Official SOPA/PIPA thread

[Thanas]

Alright. We had a lot of threads about this, so this will consolidate these threads.

What is SOPA/PIPA and why do people think it is a bad thing?



Link to page which shows who is supporting it in Congress or not. link

Previous discussion thread 1, thread 2. These have been locked.


Any further SOPA/PIPA discussion shall take place in this thread. Stickied until this is over.

[Zaune]

Hollywood execs respond to Obama's stance on SOPA.

EXCLUSIVE: Internet sites on their SOPA-Strike may be conducting a blackout but Hollywood studios are conducting a boycott. Hollywood Obama DonorsI’ve learned that Hollywood studio chiefs individually and as a group are drawing a line in the sand on the piracy issue with the Obama re-election campaign and refusing to give any more donations. The blowup came after President Obama on Saturday dashed moguls’ hopes that he would remain on the sidelines in the dispute over the U.S. House Of Representatives’ Stop Online Piracy Act and the U.S. Senate’s Protect IP Act. In a posting on the White House web site, three of the Obama administration’s top officials for Internet and intellectual property matters said that they share many of the concerns that the Internet community has about the Hollywood-supported bills. The trio said that they “will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.” Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Victoria Espinel, U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra, and Special Assistant to the President Howard Schmidt tried to soften the blow to Hollywood by acknowledging that that online piracy is “a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response.” They added that they plan to host an online event “to get more input” on the matter. But Hollywood moguls told me they “didn’t know it was going to be as over the top as it was” and took this as a declaration of war. “We just feel very let down by the administration and Obama for not supporting us,” one studio chief explained to me. “At least let him remain neutral and not go against it until we can get the legislation right. But Obama went against it. I’m personally not going to support him anymore and not give a dime anymore,” another movie mogul who’s also a well-known Obama supporter told me this week.

So far the most outspoken mogul against the Obama administration on this issue has been Rupert Murdoch who on Saturday told his new Twitter audience: “So Obama has thrown in his lot with Silicon Valley paymasters who threaten all software creators with piracy, plain thievery.” But I’ve learned that other moguls privately are having “direct and personal conversations” with Obama and his administration and the Democratic Party. Several moguls have informed Obama’s newly anointed Hollywood re-election liason to the entertainment community Nicole Avant and her husband who is helping her, Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos, that they are pulling out of major fundraisers planned over the next few days and won’t participate in any more headed by Obama and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (whom they see as in the pocket of the Internet giants like Google).

Speaks for itself really, doesn't it?

[Thanas]

Obama does deserve credit for stopping it though, knowing full well what it might cost him.

[Faqa]

Not really. The demographic that is making the huge buzz about SOPA is one of the big demographics that put him in office. He publicly rejects them on high-profile issues during an election year at his own peril. He's saving his own neck.

[Murazor]

Not being sure if this merits opening its own thread or fits here better, since it has been interpreted as an answer to the Internet backlash generated against SOPA...

Megaupload file-sharing site has been shut down by law enforcement agents in the United States.

Indictment Charges Megaupload Site With Piracy
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: January 19, 2012

McLEAN, Va. — Federal prosecutors in Virginia say they have shut down one of the world’s largest Internet file-sharing sites, Megaupload.com, and charged its founder and others with violating piracy laws.

An indictment accuses the company of costing copyright holders more than $500 million in lost revenue from pirated films and other content. The indictment was unsealed Thursday, one day after Web sites shut down in protest of two Congressional proposals intended to thwart the online piracy of copyrighted movies and TV programs.

Megaupload.com has claimed it is diligent in responding to complaints about pirated material.

The indictment says that at one point, Megaupload was the 13th most popular Web site in the world.

Little additional information exists at this point.

[Majin Gojira]

And the Internet Hate Machine struck back in record time:

The Internet Strikes Back: Anonymous Takes Down DOJ.gov, RIAA, MPAA Sites To Protest Megaupload Seizure

from the doj-does-not-understand-what-has-been-unleashed dept

I'll have a more detailed look at the Megaupload indictment tomorrow (there are some really ridiculous claims in there, but also some evidence of bad actions on the part of Mega, which isn't too surprising). However, even if you're 100% positive that Megaupload was a bad player in the space, you have to question both the timing and the process of completely taking down the site/company the day after practically the entire internet rose up to protest the threat of similar takedowns under SOPA/PIPA. For them not to think the reaction would be fast and furious shows (yet again) just how incredibly, ridiculously, out of touch with the internet the DC establishment is.

Within minutes of the site being shut down, and DOJ releasing its statement, Anonymous sprang into action and started taking down a ton of sites -- including websites for the DOJ, the US Copyright Office, Universal Music, the RIAA, the MPAA and a bunch of other sites. They're apparently still targeting more.

Think of this as the flipside of yesterday's protests. Yesterday the internet folks went dark to protest things. Today... following the government's decision to show off its existing censorship powers -- mocking yesterday's protests -- it appears that the industry/government supporters of online censorship are going dark involuntarily... in a different form of protest.

When will the government learn: don't muck with the internet?

[Alyeska]

In regards to one aspect of my Prosposal, I have taken the step of supporting an organization who's goals I agree with. After seeing how Ars Technica covered the SOPA/PIPA blackout I joined and became a premier subscriber to their site. I wish to go on supporting them.

I have to admit that my love of video games and my proposal have come into conflict. I honestly don't know what will happen.

[weemadando]

http://maddox.xmission.com/

[madd0ct0r]

shouldn't this be n the SOPA thread too?

good rant though.

[Agent Sorchus]

I haven't read the whole thing through, so I don't know how much of it is farce or not. But the idea has been espoused in my presence before reading this anyway. And for those that look at the admittedly atrophied response the public has towards things we shouldn't be hoping deep down that their protest fails just so that things get worse and they learn other better things to protest, but rather that they succeed and learn that protest does work. And from there take this knowledge and apply it to other things to protest.

[SCRawl]

Posts merged into the official thread.

[General Brock]

Not being sure if this merits opening its own thread or fits here better, since it has been interpreted as an answer to the Internet backlash generated against SOPA...

Megaupload file-sharing site has been shut down by law enforcement agents in the United States.

Indictment Charges Megaupload Site With Piracy
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: January 19, 2012

McLEAN, Va. — Federal prosecutors in Virginia say they have shut down one of the world’s largest Internet file-sharing sites, Megaupload.com, and charged its founder and others with violating piracy laws.

An indictment accuses the company of costing copyright holders more than $500 million in lost revenue from pirated films and other content. The indictment was unsealed Thursday, one day after Web sites shut down in protest of two Congressional proposals intended to thwart the online piracy of copyrighted movies and TV programs.

Megaupload.com has claimed it is diligent in responding to complaints about pirated material.

The indictment says that at one point, Megaupload was the 13th most popular Web site in the world.

Little additional information exists at this point.

The article ends with:

The Megaupload case is unusual, said Orin S. Kerr, a law professor at George Washington University, in that federal prosecutors obtained the private e-mails of Megaupload’s operators in an effort to show they were operating in bad faith.

“The government hopes to use their private words against them,” Mr. Kerr said. “This should scare the owners and operators of similar sites.”

So it looks like they culled their ongoing files for a site to make the biggest example of, not the strongest case. It is intimidation, but it could backfire in court and there could be very important precedents set in defense of internet freedom.

(Edits for lousy grammar)

[Simon_Jester]

Not really. The demographic that is making the huge buzz about SOPA is one of the big demographics that put him in office. He publicly rejects them on high-profile issues during an election year at his own peril. He's saving his own neck.

He'd also be saving his own neck by walking softly on SOPA/PIPA, signing it if it manages to pass cloture in the Senate (which would bring it damn close to the numbers needed to override his veto anyway), and collecting his donations from Hollywood so he can finance more ads and buy a hundred thousand more swing state voters in the next election cycle.

He was given a choice between satisfying donors and satisfying constituents, knowing full well that with enough donors you can usually soothe constituents into line, and he went for his constituents. That's what he's supposed to be doing, that's what everyone flips out about every time he doesn't do it, and I think it's fair to give him a brownie point for not caving in to pressure that's already got half of Congress licking the MPAA's boots.

[Sea Skimmer]

So SOPA has been withdrawn from consideration; for the moment

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46072484/ns ... xmfJtWwUTs

SAN ANTONIO — The Texas Congressman whose proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) prompted dozens of websites to go dark or run protest messages this week said Friday he is pulling the measure from consideration "until there is wider agreement on a solution."

"I have heard from the critics and I take seriously their concerns regarding proposed legislation to address the problem of online piracy," U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, a Republican from Texas and the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"It is clear that we need to revisit the approach on how best to address the problem of foreign thieves that steal and sell American inventions and products," Smith said.

Actual voters beat out piles of money; IMPOSSIBLE!

[Spoonist]

When will the government learn: don't muck with the internet?

Hehe, that must be a swede / finn, the expression muck (mucka) as in "pick a fight with" doesn't work in english where its more akin to obfuscate.

[TronPaul]

I read an interesting article questioning the success of stopping SOPA.

SOPA is dead. Are you happy now?
In response to internet technology companies leading a rousing protest against SOPA and PIPA, these bills appear to be doomed to ignominious defeat. Even the co-sponsors of these anti-piracy bills are deserting their legislation, leaving the tech world to cheer its success.

But what kind of success did we achieve?

As written, the SOPA and PIPA were bad bills. They deserved criticism and lots of second thoughts. Through protests led by Wikipedia, Google, and others, the anti-SOPA/PIPA crowd managed to get the ear of Congress and, to a lesser degree, the general public, and shout down bad legislation.

And that's the problem, actually. The shouting.

Former Mozilla CEO John Lilly captured this best, arguing, "What’s extremely discouraging to me right now is that I don’t really see how we [the tech world and the US Congress] can have a nuanced, technically-informed, respectful discussion/debate/conversation/working relationship."

Instead all we get is the media industries engaging in back room lobbying to get bad bills passed while the tech world shotguns abuse until Congress capitulates. Talk about a dysfunctional relationship.

Part of the problem, as Lilly captures in a follow-up post, is that the tech world is largely reactionary. It really wasn't until Microsoft came before the US Justice Department for antitrust abuses that the tech world woke up to the fact that it was subject to anything other than the free market. Since then companies like Oracle and Google have set up increasingly substantial lobbying arms in Washington DC, but this isn't really the answer.

The tech world needs to find better ways to educate government than replicating the covert lobbying used against it or the megaphone protests we've seen with SOPA and PIPA.

Some things that feel obvious to many techies simply aren't outside Silicon Valley. Hence, Steve Blank can write that "SOPA is a symbol of the movie industry's failure to innovate," chuckling that these "old world" industries simply "don't get it". But in so doing he overlooks the very real concerns such industries have about protecting their content, as pointed out by The Wall Street Journal. We can blithely proclaim that digitisation obviates copyright, but the truth isn't nearly so black and white.

Even an open-source revolutionary like Marc Fleury groks this, writing in support of SOPA:

Increasingly the western world relies on IP to make a living. Since we produce less "real world" goods and more "digital world" goods we open ourselves to piracy. If we are to move to an information based economy there needs to be a limit to the infringement of IP.
You or I may disagree, but it would be useful if we were to do so through thoughtful conversation, rather than 140-character bursts of indignation, self-censorship of websites, etc.

Because, as The Register's Andrew Orlowski opines, in a must read article, "While the legislation is now moribund, the underlying concerns behind SOPA haven't gone away" and "SOPA will return next year, and the year after, until the issues have been tackled head on." Victory isn't victory when a bill is killed simply because it's been shouted down, but rather when there is a meeting of the minds over the essential facts around a problem, and real solutions are broached and agreed upon.

It's a discussion we need to have out in the open, without all the name-calling and sloganeering. Ironically, this sort of nuanced communication would likely encourage the rest of the tech industry – the Ciscos and IBMs and Oracles of the world – to join the conversation. To date, they've largely stayed on the sidelines, as they have interests on both sides of the debate.

We all do, in fact. Many of us simply don't recognise it yet, and won't until the essence of our businesses are threatened. This isn't to suggest that government should prop up dying industries. I'm all for creative destruction. But we shouldn't be blasé about the issues, assuming the people on the other side of the discussion are mindless idiots wedded to an antiquated business model.

SOPA is bad legislation. But the "discussion" around SOPA is worse, and points to a gap between the internet world and governments, one that we should be seeking to bridge, not deepen.

Source The Register

I've seen too much fanfare and back patting by the internet. Sorry guys, the issue isn't solved. Both sides are wrong, and until both the creative industries and the internet (tech giants) can hammer out something that everyone can at least tolerate, we'll see SOPA reincarnations every year.

[S.L.Acker]

The issue can't be solved while we have a bunch of computer illiterate geriatrics with special interest groups whispering in their ear running the show. Age doesn't mean wisdom any more, things simple move to quickly for that to be the case. I think we need a system that wants an equal number of the young and old in office if we actually want issues of technology dealt with.

[S.L.Acker]

Sure it does, how many of the guys in office have been dealing with computers as long as somebody in their 30's has? How many needed to have their kids, or somebody else do the simple task of plugging a new computer in for them. Frankly these people don't use the internet the same way people in their 20's do. Looking back at my own childhood computer course I already feel like a Dinosaur compared to what kids are learning at the same ages now.

[K. A. Pital]

The DMCA is already there, but no, TronPaul seems to be of the opinion people should be sold into a type of anal slavery to the copyright cartels. And that First World good trumps everything - screw millions of Third World people who - and yes, I'll be fucking frank - rely on "piracy" everyday just to get some lackluster entertainment in a world where they earn around five bucks per day if not less. Screw millions of Third Worlders who use the Internet, Google, Twitter to self-organize into civil councils and grassroots organizations to stand up against opressive governments.

The only thing that matters is First World copyright cartel profits in the "information economy".

I'm sure I don't want to live in such a world, and as I gathered, many people likewise don't.

[SCRawl]

Sure it does, how many of the guys in office have been dealing with computers as long as somebody in their 30's has? How many needed to have their kids, or somebody else do the simple task of plugging a new computer in for them. Frankly these people don't use the internet the same way people in their 20's do. Looking back at my own childhood computer course I already feel like a Dinosaur compared to what kids are learning at the same ages now.

This doesn't mean that a 70-year-old can't be completely versed in technology, or that a 25-year-old must be. If I were to place a bet about an unknown person's level of technical capability based on his age, yes, I would bet that the septuagenarian would tend to be the loser. But there is still tremendous variation, as in all things.

D13 is correct: it isn't about age. It's about the level of exposure.

[S.L.Acker]

Sure it does, how many of the guys in office have been dealing with computers as long as somebody in their 30's has? How many needed to have their kids, or somebody else do the simple task of plugging a new computer in for them. Frankly these people don't use the internet the same way people in their 20's do. Looking back at my own childhood computer course I already feel like a Dinosaur compared to what kids are learning at the same ages now.

This doesn't mean that a 70-year-old can't be completely versed in technology, or that a 25-year-old must be. If I were to place a bet about an unknown person's level of technical capability based on his age, yes, I would bet that the septuagenarian would tend to be the loser. But there is still tremendous variation, as in all things.

D13 is correct: it isn't about age. It's about the level of exposure.

True, but based on this the level of exposure to computers and the way an entire significant section of the population uses the internet is low. Who would have thought a bunch of old dudes would be out of touch with the way average, mainly younger people, use the internet.

[S.L.Acker]

What exactly is computer literacy anyway?

Is it knowing how to type up a letter in Microsoft Word or send a twitter? Congresspeople seem to be doing this stuff well enough.

If it's knowing how the underlying systems work, that's not something you get from just using a computer; it takes some kind of education, and people can get that old or young. (Most likely, congresspeople rely on their advisors for this; people with specialized education in the field.)

Most the anti-SOPA arguments were about unintended consequences of the technical and legal implementation, and that's not really a common sense kind of thing.

How about using, interacting with, and understanding internet culture so that you can understand how this bill effects a significant section of the internet. I'm not talking about users, I'm talking about the serious talks by people like those who are a part of Channel Awesome about how this bill could kill their means of making money.

[Mr Bean]

Their means of making money includes copyright infringement... they could probably be shut today if the rightsholders wanted to push the issue, no new law required.

Parody and reviews are protected by existing law. What Channel Awesome does is perfectly legal. The only thing technically illegal are the "Let's Play" but that's something no one goes after, SOPA would be an issue as any such infractor would result in the entire website being forfeit to the old ones.

[Simon_Jester]

When will the government learn: don't muck with the internet?

Hehe, that must be a swede / finn, the expression muck (mucka) as in "pick a fight with" doesn't work in english where its more akin to obfuscate.

No, actually, it works. "To muck with" is parallel to "to mess with," which implies "to make a mess of."

It's more common as a British-ism than it is in the US, but it works well enough in English as a creative way of saying "to pick a fight with."

The DMCA is already there, but no, TronPaul seems to be of the opinion people should be sold into a type of anal slavery to the copyright cartels. And that First World good trumps everything - screw millions of Third World people who - and yes, I'll be fucking frank - rely on "piracy" everyday just to get some lackluster entertainment in a world where they earn around five bucks per day if not less. Screw millions of Third Worlders who use the Internet, Google, Twitter to self-organize into civil councils and grassroots organizations to stand up against opressive governments.

The only thing that matters is First World copyright cartel profits in the "information economy".

I'm sure I don't want to live in such a world, and as I gathered, many people likewise don't.

Fair enough. That said, you can hardly expect American governments elected by American citizens to vote for a copyright regime that is actively harmful to America.

I am very much in favor of "millions of Third Worlders [using] the Internet... to self-organize... to stand up against oppressive governments." I want that to remain possible. I want those tools to become available in the First World, as the tools of a new wave of basically peaceful protest, in hopes that the current problems of global capitalism can be solved by reform and not revolution.

What I don't think is tenable is "copyright is obsolete," not for nations whose economies hinge on intellectual property. There needs to be a healthier way to deal with this problem, for the nations that create the IP and which handle most of the burden of Internet traffic. One that doesn't just reduce to "duplicate the Great Firewall of China, only set it to purge downloaded movies instead of references to Tiananmen Square."

[S.L.Acker]

Their means of making money includes copyright infringement... they could probably be shut today if the rightsholders wanted to push the issue, no new law required.

Fair use movie and game reviews are illegal now... Wow, the US and copyright law in general is worse than I had imagined.