards against abuse.

There are countless examples of both the MPAA and RIAA issuing takedown notices for content that wasn't even theirs, ICE, in its over-zealousness, has confiscated domains erroneously(both foreign and domestic), and you think actions like these are not going to expand with the broadening of such laws? And you don't think countries like yours aren't going to quickly follow America's lead in implementing their own overreaching laws?

You're very trusting in government.

And in other news today...

File sharing site Megaupload has been taken down by the FBI and 7 people associated with the site have been arrested. Four of those arrested have been taken into custody by law enforcement in New Zealand.

The FBI charges that for more than five years Megaupload has operated websites that willfully distributed pirated movies, often before their theatrical release, and other illegal copies of copyrighted works, earning the company over $175 million in illegal profits through advertising revenue. Megaupload is also charged with money laundering by paying uploaders through an "uploader reward program," and paying other companies to host the pirated content.

This of course begs the question of if the FBI, ICE, et al have the ability to arrest and prosecute non US citizens on foreign soil for piracy... What the hell do we need SOPA/PIPA for then???

While I agree there has been too much downloading of some internet sites particularly Music sites most of the use has been legtimate use of sites to illustrate a point. There no difference to reviewers quoted parts of a book in a book review and then given their opinion.
I have used this in my posts always acknowledging the original source.

I have my own web site and been ask to publish text, pictures and videos from others on it. As long as I get permission I am not in breach of copyright laws.

Just as others quote my text, or use my photos and videos in their sites. They have my permission when I post to this site, or U tube or any other site.

Quote an article on the internet, site shut down and go to jail.

Write an article on the internet and use wording the author of your source just thinks is copyright infringement, site shut down and go to jail.

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