SOPA on the ropa & PIPA down

I had lunch at the Ward Hotel this afternoon with a small group of people. The one thing everyone was talking about as we arrived was the Great Blackout. I am guessing anyone who reads this blog knows all about it, but just in case here is the meat from the WaPo:

Visitors to Wikipedia who tried to search the online encyclopedia's usually trivia-filled pages were instead greeted by a message informing them that the bills could "fatally damage the free and open Internet." On Craigslist, those looking to search the classifieds had to first read through a note urging them to contact their representatives to block the bills. And while you could still run searches on Google, a black censorship bar blocked the area where a cheery Google Doodle logo normally resides.

The blackout was a response to two bills before Congress: the Stop Online Piracy Act, and the Protect Intellectual Property Act. SOPA an PIPA were pushed on behalf of the major content providers in the film and music industries. Here is a summary of SOPA from OpenCongress.org:

This bill would establish a system for taking down websites that the Justice Department determines to be dedicated to copyright infringment. The DoJ or the copyright owner would be able to commence a legal action against any site they deem to have "only limited purpose or use other than infringement," and the DoJ would be allowed to demand that search engines, social networking sites and domain name services block access to the targeted site. It would also make unauthorized web streaming of copyrighted content a felony with a possible penalty up to five years in prison.

This is the kind of bill that usually sails through due to public inattention. Unfortunately for industries pushing the bill the industries targeted by the bill have immediate access to millions of people and man oh man did they ever use it.

The President was already signaling opposition to the bills before the blackout. Today, a number of Congressmen have withdrawn their support. It looks like we have a dramatic case of public opposition killing a bill dead.

SOPA and PIPA addressed a real problem. Until the advent of the Web, audio and video content, like literary content, were generally fixed in some physical medium. Content providers offered films and music but they sold records, tapes, and then discs. Content distributed over the airwaves was another problem, but that was easily solved by selling advertising. It was relatively easy to copy copyrighted media; however, it was expensive to do so on a big scale and difficult to distribute it. This protected the content providers.

The Web makes it easy to exchange audio and video content without an exchange of physical media, and that includes pirated content. How big a problem this is isn't so clear. See Julian Sanchez at CATO.

On the other hand, the internet has made possible the greatest explosion of information and access in human history. When I first arrived in Aberdeen in 1989 I could get only two national newspapers on the day they were published. Now I can read the Jerusalem Post every morning. I have at my fingertips, literally, a vast reservoir of books, documents, paintings, along with music and film. I have a strong personal interest in keeping the internet as free as possible.

Fortunately for me, I have powerful allies who have managed to establish commercial empires in cyberspace. Google had 187 million unique visitors in December. Wikimedia and Craigslist have about 83 million and 50 million respectively. That is the kind of power that can be brought to bear on Congress. These corporations see SOPA and PIPA as mortal threats to their business. They are right to see it that way. Expecting them to police copyright would drastically constrict the freedom of access that they offer.

The music industry is often its own worst enemy. I have maintained a jazz blog for several years: Jazz Note SDP. What I have wanted to do is encourage my readers to buy the jazz I love. The most effective way to do that is to comment on jazz and then provide samples. Current law makes this almost impossible. Today I maintain a Live365 jazz radio station, JazzNoteNSU. This is scrupulously legal, but the station plays about ten hours of jazz continuously in random order. I am legally prohibited from providing a playlist. That means that readers of the blog cannot know when a particular music I am commenting on will play. I would like to sell jazz for the labels free of charge, but Congress won't let me.

The demise of SOPA et PIPA, if indeed that is what has occurred, is a triumph for the internet industries. It is also a triumph for informal democracy. The only power that Google really wields is the power of its nearly two hundred million a month users. That is power indeed.

Comments

[DDCSD]

Don't forget, we have unrestricted corporate political speech to thank for this (at least temporary) victory.

[Ken Blanchard]

I am all for corporate speech!

[duggersd]

I am certainly no expert in this field, however I do see a need to protect intellectual property.

[Ken Blanchard]

Dugger: I also see a need to protect intellectual property. The question here is the means.

[Stan Gibilisco]

As a writer who derives his (vanishing) living from intellectual property rights, my initial reaction to SOPA was to support it. However, that bill, if it became law, might have gone to far. Then the "cure" would be worse than the "disease." The danger would come when an administration started censoring people and institutions that it did not agree with.

I don't know to what extent "bootlegging" on the Internet actually affects my income, either way (either to increase it by calling more attention to my work, or to reduce it by cutting into real sales). However, the bootleggers really love my stuff -- no doubt about it. For example, see:

http://www.filestube.com/s/stan+gibilisco

Now if SOPA were in effect, Ken, my posting of that link would bring the black helicopters to both of our houses! But anyone can find that link on Google within five minutes simply by conducting a search on the phrase "Stan Gibilisco."

I wonder how Google would feel about this little glitch if they, rather than McGraw-Hill, were the publisher.

I don't think any law can address the problem of Internet bootlegging, but some good old fashioned vigilantism might. I've daydreamed about setting up an offshore Web operation, a true pirate site (the so-called "pirates" who infringe on copyrights should be called "bootleggers," IMHO). I'd find the best bunch of stone-headed hackers in California, run off with them to Dominica or some similar independent tropical island paradise, set up a high-powered satellite Internet connection in a rented beach house, let those clowns sleep for 10 hours a night, snorkel and fish and surf for 10 hours a day, and spend the other 4 hours hacking into bootleg sites, screwing them up with denial-of-service attacks, infecting the illegal copies of writing, music, and movies with viruses that would wreck the operating systems of those criminals (and they are criminals) who download illegal stuff ... we'd have a great time, and publishers could write off our invoices as "international promotion and advertising expenses." Grey Hat Squadron forever!

Of course, I'm kidding here. I can't even digest a burrito, much less travel halfway around the world to kick some dirty Southern European rats' patooties with a 10-Gbps satellite Internet outpost in the hurricane belt. Besides, how would I keep my employees supplied with weed? I've watched "locked up abroad" ...

As the pipeline is not dead, neither is this copyright law issue dead. But Obama did right to kill the pipeline (for now), and SOPA in its current form won't pass into law anyway.

As for those who would rob me into the poorhouse, do it while you can, but don't come crying to me when your phone wakes up some morning and tells you that you're a no good rotten son of a sea cook instead of playing your favorite ring tone. Aloha!

[Bill Fleming]

One of the problems with the proposed law(s) I suspect is the concept of "fair use." In the "old days" it used to be relatively easy to sort out what constituted fair use as opposed to infringement or trademark violation, but these days, as the lines between media, education, entertainment, etc. become more and more blurred, not so much.

Plus, even in the old days, policing and protecting one's intellectual property rights was difficult enough. These days, on a world wide web, it is practically impossible. In any case, as per Stan, it's entirely possible that efforts to cure the disease could quite conceivably kill many of the the patients. Peer pressure is probably the best approach, along with adherence to the golden rule. Because, after all, isn't that essentially the stuff laws are made of anyway?

[Stan Gibilisco]

Over the past 20 years or so, the Internet has done a heck of a lot more good than harm for my livelihood.

I'm actively brainstorming (with my publisher) to find a constructive way to take advantage of these bootleg activities. I believe that any wave can be surfed. One must find the proper angle, the proper timing, and then get up the gumption to go ahead and do what needs done.

In my case, perhaps videos of "lectures" and "tutorials," designed for big-screen viewing but adaptable to portable devices such as tablets and even those Apple pads (iPad? iPod? I can never get 'em straight) might draw attention to my work and cause people to buy legitimate copies (as well as download a few illegitimate ones, I suppose) from amazon dot com or barnesandnoble dot com.

Then would come an article for "Wired": "How To Make a Video Go Viral."

Google, amazon dot com, and barnesandnoble dot com offer "previews" of my works online. You can look at, say, 10 pages or so, and then you get the option to buy the work, either print or digital. I think that Google as also made it possible to find answers to specific questions people might have by entering terms into the search engine. (Try searching on the phrase "complex-number impedance" and look at the contents of the first few links.)

I'm honored by this sort of attention and I can see only good coming out of it. The reader wins (question answered!), the publisher wins (attention to them), and I win (attention to me). Do these excerpts exceed "fair use" limits? I would have to say not.

Some way, somehow, I'll make these bootleggers' products work for me. Heck, I'm starting to get old and soft and bored anyhow. Time for some cool new stuff. In any case, no law, no police, no court, not even any army will stop a determined bootlegger in a foreign country. Might as well not waste time trying to do brain surgery with a hatchet.

The big downside to all of this recent Internet activity lies in the fact that people's respect for the rule of law has begun to erode. But only for certain laws! If the law is stupid, if the law sucks (remember the 55 mph speed limit and the song "Convoy"?), well then, the demise of its rule constitutes cause for celebration.

Now, it's time to get back to the business of starving to death.

[Stan Gibilisco]

As I wolfed down my midnight cheeseburger and listened to BBC News on NPR, I learned that the feds have actually taken down the file sharing site www.megaupload.com and will likely send its principals to prison.

On another note, if you go to www.filestube.com (a site quite obviously devoted to copyright theft) and look at their main page, you'll find, at the bottom -- a copyright notice! Ha, ha!

Then the hackers are going after the DOJ, FBI, copyright office, etc.

Never a dull moment on the InterWeb.

[Jimi]

"listened to BBC News on NPR"

Well....that explains alot!

[Ken Blanchard]

Thanks to all for a great thread, and thanks especially to Stan. You have given us a lot to chew on. I am in an odd position. I have written and published a lot. Anyone who steals my material is free to do so, as long as they mention the source. I suppose if I was a rock star I would feel differently.

BillF: I find myself in complete agreement. Where is the fun in that?

[Bill Fleming]

Interesting paradox here. On the one hand, easy access to, and liberal sharing of content would appear to drive down content value. On the other, it appears that making content thus ubiquitous is the most highly prized value of all. What other commodity works like that economically? (The more the demand, the lower the value.)