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PG, I suspect that you'll do a better job of explaining why SOPA is bad than some other people, and you have more credibility than most, but taking a stand agai

PG, I suspect that you'll do a better job of explaining why SOPA is bad than some other people, and you have more credibility than most, but taking a stand against SOPA by itself isn't enough. The root cause of SOPA is a culture of piracy and a lack of participation by leaders in technology to develop better enforcement regulations. Laws like SOPA are going to continue to be proposed until a better solution to copyright protection is enacted. If we leave those proposals to be constructed by media companies who don't care as much about the integrity of the internet as they do about their bottom line, you'll just keep getting new laws that overreach and threaten our freedoms. The fact that we're facing SOPA is bad, but it's the direct result of too many people pretending that copyright protection isn't an important issue that deserves better solutions, both by arguing against the rights of creators, and failing to proactively help create a better system of enforcement. If you really want to do something powerful to stop SOPA-like legislation in its various forms, your essay should also aim to remind people that we're facing this legislation because people engage in piracy, and that we need leaders in the tech community to be more proactive about improving the DMCA if they want to have a voice in what shape copyright protection takes. It might seem like SOPA is "the problem" but it's really one party's proposed solution to a very real issue. An argument for why SOPA is bad without proposals about how to meet the needs of the party for whom SOPA is a solution only sends those people back to their misguided drawing board. I respect the stand you've taken against SOPA. I'll be really excited about it if you use this time to push the dialog forward on behalf of tech and content creators.

jey 15y ago
> The root cause of SOPA is a culture of piracy and a lack of participation by leaders in technology to develop better enforcement regulations. There's a tacit assumption in your post that copyright is still a valid notion that should be protected. That's not at all clear, and society should really re-examine the basic assumptions behind copyright. It's possible that copyright just doesn't make sense anymore and the business models that rely on copyright monopolies should just be allowed to die. I'm certainly open to being wrong. What are some valuable things that would be lost without decent replacements if we abolished copyright monopolies?
- earbitscom 15y ago
  I think it will detract from the discussion to get into whether or not copyright should be protected. I think it's safe to say, and I hope you'll concede that, we're a long way away from abolishing copyright. We're in a battle right now about whether Internet free speech is more important than copyright, so suffice it to say that there's going to be even less support for the idea that copyright isn't important at all. With that in mind, let's assume we're looking at a decade or more before copyright would be abolished. During that time, companies will have a strong argument for why a law should be enforced. My point is that those people are going to keep proposing legislation that protects their interests. We can either keep risking one of those overreaching bills passing and threatening things that are actually important to us, or we can work together to address piracy, something that we'd be foolish to defend over our other freedoms. I'd like to see leaders in technology speak out against piracy and for the rights of content creators in the same breath as they say this is not the legislation we need. You're going to get more support from media if you acknowledge that there is a serious problem and offer to help address it than if all they ever see from the tech community are comments in forums about how information should be free and we should just abolish copyright. If that's what they're hearing, they're just going to keep pushing for the legislation they want and ignore the opinions of others.
- tptacek 15y ago
  Books.
  - jey 15y ago
    Empirically doesn't seem to be true, since high-quality fiction and non-fiction is currently produced even when there isn't a profit motive. There's still ways to make money from writing, e.g. by asking people to give donations totalling a certain amount before releasing the next chapter, etc.
    - earbitscom 15y ago
      The number of works being written for no financial gain and the number of people who have successfully made those models work for them combine to be a tiny fraction of the regular commercial market for books. If you want real data, survey a couple thousand professional authors at random and ask them if they would still write if they knew they had no copyright protection and may have to put together some innovative new release schedule on a per chapter basis just to have any chance of making some money for their work.
pg 15y ago
What do you feel is missing in existing laws?
- earbitscom 15y ago
  - Transparency about the level to which companies infringe. - Accountability for mass infringement and repeat violations. - Rigid enforcement against companies who exist almost exclusively to provide access to illegal material. There are two companies that need to be addressed: You have companies whose businesses are primarily built on copyright infringing content that their users upload under DMCA. Often small companies pop up who use this method until they're big enough to be noticed, and then they go back and negotiate retro-active deals. This creates an unfair advantage for them over companies who choose to operate completely within the law. These companies' only responsibility is to take the material down when they get caught, with no steeper penalty for repeat offenses or for building a business around this turnaround time. Grooveshark is an example of an American company that falls into this category. If you could see the number of takedown requests and repeat violations companies receive (I propose they be issued and resolved through a centralized database), it would be clear which companies exist almost exclusively to provide access to copyrighted material, or who do not place high enough priority on preventing copyright infringement. I believe they need to be held accountable without placing the burden of pursuing civil penalties on the backs of individual or small company rights holders for whom a lawsuit is not equitable. There should be severe penalties for companies whose infractions far outweigh the legitimate value they provide. Those penalties should not require a class action lawsuit or the war chest of some large company. Then there are companies who are just outright havens for illegal material, whether hosting it themselves or making user-shared content easy to find and access. Most of these companies are offshore, or they are only providing links and information without providing the content itself, both of which makes it hard to pursue civil penalty. I think there should be a clearly defined and transparent method for measuring the degree to which sites provide little value beyond access to illegal material, and those sites should be held accountable. There has to be actionable recourse and, unfortunately, you can only pursue civil penalties from companies who are domestic (or in a participating country) or who actually profit from their actions. In the case of sites who are not domestic or who do not generate meaningful financial gain for their illegal behavior, your only real option is to shut them down in one way or another. If the criteria for a site being eligible for this type of action is clear, and the infraction history is transparent, I have a hard time justifying not taking action against them. That being said, I do understand that we live in a world where rules are abused and I don't understand everything I need to about how such rules would be enforced. But I don't think the the fact that it's difficult and not foolproof are good enough reasons not to pursue a better system. The DMCA has put the burden of policing copyright on the shoulders of rights holders and that's fine, but penalizing companies who commit massive infringement should not be the job of a bunch of small artists and independent companies. Then there are companies for whom the option of legal recourse is not an option, and those people should be handled in the strictest way possible without putting too much power in the hands of arbitrary organizations.

jey 15y ago

> The root cause of SOPA is a culture of piracy and a lack of participation by leaders in technology to develop better enforcement regulations. There's a tacit assumption in your post that copyright is still a valid notion that should be protected. That's not at all clear, and society should really re-examine the basic assumptions behind copyright. It's possible that copyright just doesn't make sense anymore and the business models that rely on copyright monopolies should just be allowed to die. I'm certainly open to being wrong. What are some valuable things that would be lost without decent replacements if we abolished copyright monopolies?

earbitscom 15y ago
I think it will detract from the discussion to get into whether or not copyright should be protected. I think it's safe to say, and I hope you'll concede that, we're a long way away from abolishing copyright. We're in a battle right now about whether Internet free speech is more important than copyright, so suffice it to say that there's going to be even less support for the idea that copyright isn't important at all. With that in mind, let's assume we're looking at a decade or more before copyright would be abolished. During that time, companies will have a strong argument for why a law should be enforced. My point is that those people are going to keep proposing legislation that protects their interests. We can either keep risking one of those overreaching bills passing and threatening things that are actually important to us, or we can work together to address piracy, something that we'd be foolish to defend over our other freedoms. I'd like to see leaders in technology speak out against piracy and for the rights of content creators in the same breath as they say this is not the legislation we need. You're going to get more support from media if you acknowledge that there is a serious problem and offer to help address it than if all they ever see from the tech community are comments in forums about how information should be free and we should just abolish copyright. If that's what they're hearing, they're just going to keep pushing for the legislation they want and ignore the opinions of others.
tptacek 15y ago
Books.
- jey 15y ago
  Empirically doesn't seem to be true, since high-quality fiction and non-fiction is currently produced even when there isn't a profit motive. There's still ways to make money from writing, e.g. by asking people to give donations totalling a certain amount before releasing the next chapter, etc.
  - earbitscom 15y ago
    The number of works being written for no financial gain and the number of people who have successfully made those models work for them combine to be a tiny fraction of the regular commercial market for books. If you want real data, survey a couple thousand professional authors at random and ask them if they would still write if they knew they had no copyright protection and may have to put together some innovative new release schedule on a per chapter basis just to have any chance of making some money for their work.

pg 15y ago

What do you feel is missing in existing laws?

earbitscom 15y ago
- Transparency about the level to which companies infringe. - Accountability for mass infringement and repeat violations. - Rigid enforcement against companies who exist almost exclusively to provide access to illegal material. There are two companies that need to be addressed: You have companies whose businesses are primarily built on copyright infringing content that their users upload under DMCA. Often small companies pop up who use this method until they're big enough to be noticed, and then they go back and negotiate retro-active deals. This creates an unfair advantage for them over companies who choose to operate completely within the law. These companies' only responsibility is to take the material down when they get caught, with no steeper penalty for repeat offenses or for building a business around this turnaround time. Grooveshark is an example of an American company that falls into this category. If you could see the number of takedown requests and repeat violations companies receive (I propose they be issued and resolved through a centralized database), it would be clear which companies exist almost exclusively to provide access to copyrighted material, or who do not place high enough priority on preventing copyright infringement. I believe they need to be held accountable without placing the burden of pursuing civil penalties on the backs of individual or small company rights holders for whom a lawsuit is not equitable. There should be severe penalties for companies whose infractions far outweigh the legitimate value they provide. Those penalties should not require a class action lawsuit or the war chest of some large company. Then there are companies who are just outright havens for illegal material, whether hosting it themselves or making user-shared content easy to find and access. Most of these companies are offshore, or they are only providing links and information without providing the content itself, both of which makes it hard to pursue civil penalty. I think there should be a clearly defined and transparent method for measuring the degree to which sites provide little value beyond access to illegal material, and those sites should be held accountable. There has to be actionable recourse and, unfortunately, you can only pursue civil penalties from companies who are domestic (or in a participating country) or who actually profit from their actions. In the case of sites who are not domestic or who do not generate meaningful financial gain for their illegal behavior, your only real option is to shut them down in one way or another. If the criteria for a site being eligible for this type of action is clear, and the infraction history is transparent, I have a hard time justifying not taking action against them. That being said, I do understand that we live in a world where rules are abused and I don't understand everything I need to about how such rules would be enforced. But I don't think the the fact that it's difficult and not foolproof are good enough reasons not to pursue a better system. The DMCA has put the burden of policing copyright on the shoulders of rights holders and that's fine, but penalizing companies who commit massive infringement should not be the job of a bunch of small artists and independent companies. Then there are companies for whom the option of legal recourse is not an option, and those people should be handled in the strictest way possible without putting too much power in the hands of arbitrary organizations.