7 ms·

Remain Diligent: SOPA and PIPA Must Be Squashed, Not Changed

189 points by nextparadigms 15y ago

rmassie 15y ago
The White House today responded to the two petitions related to SOPA and PIPA. https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/response/combating-online-piracy-while-protecting-open-and-innovative-internet https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/response/combating-o... "the Administration calls on all sides to work together to pass sound legislation this year that provides prosecutors and rights holders new legal tools to combat online piracy originating beyond U.S. borders" New legal tools aren't needed in the US. If you're going to stop international piracy, you need to encourage other countries to pass DMCA style laws, not anything more draconian like 3-strikes laws. The DMCA has allowed innovation in technology to happen while still providing a method for take-down that results in a judge seeing it if it is contested. I understand they're trying to find middle ground, but there really is no middle ground to be had. I also contest the idea that it's actually harming jobs. During the economic downturn the media industries have been doing just fine, much better than the rest of the economy. Combating piracy with SOPA and PIPA style laws will not result in an increase in revenue and will almost certainly result in a decrease. It shows a lack of understanding on the part of the White House.
- slurgfest 15y ago
  The US cannot force other countries to pass DMCA-style laws. This is not a solution. You have elided the parts of the White House response where they say not to touch DNS, to use the law with foreign criminal activity rather than domestic activity already covered under US law, and to have strong due process for interventions with ad networks and payment processors. With those restrictions we are talking about a very different kind of legislation and the issue becomes not the means of enforcement but some kind of principle that piracy should be allowed.
  - ThaddeusQuay2 15y ago
    "The US cannot force other countries to pass DMCA-style laws." False. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jan/05/us-pressured-spain-online-piracy http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jan/05/us-pressure... (US pressured Spain to implement online piracy law, leaked files show.)(US ambassador threatened Spain with 'retaliation actions' if the country did not pass tough new SOPA-style Internet piracy laws.)(2012-JAN-05)
ck2 15y ago
Stop calling it SOPA and PIPA and just call it what it's going to be really abused for The Great Firewall of America It's not an exaggeration if it has mission creep like every other tool law enforcement is given.
- tobylane 15y ago
  True, but that would seem an overreaction to people who are only finding out about it on the blackout day.
city41 15y ago
Why must they be squashed? I'm all for an open internet, freedom of speech and our rights in general. But it still remains that piracy is absolutely rampant on the internet. The other side is not going to back down and they will keep fighting this, indefinitely, and with a very large budget to boot. It seems to me finding a compromise we can live with is a more realistic solution.
- cheald 15y ago
  Primarily because there's a tremendous amount of evidence that piracy is a distribution problem, not a legal problem. The issue here is that the media cartels would prefer to buy legislation to let them keep running their antiquated businesses without innovating and use legislation to just squash any challengers. If it was a purely legal problem, iTunes and Netflix wouldn't be kicking ass and making the music and movie/TV publishers so nervous. I pay for Netflix (and it is responsible for >95% of all my TV/movie consumption) because it's the most convenient way for me to watch movies and TV shows. It's certainly not cheaper than torrenting movies, and I'm a programmer - there's no technical barrier that prevents me from torrenting movies. But I still pay for Netflix rather than torrenting movies because it's convenient, easy, legal, and satisfies my needs. If you can hit the "easy", "affordable", and "satisfactory" points in your distribution scheme, you'll manage to capture a huge number of sales that'd otherwise be lost to piracy. The issue isn't "piracy", it's lost sales. The two are conflated way too often, and to our collective detriment. Literally nobody is hurt simply by the act of someone making an unauthorized duplication of a series of bytes. The problem is introduced when someone would have otherwise purchased whatever content they just copied. Simply copying files doesn't actually cost anyone anything - otherwise, I could just set up a couple of machines that transfer MP3s back and forth between themselves all day and put the RIAA out of business. The focus should be on "how do we capture lost sales?", rather than "how do we stop all unauthorized copying of our byte-sequences?" There are a lot of very smart, very successful people in the industry who believe and state that piracy is solved by modernizing distribution, and providing a legal way for people to get your goods that more convenient than the illegal methods. There's a lot of economic data and anecdotal evidence to suggest that they're right. There is a problem with the sale of counterfeit physical goods on the internet, though, which is an entirely separate problem, which probably needs much more targeted and specific legislation to address it.
luigi 15y ago
The author never bothers to explain why SOPA and PIPA are still bad without the DNS provision. Instead, he takes an unyielding position and uses propagandist language to make his point. It's good to see the EFF explain why the bills are still bad here (last paragraph): https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/01/signs-progress-internet-blacklist-bills-fight-continues https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/01/signs-progress-interne...
- burgerbrain 15y ago
  As the article does not appear to be directed at people who are on the fence or in support of SOPA, I can't blame him for not wasting his time explaining why it's still bad. Preaching to the choir is tedious.
- throwaway64 15y ago
  The DNS provision has not even been removed, only delayed in implementation until "more study is done on its effects", its a farce, we study the effects of bills before they are passed, not after the fact, where they can implement whatever they want with no recourse.

189 points by nextparadigms 15y ago

The White House today responded to the two petitions related to SOPA and PIPA. https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/response/combating-online-piracy-while-protecting-open-and-innovative-internet https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/response/combating-o... "the Administration calls on all sides to work together to pass sound legislation this year that provides prosecutors and rights holders new legal tools to combat online piracy originating beyond U.S. borders" New legal tools aren't needed in the US. If you're going to stop international piracy, you need to encourage other countries to pass DMCA style laws, not anything more draconian like 3-strikes laws. The DMCA has allowed innovation in technology to happen while still providing a method for take-down that results in a judge seeing it if it is contested. I understand they're trying to find middle ground, but there really is no middle ground to be had. I also contest the idea that it's actually harming jobs. During the economic downturn the media industries have been doing just fine, much better than the rest of the economy. Combating piracy with SOPA and PIPA style laws will not result in an increase in revenue and will almost certainly result in a decrease. It shows a lack of understanding on the part of the White House.

slurgfest 15y ago
The US cannot force other countries to pass DMCA-style laws. This is not a solution. You have elided the parts of the White House response where they say not to touch DNS, to use the law with foreign criminal activity rather than domestic activity already covered under US law, and to have strong due process for interventions with ad networks and payment processors. With those restrictions we are talking about a very different kind of legislation and the issue becomes not the means of enforcement but some kind of principle that piracy should be allowed.
- ThaddeusQuay2 15y ago
  "The US cannot force other countries to pass DMCA-style laws." False. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jan/05/us-pressured-spain-online-piracy http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jan/05/us-pressure... (US pressured Spain to implement online piracy law, leaked files show.)(US ambassador threatened Spain with 'retaliation actions' if the country did not pass tough new SOPA-style Internet piracy laws.)(2012-JAN-05)

ck2 15y ago

Stop calling it SOPA and PIPA and just call it what it's going to be really abused for The Great Firewall of America It's not an exaggeration if it has mission creep like every other tool law enforcement is given.

tobylane 15y ago
True, but that would seem an overreaction to people who are only finding out about it on the blackout day.

city41 15y ago

Why must they be squashed? I'm all for an open internet, freedom of speech and our rights in general. But it still remains that piracy is absolutely rampant on the internet. The other side is not going to back down and they will keep fighting this, indefinitely, and with a very large budget to boot. It seems to me finding a compromise we can live with is a more realistic solution.

cheald 15y ago
Primarily because there's a tremendous amount of evidence that piracy is a distribution problem, not a legal problem. The issue here is that the media cartels would prefer to buy legislation to let them keep running their antiquated businesses without innovating and use legislation to just squash any challengers. If it was a purely legal problem, iTunes and Netflix wouldn't be kicking ass and making the music and movie/TV publishers so nervous. I pay for Netflix (and it is responsible for >95% of all my TV/movie consumption) because it's the most convenient way for me to watch movies and TV shows. It's certainly not cheaper than torrenting movies, and I'm a programmer - there's no technical barrier that prevents me from torrenting movies. But I still pay for Netflix rather than torrenting movies because it's convenient, easy, legal, and satisfies my needs. If you can hit the "easy", "affordable", and "satisfactory" points in your distribution scheme, you'll manage to capture a huge number of sales that'd otherwise be lost to piracy. The issue isn't "piracy", it's lost sales. The two are conflated way too often, and to our collective detriment. Literally nobody is hurt simply by the act of someone making an unauthorized duplication of a series of bytes. The problem is introduced when someone would have otherwise purchased whatever content they just copied. Simply copying files doesn't actually cost anyone anything - otherwise, I could just set up a couple of machines that transfer MP3s back and forth between themselves all day and put the RIAA out of business. The focus should be on "how do we capture lost sales?", rather than "how do we stop all unauthorized copying of our byte-sequences?" There are a lot of very smart, very successful people in the industry who believe and state that piracy is solved by modernizing distribution, and providing a legal way for people to get your goods that more convenient than the illegal methods. There's a lot of economic data and anecdotal evidence to suggest that they're right. There is a problem with the sale of counterfeit physical goods on the internet, though, which is an entirely separate problem, which probably needs much more targeted and specific legislation to address it.

luigi 15y ago

The author never bothers to explain why SOPA and PIPA are still bad without the DNS provision. Instead, he takes an unyielding position and uses propagandist language to make his point. It's good to see the EFF explain why the bills are still bad here (last paragraph): https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/01/signs-progress-internet-blacklist-bills-fight-continues https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/01/signs-progress-interne...

burgerbrain 15y ago
As the article does not appear to be directed at people who are on the fence or in support of SOPA, I can't blame him for not wasting his time explaining why it's still bad. Preaching to the choir is tedious.
throwaway64 15y ago
The DNS provision has not even been removed, only delayed in implementation until "more study is done on its effects", its a farce, we study the effects of bills before they are passed, not after the fact, where they can implement whatever they want with no recourse.