6 ms·

Progress against SOPA

279 points by sathishmanohar 15y ago

redthrowaway 15y ago
So it looks like we're headed for a temporary reprieve, and that's great, but as long as Big Content continues to lobby as heavily as it does, we will continue to face these attacks on the Internet. What are companies like Google doing to ensure that the Internet is not run by Hollywood? At some point, the tech industry is going to have to hold its nose and get into the lobbying game in a serious way if we want to prevent future attacks like SOPA. We are in no way helped by the fact that a lot of software companies lobbied in support of it. How are we going to counteract that, if not with increased lobbying efforts?
- slowpoke 15y ago
  >What are companies like Google doing to ensure that the Internet is not run by Hollywood? I'm really sorry to break it to you, but Google will not give half a damn about the internet being run by Hollywood as long as they can still mine data and serve ads. "Don't be evil", they say, but that does by no means equal "fight evil". Google isn't some saintly figurehead of internet freedom, they are a corporation like every other, just with better PR.
  - waqf 15y ago
    I agree that Google acts in its own interests, but they sure do care about the internet being run by Hollywood. With a locked-down internet and strong copyright legislation, Hollywood/other content owners would own all the ad spots and would cut Google out of the loop. Google is better off with a decentralized internet of "amateur" content* on which they can serve ads and negotiate a cut of the revenue. * Pirated content would work for them too, but it's not remotely worth their while to be publicly anti-copyright or to not comply with U.S. law.
    - einhverfr 15y ago
      This is true. Google would prefer that the internet were run by the largest adware company in the world (which is ironically named after a very large number)..... But the point here is that the decentralization of the internet actually protects everyone. It prevents a single set of interests from trampling over everyone else's interests.
    - regularfry 15y ago
      It's not only the content. I'm sure a large proportion of Google's engineers wouldn't be happy with their jobs if they became beholden to Hollywood.
- waqf 15y ago
  I'm confused by at least the tone of your question, because this is exactly what companies like Google are doing to ensure that the Internet is not run by Hollywood. They testified against SOPA in Congress, and Matt Cutts' article includes a bar graph showing how much they spent lobbying.
  - buff-a 15y ago
    10% of what the other team spent.
slowpoke 15y ago
>So if we can make it through the next 20-25 years, the people in power will protect technology for us, not fear it. No, they won't. They will be the same corporate sellouts as they are today because we keep thinking like this. That mentality needs to die. We cannot rely on those in power to "protect technology for us" - or anything else, for that matter. We have to do it ourselves. The situation won't magically fix itself just because we sheepishly wait for two or three decades. People have to realize that most, if not all authority is naturally opposed to progress. Authority depends on the status quo, and will try everything in its power to preserve that. The internet is probably the largest threat to authority in the history of mankind. The recoil against it therefore was not only predictable, but inevitable. The internet as it is today is the largest functioning system of anarchy that has ever existed - and on a planetary scale, no less. That's scary to some people, if not utterly terrifying. But it's the way forward. Authority trying to preserve itself by all means possible is nothing new. It's to be expected, and must likewise be resisted with every available countermeasure - atterete dominatum.
- waqf 15y ago
  > People have to realize that most, if not all authority is naturally opposed to progress. That is absolutely true, but as the people in power get younger, their reference point for what counts as "progress" advances. Politicians who grew up in the iPad era will be reactionaries against some as-yet-unconceived-of technological or social change, not against iPads.
  - dantheman 15y ago
    I'd have to disagree, we had multiple presidents who were drug users; the hippies are in power now, and the war on drugs marches on.
    - doron 15y ago
      They smoke, but don't inhale.
      - 15y ago
mquander 15y ago
So if we can make it through the next 20-25 years, the people in power will protect technology for us, not fear it. Remind me how well this has worked out for the War on Drugs.
- libraryatnight 15y ago
  Right? We can still have hope, I suppose.
- adgar 15y ago
  That's the thing - its not just about the representative and his/her values, it's about the constituents. There's still too many people alive and voting who oppose eg marijuana legalization to touch it. I think that's going to take another couple decades of attrition. Luckily, even old people like the Internet.
  - marquis 15y ago
    There are also a lot of young people being brought up conservative. I don't believe conservatism is going to magically disappear after a few generations, we can only hope that exposure to global cultures build tolerance: to spread global culture we need an open internet so it's our responsibility to fight for this, as I see it (though, that statement is a given in here).
    - thyrsus 15y ago
      I hope that's true. I'm worried that it will be too easy to avoid reality by staying with comfortable, ideologically compatible sources -- which is a problem regardless of ideology.
- Matt_Cutts 15y ago
  Just as a counterpoint, I'll drop this link: http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2009/11/05/support-for-same-sex-marriage-by-age-and-state/ http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2009/11/05/support-for-... . The articles notes that "The data supports the notion that younger people are more supportive of gay marriage than older people ... 18-29 year-olds in Alabama, for example, are more supportive of gay marriage than people 65 and older in Massachusetts." Several issues that currently divide the United States have this property where age matters, and in 20-25 years things that are controversial now might not be considered as controversial. My claim (hope?) is that protecting the internet is one of those issues.
sanderson1 15y ago
It's good to see that at least some people in power hear the voice of reason over the voices of lobbyists.
swalkergibson 15y ago
It seems to me that if Google, Facebook, etc. really wanted to effect change, just redirect their homepages to a message about SOPA and why this legislation is detrimental to the economy, etc. That would be better than any lobbying money spent in Congress. It could be the "emergency broadcast system" of sorts. I suspect that the inundation of phone calls from constituents unable to search for Thanksgiving recipes utilizing their favorite search engine would make my vote awfully easy.
- waterside81 15y ago
  This is a fantastic point. While perhaps it would be too detrimental to their respective services (how many $/min would Google and its ad partners lose?), this would really hit people across the US quickly and hopefully piss them of enough to phone someone.
- notatoad 15y ago
  Yeah, I can't even imagine the things that Facebook could accomplish if they held their site hostage for just one hour.
pdx 15y ago
- Republican Representative Darrell Issa and Democratic Representative Nancy Pelosi came out against the bill. I wonder if there was, perhaps, a much more well known Republican Representative that came out against the bill at the same time Issa did, and if so, why he wasn't mentioned?
- barry-cotter 15y ago
  I hate to break it to you, but Ron Paul has way less influence on the Republican establishment than whoever the hell Issa, because he doesn't play ball. Also there's media bias, but mostly it's that he, and those like him, have next to no influence because they don't shift the median.
snowwrestler 15y ago
I don't think the fight is really "Hollywood vs. Internet" since there are some tech companies who are big on the Internet, who have not come out against the bill--like Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, etc. I'm guessing that it is more of a fight between business models--distributing "pro" content vs. aggregating user-generated content. There are some fine lines being walked in the tech industry. Microsoft hates piracy of their package software, but Bing would face all the same legal issues under SOPA that Google would. Google wants to maximize freedom for Search and YouTube, but they are also trying to buddy up to big content for products like Google TV and the new music service.
- bad_user 15y ago
  The BSA changed their position: http://t.co/jSw3i6bf http://t.co/jSw3i6bf I also think that whatever support for SOPA there is inside Microsoft or Apple or the others (if they indeed support SOPA) has nothing to do with piracy of their package software. Microsoft at least was built by thriving on piracy. For instance China is one of the biggest consumers of pirated Microsoft software. Do you know what people would do if the Chinese government would find a way to force people to comply right now? Some of them would buy Windows / Office, but a majority won't as Windows / Office is too expensive relative to their monthly income. However China is the biggest emerging market and Microsoft would be stupid to prefer the revenue of a couple of users versus the domination of an entire market full of possibilities. Just as in the case of software patents, these companies aren't interested in protecting their innovations. Instead they are interesting in having bullets to attack disruptive competition. It's all about preserving the status quo.
  - snowwrestler 15y ago
    The BSA is trying to walk the same fine line as everyone else.
oldstrangers 15y ago
Off topic, but the large 'Stop Censorship' banner on Matt's site makes it look like 'Stop Censorship and SEO'. Too funny. Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/aXST6.jpg http://i.imgur.com/aXST6.jpg
- snowwrestler 15y ago
  Considering Matt's day job, that might not be an accident! :-)
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
nopinsight 15y ago
I am not a US citizen, but looking at the graph, I really wonder...given that the stake is quite high and their collective cash hoard is huge, why don't the Internet companies spend more on lobbying? I understand it's not their nature to do so, but the practical considerations certainly encourage that, right? Or are there other non-obvious factors involved?
sir_charles804 15y ago
This is awesome everybody should follow the links at the bottom of the page to help out!
jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
It is freaking crazy that a progress report concerning a piece of public legislation should have to contain a bar graph comparing which side has spent more money. When money influences the outcome, something other than democracy is at work.

279 points by sathishmanohar 15y ago

So it looks like we're headed for a temporary reprieve, and that's great, but as long as Big Content continues to lobby as heavily as it does, we will continue to face these attacks on the Internet. What are companies like Google doing to ensure that the Internet is not run by Hollywood? At some point, the tech industry is going to have to hold its nose and get into the lobbying game in a serious way if we want to prevent future attacks like SOPA. We are in no way helped by the fact that a lot of software companies lobbied in support of it. How are we going to counteract that, if not with increased lobbying efforts?

slowpoke 15y ago
>What are companies like Google doing to ensure that the Internet is not run by Hollywood? I'm really sorry to break it to you, but Google will not give half a damn about the internet being run by Hollywood as long as they can still mine data and serve ads. "Don't be evil", they say, but that does by no means equal "fight evil". Google isn't some saintly figurehead of internet freedom, they are a corporation like every other, just with better PR.
- waqf 15y ago
  I agree that Google acts in its own interests, but they sure do care about the internet being run by Hollywood. With a locked-down internet and strong copyright legislation, Hollywood/other content owners would own all the ad spots and would cut Google out of the loop. Google is better off with a decentralized internet of "amateur" content* on which they can serve ads and negotiate a cut of the revenue. * Pirated content would work for them too, but it's not remotely worth their while to be publicly anti-copyright or to not comply with U.S. law.
  - einhverfr 15y ago
    This is true. Google would prefer that the internet were run by the largest adware company in the world (which is ironically named after a very large number)..... But the point here is that the decentralization of the internet actually protects everyone. It prevents a single set of interests from trampling over everyone else's interests.
  - regularfry 15y ago
    It's not only the content. I'm sure a large proportion of Google's engineers wouldn't be happy with their jobs if they became beholden to Hollywood.
waqf 15y ago
I'm confused by at least the tone of your question, because this is exactly what companies like Google are doing to ensure that the Internet is not run by Hollywood. They testified against SOPA in Congress, and Matt Cutts' article includes a bar graph showing how much they spent lobbying.
- buff-a 15y ago
  10% of what the other team spent.

slowpoke 15y ago

>So if we can make it through the next 20-25 years, the people in power will protect technology for us, not fear it. No, they won't. They will be the same corporate sellouts as they are today because we keep thinking like this. That mentality needs to die. We cannot rely on those in power to "protect technology for us" - or anything else, for that matter. We have to do it ourselves. The situation won't magically fix itself just because we sheepishly wait for two or three decades. People have to realize that most, if not all authority is naturally opposed to progress. Authority depends on the status quo, and will try everything in its power to preserve that. The internet is probably the largest threat to authority in the history of mankind. The recoil against it therefore was not only predictable, but inevitable. The internet as it is today is the largest functioning system of anarchy that has ever existed - and on a planetary scale, no less. That's scary to some people, if not utterly terrifying. But it's the way forward. Authority trying to preserve itself by all means possible is nothing new. It's to be expected, and must likewise be resisted with every available countermeasure - atterete dominatum.

waqf 15y ago
> People have to realize that most, if not all authority is naturally opposed to progress. That is absolutely true, but as the people in power get younger, their reference point for what counts as "progress" advances. Politicians who grew up in the iPad era will be reactionaries against some as-yet-unconceived-of technological or social change, not against iPads.
- dantheman 15y ago
  I'd have to disagree, we had multiple presidents who were drug users; the hippies are in power now, and the war on drugs marches on.
  - doron 15y ago
    They smoke, but don't inhale.
    - 15y ago

mquander 15y ago

So if we can make it through the next 20-25 years, the people in power will protect technology for us, not fear it. Remind me how well this has worked out for the War on Drugs.

libraryatnight 15y ago
Right? We can still have hope, I suppose.
adgar 15y ago
That's the thing - its not just about the representative and his/her values, it's about the constituents. There's still too many people alive and voting who oppose eg marijuana legalization to touch it. I think that's going to take another couple decades of attrition. Luckily, even old people like the Internet.
- marquis 15y ago
  There are also a lot of young people being brought up conservative. I don't believe conservatism is going to magically disappear after a few generations, we can only hope that exposure to global cultures build tolerance: to spread global culture we need an open internet so it's our responsibility to fight for this, as I see it (though, that statement is a given in here).
  - thyrsus 15y ago
    I hope that's true. I'm worried that it will be too easy to avoid reality by staying with comfortable, ideologically compatible sources -- which is a problem regardless of ideology.
Matt_Cutts 15y ago
Just as a counterpoint, I'll drop this link: http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2009/11/05/support-for-same-sex-marriage-by-age-and-state/ http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2009/11/05/support-for-... . The articles notes that "The data supports the notion that younger people are more supportive of gay marriage than older people ... 18-29 year-olds in Alabama, for example, are more supportive of gay marriage than people 65 and older in Massachusetts." Several issues that currently divide the United States have this property where age matters, and in 20-25 years things that are controversial now might not be considered as controversial. My claim (hope?) is that protecting the internet is one of those issues.

sanderson1 15y ago

It's good to see that at least some people in power hear the voice of reason over the voices of lobbyists.

swalkergibson 15y ago

It seems to me that if Google, Facebook, etc. really wanted to effect change, just redirect their homepages to a message about SOPA and why this legislation is detrimental to the economy, etc. That would be better than any lobbying money spent in Congress. It could be the "emergency broadcast system" of sorts. I suspect that the inundation of phone calls from constituents unable to search for Thanksgiving recipes utilizing their favorite search engine would make my vote awfully easy.

waterside81 15y ago
This is a fantastic point. While perhaps it would be too detrimental to their respective services (how many $/min would Google and its ad partners lose?), this would really hit people across the US quickly and hopefully piss them of enough to phone someone.
notatoad 15y ago
Yeah, I can't even imagine the things that Facebook could accomplish if they held their site hostage for just one hour.

pdx 15y ago

- Republican Representative Darrell Issa and Democratic Representative Nancy Pelosi came out against the bill. I wonder if there was, perhaps, a much more well known Republican Representative that came out against the bill at the same time Issa did, and if so, why he wasn't mentioned?

barry-cotter 15y ago
I hate to break it to you, but Ron Paul has way less influence on the Republican establishment than whoever the hell Issa, because he doesn't play ball. Also there's media bias, but mostly it's that he, and those like him, have next to no influence because they don't shift the median.

snowwrestler 15y ago

I don't think the fight is really "Hollywood vs. Internet" since there are some tech companies who are big on the Internet, who have not come out against the bill--like Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, etc. I'm guessing that it is more of a fight between business models--distributing "pro" content vs. aggregating user-generated content. There are some fine lines being walked in the tech industry. Microsoft hates piracy of their package software, but Bing would face all the same legal issues under SOPA that Google would. Google wants to maximize freedom for Search and YouTube, but they are also trying to buddy up to big content for products like Google TV and the new music service.

bad_user 15y ago
The BSA changed their position: http://t.co/jSw3i6bf http://t.co/jSw3i6bf I also think that whatever support for SOPA there is inside Microsoft or Apple or the others (if they indeed support SOPA) has nothing to do with piracy of their package software. Microsoft at least was built by thriving on piracy. For instance China is one of the biggest consumers of pirated Microsoft software. Do you know what people would do if the Chinese government would find a way to force people to comply right now? Some of them would buy Windows / Office, but a majority won't as Windows / Office is too expensive relative to their monthly income. However China is the biggest emerging market and Microsoft would be stupid to prefer the revenue of a couple of users versus the domination of an entire market full of possibilities. Just as in the case of software patents, these companies aren't interested in protecting their innovations. Instead they are interesting in having bullets to attack disruptive competition. It's all about preserving the status quo.
- snowwrestler 15y ago
  The BSA is trying to walk the same fine line as everyone else.

oldstrangers 15y ago

Off topic, but the large 'Stop Censorship' banner on Matt's site makes it look like 'Stop Censorship and SEO'. Too funny. Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/aXST6.jpg http://i.imgur.com/aXST6.jpg

snowwrestler 15y ago
Considering Matt's day job, that might not be an accident! :-)

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

nopinsight 15y ago

I am not a US citizen, but looking at the graph, I really wonder...given that the stake is quite high and their collective cash hoard is huge, why don't the Internet companies spend more on lobbying? I understand it's not their nature to do so, but the practical considerations certainly encourage that, right? Or are there other non-obvious factors involved?

sir_charles804 15y ago

This is awesome everybody should follow the links at the bottom of the page to help out!

jeffreymcmanus 15y ago

It is freaking crazy that a progress report concerning a piece of public legislation should have to contain a bar graph comparing which side has spent more money. When money influences the outcome, something other than democracy is at work.