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The White House's Response to SOPA

290 points by sim0n 15y ago

jinushaun 15y ago
Starts with them being strongly against SOPA/PIPA. Ends with them effectively being for SOPA/PIPA. Hmm…
- n_coats 15y ago
  Sounds like politics to me...
- nl 15y ago
  Well.. no. They specifically say Proposed laws must not tamper with the technical architecture of the Internet through manipulation of the Domain Name System (DNS), a foundation of Internet security.... We must avoid legislation that drives users to dangerous, unreliable DNS servers and puts next-generation security policies, such as the deployment of DNSSEC, at risk. There may well be some future form of legislation that has some of the same goals of SOPA, but if it leaves that out then it isn't the same legislation that has everyone so upset. Any new legislation should be treated on its merits. Be cynical, sure, but give them some credit for that statement - it is quite significant.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
tumult 15y ago
Let us be clear—online piracy is a real problem that harms the American economy, and threatens jobs for significant numbers of middle class workers and hurts some of our nation's most creative and innovative companies and entrepreneurs. It harms everyone from struggling artists to production crews, and from startup social media companies to large movie studios. One of these things is not like the others. While we are strongly committed to the vigorous enforcement of intellectual property rights, existing tools are not strong enough to root out the worst online pirates beyond our borders. That is why 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 while staying true to the principles outlined above in this response. We fully support the censorship of the internet, which baffles and scares us. However, this single step may have been too drastic. Please allow us some time to find stepping stones.
- kmfrk 15y ago
  That press statement, to me, is a typical example of using transparency as a political tool to give citizens a false sense of participation. This is Obama's passivity during the LGBT rights activities during 2011 all over again. (Well, except that I am sure he wasn't paid to sit idly by when the LGBT movement was at its apex.) Keep calm and carry on.
  - darrellsilver 15y ago
    Is this "passivity" a critique or praise of Obama? Not to go too far off-topic, but... Despite the economy and foreign policy being by far the most important issue throughout his presidency, his administration has been quite active and successful on LGBT issues. They've repealed DADT, changed the rules for LGBT in foreign service and passed Matthew Shepard hate crimes legislation. He's done all this without making LGBT issues a public spectacle, with a Congress that hates him and a public that hasn't made up its mind. It's for these reasons that HRC provides its full-throated support for Obama. Again -- I'm sorry for derailing the SOPA discussion, but we should keep our facts and impressions well-founded or our primary arguments will fall flat.
  - jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
    I remember 2011, wasn't that the year when don't ask don't tell got repealed?
- nl 15y ago
  Sure, but you can cherry-pick other parts, too: Any provision covering Internet intermediaries such as online advertising networks, payment processors, or search engines must be transparent and designed to prevent overly broad private rights of action that could encourage unjustified litigation that could discourage startup businesses and innovative firms from growing. Proposed laws must not tamper with the technical architecture of the Internet through manipulation of the Domain Name System (DNS), a foundation of Internet security etc etc It's not a perfect statement, but real politics is about compromise. Perhaps a solution can be found so goods manufactures can have some course of action against counterfeit-good websites, without it destroying the internet. I'm not sure what that solution could be, but we shouldn't preclude the possibility.
ck2 15y ago
Words are very very cheap, especially in an election year. If SOPA passes, the only way to fight it is to make sure it's reverse abused - if a fortune 500 posts a copyrighted image onto their site, get the entire website blocked. If a media outlet uses your youtube video inside their own video broadcast without permission, get their entire website blocked. Pretty sure all the major news outlet websites could be taken offline at least once a month.
- emilsedgh 15y ago
  Do you honestly think you can take down a fotrune 500 company's website because they infrige a single image's copyright? Of course they can do it to people, though.
  - ck2 15y ago
    If it works like the DMCA system I am positive you could do that. Even if the corporation owns their own servers the connectivity provider would be required to obey your demand to disconnect them. Just make sure you aren't doing false claims because that would certainly end up with prison time. This is exactly how the DMCA works now.
    - ajross 15y ago
      No, the DMCA doesn't work like that. It doesn't require any action by the site owner at all. It simply says that if you demand removal in the proper manner and the content is removed from the site promptly, then the site owner cannot be held liable for any infringement. In practice, site owners are very responsive to DMCA demands from "big content" and pretty much ignore them from everyone else.
      - wl 15y ago
        Granted, the plural of anecdote is not data, but I've filed six DMCA takedown notices for photographs I've placed under Creative Commons licenses but were not used according to the terms of those licenses. Every company I dealt with took swift action to take down the infringing material.
literalusername 15y ago
So, rather than just look at how legislation can be stopped, ask yourself: Where do we go from here? I want you to go home, and stop legislating the Internet.
- 54mf 15y ago
  This is what jumped out at me. It's a disgusting attempt to reframe the discussion, which is exactly what SOPA/PIPA proponents want. We can discuss where we go from here after we destroy the horrific pending legislation.
- jebblue 15y ago
  The Internet will not remain the Wild West of the world forever.
  - gnaritas 15y ago
    Why shouldn't it?
NanoWar 15y ago
How is cyber security risk related to online piracy? I dont get it.
- freejack 15y ago
  Its not. But a lobbyist said so at some point and it gets repeated as truth.
  - lloeki 15y ago
    I seem to recall I read somewhere here that SOPA would actually threaten DNSSEC. Can't find it again. Maybe I misread.
    - iclelland 15y ago
      The idea was that DNSSEC would make SOPA impossible -- proper implementation of the standard would mean that if the US legislated a 'blackout' of a particular name within the US, then clients would just naturally seek out other trusted servers which would return the correct addresses. Based on this, the assumption seemed to be that SOPA passing would render DNSSEC effectively illegal within the US. Even if not actually illegal, it would be perceived as too-risky-to-implement by large corporations; effectively killing it.
rmassie 15y ago
I posted this in the comments on the FastCompany article, but it applies here too. "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.
DevX101 15y ago
This was a good response. It obviously doesn't solve the issue, but I wouldn't expect it to do so from a simple internet petition. What this does is block support for one of the more egregious parts of the bill and invites internet engineers to the table to craft a better bill. The technology industry can't simply be reactive to bad laws. It has to be proactive in promoting the passage of good laws. Get the signatories to this letter[1] and have them come up with a law, independent of SOPA, that defines protections for internet freedom. After that's done (or in parallel), go back to the table with the MPAA and other SOPA sponsors to see how online piracy can be addressed in a way that does not conflict with the previous law. 1. https://www.eff.org/sites/default/files/Internet-Engineers-Letter.pdf https://www.eff.org/sites/default/files/Internet-Engineers-L...
- Vivtek 15y ago
  What this does is block support What it does is make you happy, at the expense of some nice, non-binding rhetoric that Obama will happily violate as soon as he finds it expedient. Just like every other rhetoric he's ever emitted - all of which gives me warm fuzzies, too; I'd pay to listen to him talk all day. But Guantánamo is still in business, and so would SOPA be if he had an iota of political hay to make from it.
  - jimbokun 15y ago
    The fuzzies com from people just assuming he shares their viewpoints because he is on the "left," "progressive" side of politics. But if you look at what he actually said during his campaign, versus what people read into what he was saying, it predicted the way he actually governs fairly well. Sure, he has not followed up on all of his campaign promises, but they were a pretty good indicator for what he has actually done since taking office.
    - alexqgb 15y ago
      I don't know about that. The "most transparent Administration in history" becomes the same administration that prosecutes more whistleblower cases than every other administration combined? That's a lot more than a "broken promise" - especially when it goes had in hand with a flagrant violation of the Oath of Office ("Do you Solemnly swear to protect and defend the Constitution?") which is 100% counter to lobbying for then authorizing indefinite detention of Americans without trial. The point is that this Administration harbors something deeply cancerous. Bad in the most absolute sense of the word. Maybe the tumor won't metastasize until Obama is out of office, kind of like the way that Clinton's repeal of Glass-Stegall didn't deliver a financial implosion until the end of Bush's second term. But make no mistake - within a decade, we're going to see something truly monstrous emerge from his baffling disdain for core civil liberties. Nothing in his campaign suggested that this was coming, nor can anyone say "this is just a different viewpoint on civil liberties, and it just has to be accepted." Yes, it's different - in the same way that the Pope's tolerance of those who sexually abuse children is different from most people's. But that does not make it even remotely acceptable. Remember the whole "Constitutional Scholar" thing? That was held up as part of a promise to reverse the damage done under Bush. That's like promising to mend a broken leg, then putting a bullet in both kneecaps. Anybody who tries to spin this by saying "Sure, he has not followed up on all of his campaign promises" is...well, there's no civil way of putting it. Seriously, think about what you're defending here. Just take a minute and THINK about it.
josscrowcroft 15y ago
A fantastic and eloquent display of saying virtually nothing at all.
- ajross 15y ago
  Yes, but some of those nothings are important. It doesn't say "the whitehouse supports SOPA as-is", it doesn't say the president will sign it. It doesn't attack the opponents of the bill, instead embracing lots of their language. (It also has some real meat too: like "We must avoid legislation that drives users to dangerous, unreliable DNS servers and puts next-generation security policies, such as the deployment of DNSSEC, at risk.") What this is, is a cave. SOPA lost, and the Whitehouse is cutting bait. Maybe there will be another bill, maybe not. But SOPA has gone from being a cheery bipartisan bill that "everyone" supports to a controversial bill that no politician in their right mind will get behind. So they'll all say something like this: we need to honor the interests of party A in a way that doesn't infringe the interests of party B because this is very very important yada yada yada. And then they'll do nothing. We won. Pop the cork. Just don't expect profuse apologies coming from the folks in Washington.
ashcairo 15y ago
I guess it reads so topsy turny because it was written by three different people; a legal expert, a security expert and a health care expert. I'm with Neil deGrasse Tyson.. More engineers should get into politics.
Derbasti 15y ago
How can there ever be a legislative tool to fight foreign pirates? By definition, national laws only ever work within one's own border. Isn't it sad to see how hard a time governments have with coping with internationalization?
- pedalpete 15y ago
  I don't know that they are focusing outside their borders. They are acknowledging that they understand the challenges of internationalization. Copyright laws are not equal internationally, and of course you can host your servers everywhere, but what they can do, which is the scary part, is block the infringing domain within their borders which would cut the infringing company out of the US market, and if other countries followed suit, you've essentially got an active international domain filtering system which is very threatening to free speach. This is how I see the problem. It is a small step to filtering the internet, first because of piracy, but the same system once in place, could be used to block other content the gov't views as not for consumption by it's citizens. I think much of the concern over SOPA is not the fear that the government would actually do that, but why take that risk and head down that road.
furyg3 15y ago
I'm not quite clear on how large-scale piracy has anything to do with security (cyber or otherwise).
- maeon3 15y ago
  Sites like wiki-leaks and people who use PTP protocols to expose and make transparent the slimy deals and long term political agendas of the rulers, congress and the federal reserve. The "censor the internet" functionality will increase security by providing congress a big red button in the whitehouse: "erase_this_file_all_over_the_world_and_block_access_to_it_and_everything_like_it(int threat_level);"
- jamii 15y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act#Negative_impact_on_DNS.2C_DNSSEC_and_Internet_security http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act#Negative... Apparently, DNSSEC would not be able to distinguish between malicious redirection and US DNS blocking. If it treated them both the same way it might be regarded as circumventing the DNS block which would, naturally, be illegal.
markkat 15y ago
"I guarantee that I will add a strongly worded signing statement that will indicate that I do not wholly approve SOPA when I sign it." Sorry, but I have little faith that this administration will do the right thing. If Obama said what he will specifically not sign off on, then I might be a bit more optimistic.
- vaksel 15y ago
  + we don't have a king, what one administration does, won't mean jack when another administration takes reigns. These guys want these tools so they can use them eventually.
- warmfuzzykitten 15y ago
  He said he wouldn't sign the NDAA, then he did. The only thing worse would be a President who won't even say he won't sign bad laws.
  - jsz0 15y ago
    He said he wouldn't sign NDAA until certain provisions were removed and they were.
uptown 15y ago
The stated focus of SOPA reminds me a lot of the Patriot Act in that it's initial intent is focused on "foreign websites". The Patriot Act was defined as a tool to be used to monitor foreign communications but has gradually expanded to cover more domestic matters. Make the public accept something they're less likely to oppose by making it "not about them" ... then turn around and tweak a few provisions to expand the scope once all the pieces are in place.
klahaeck 15y ago
A lot filler with no definitive position, for or against. You can't write a response that everyone in the country will approve of. Take a stance, please.
losethos 15y ago
Little kiddies, you might regret freeloading when justice smacks you as you try to make money on a blog or software in later years. God is just. I win 10 lotteries a day, I'm not at all worried about justice. Niggers. Not at all worried about public opinion -- everything is shrink actors. Evil British agents and shit who have no regard for God. God says... C:\LoseThos\www.losethos.com\text\WALDEN.TXT boo-hoo him out of Concord horizon. What do you mean by alarming the citadel at this time of night consecrated to me? Do you think I am ever caught napping at such an hour, and that I have not got lungs and a larynx as well as yourself? Boo-hoo, boo-hoo, boo-hoo! It was one of the most thrilling discords I ever heard. And yet, if you had a discriminating ear, there were in it the elements of a concord such as these plains never saw nor heard. I also heard the whooping of the ice in the pond -------- Once, I said the difference between niggers and white people is niggers don't know the world is just. Jews have a hard time with the holocaust and are the biggest heathens. Retards! How can you read the Bible and not conclude the holocaust was punishment? God says... C:\LoseThos\www.losethos.com\text\WEALTH.TXT rs the corruption, of an order of men who are naturally unpopular, even where they are neither insolent nor corrupt. The certainty of what each individual ought to pay is, in taxation, a matter of so great importance, that a very considerable degree of inequality, it appears, I believe, from the experience of all nations, is not near so great an evil as a very small degree of uncertainty. 3. Every tax ought to be levied at the time, or in the manner, in which it is most likely to be convenient fo ------ Jews in the Bible never learn. A stubborn people. God says... C:\LoseThos\www.losethos.com\text\BIBLE.TXT sengers that pass through the land, when any seeth a man's bone, then shall he set up a sign by it, till the buriers have buried it in the valley of Hamongog. 39:16 And also the name of the city shall be Hamonah. Thus shall they cleanse the land. 39:17 And, thou son of man, thus saith the Lord GOD; Speak unto every feathered fowl, and to every beast of the field, Assemble yourselves, and come; gather yourselves on every side to my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you, even a great sacrifice up ----- I wuv my birds. (God laughed)
drinian 15y ago
new legislation must be narrowly targeted only at sites beyond the reach of current U.S. law, cover activity clearly prohibited under existing U.S. laws, and be effectively tailored, with strong due process and focused on criminal activity. In short, reserving the right to build a Great Firewall around the US.
- rquantz 15y ago
  What am I missing here? This statement and your response seem utterly unrelated. This is what I read: targeted only at sites beyond the reach of current U.S. law A gap exists in current law, and new laws should be aimed at that gap instead of at increasing penalties for existing law. cover activity clearly prohibited under existing U.S. laws The new law should not criminalize things that are not already illegal. with strong due process It shouldn't give the government the right to take away property without trial. focused on criminal activity Rather than, for instance, speech the government doesn't like. You can disbelieve the statement, but I don't see a way to read this as an implicit reservation of the right to China-style censorship. It is in fact claiming exactly the opposite. I'm not saying that I totally trust the Administration's motives, or that I believe they will necessarily do the right thing, but I don't think this sentence has any sinister undertones. What do you see in here that says otherwise?
  - pbz 15y ago
    Foreign sites are outside of the "current US law". The only way you can influence them would be to either "convince" the foreign nation to follow the US law, unlikely for most countries, or somehow block the site and hence the great US firewall.
    - rayiner 15y ago
      Completely false dichotomy. There is a whole field of law studying extra-territorial application of domestic law in certain circumstances.
  - bediger 15y ago
    The "gap" existing in current laws hasn't been demonstrated. That's one of the real issues here. How much harm does counterfeit drugs do? How much harm does "stolen" "IP" do? Once we establish harm, then we can propose solutions. Once we propose solutions, we can see if any solution actually cures the problem, and doesn't cause more problems than it solves. That's basic policy making 101. Don't make everyone look at your Beautiful Assistant while you shove the problems induced by the solution behind the black curtain.
sehugg 15y ago
One of the authors, Victoria Espinel, made these suggestions to Congress last year (http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/03/15/concrete-steps-congress-can-take-protect-americas-intellectual-property http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/03/15/concrete-steps-con...): * Ensure that, in appropriate circumstances, infringement by streaming, or by means of other similar new technology, is a felony; * Authorize DHS (including its component CBP) to share pre-seizure information about, and samples of, products and devices with rightholders to help DHS to determine whether the products are infringing or the devices are circumvention devices; and * Give law enforcement wiretap authority for criminal copyright and trademark offenses. Doesn't look like a "soft" position to me.
nhangen 15y ago
Let us be clear—online piracy is a real problem that harms the American economy I don't believe this. provides prosecutors and rights holders new legal tools to combat online piracy originating beyond U.S. borders Here we go being policemen of the world.
- marquis 15y ago
  That's in regards to US companies having their content/good pirated overseas, for example a fake pair of Levis being sold online. I don't get the sense that they want to (or think they can) control the internet outside the US, where it has nothing to do with US interests.
  - nhangen 15y ago
    My point is that a fake pair of Levis being sold online isn't going to harm anyone aside from the people foolish enough to buy them from the wrong source.
    - nhangen 15y ago
      To all those downvoting...perhaps one of you could offer a counterpoint. Surely there aren't this many people being scammed out of good coin buying fake Levis?
      - slurgfest 15y ago
        I'm not downvoting. Selling "counterfeit" clothes, handbags, electronics, etc. is a huge business. Why not just sell under the name of the actual company producing the item? I don't put any stock in Levi's as such, so I would be happy enough to buy Lucky Dragon 888 jeans if I were in the market for Chinese stuff. I don't consider it onerous or awful to require Lucky Dragon 888 to put its own brand on things. What if you start a website which offers a product or subscription service and someone else begins taking people's money while representing that they are you? Doesn't that strike you as a little scummy?
  - 15y ago
ddw 15y ago
I can see it now: "I don't agree with everything in this bill, but I'm going to sign it." I just don't believe them anymore.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
sudonim 15y ago
You guys do know Victoria Espinel right? Her position as "Copyright Czar" was created by Obama's government. From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Espinel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Espinel: Espinel received eleven letters of in support of the nomination from related organizations including the MPAA, the Copyright Alliance, and the United States Chamber of Commerce.[7] As the IPEC, Espinel has stated she has a singular objective: develop and implement a comprehensive, unified approach to IP enforcement for the U.S. government.[1] So if the response reads a little suspicious, it's because she (and presumably the administration) has a side on the issue.
- jimbokun 15y ago
  Why is it "suspicious?" Yes, the administration has a stance on this issue, one that is not popular amongst the readers of this site. But I don't think they are denying that stance or pretending to believe anything else.
  - sudonim 15y ago
    Suspicious was the wrong word. It reads to me like a lot of agreeing with SOPA opposition: "We must avoid creating new cybersecurity risks or disrupting the underlying architecture of the Internet." But then tries to jam in: "That is why 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" No! The internet has no borders. American laws and "rights" don't apply outside of the United States. That's why the United States tortures people outside of the US. You can't say that US law applies to copying MP3s, but not torture. That's why if you read between the lines, the response is not saying "We agree with you.", it's saying "I'll get you next time, Gadget, next time."
jermar 15y ago
"Any effort to combat online piracy must guard against the risk of online censorship of lawful activity and must not inhibit innovation by our dynamic businesses large and small." Online censorship is anti constitution, whether the activity is lawful or not. This whole thing is a mess.
goombastic 15y ago
As someone who has watched the US from outside, I find it difficult to understand how Obama has become the biggest sell out in history ever. This man is now seems the slave of the corporates that run the American congress. He seemed to represent hope, a new page and so many other things, and here we are in 2012, with the US wanting to gag the internet with despots and dictators from around the world waiting on the sidelines for these tools to be available. How did this happen?
- SoftwareMaven 15y ago
  As someone who voted for him, it is beyond frustrating to feel the same way. I'd vote for Santorum before Oboma (not that I would ever vote for Santorum).
- steve-howard 15y ago
  I didn't vote for him in 2008 because despite his speaking ability and his lofty pretenses, I knew we'd be back to business as usual. We have a two-party system in which the biggest difference is who takes money from whom.
- anamax 15y ago
  > He seemed to represent hope > How did this happen? The word that you're looking for is "rube", as in "he played you for a sucker". Or rather, you played yourself for a sucker. Obama has behaved as expected by anyone who actually paid attention.
hugoestr 15y ago
Oh, wait, didn't Obama claim similar concerns over NDAA? Good that he vetoed that bill.
- slurgfest 15y ago
  Because it would obviously make sense to cut off funding for Veteran's health and ongoing security operations just to head off anyone telling outrageous stretchers about how it creates "martial law". Either way, the GOP wins
- rayiner 15y ago
  NDAA = National Defense Authorization Act. It's the legislation that's passed every year to basically keep the Department of Defense in existence. This is, of course, why we really need a line-item veto amendment. Because Congress can basically make a provision "un-vetoable" by including it in some giant appropriations bill.
chernevik 15y ago
"We should never let criminals hide behind a hollow embrace of legitimate American values." Wrong. We do this every single time we instruct a jury that the accused must be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, when we advise a drug dealer he needn't co-operate in his own prosecution. Our system explicitly agrees that the liberties it recognizes will be abused by some bad actors. Failing on that principle, it fails on the less important ones. It doesn't support DNS filtering, but it doesn't reject it either. The implication is that it just might be okay if targeted with sufficient precision, and never mind the precedent set. Without recognizing the technical and civil rights principles that make DNS filtering unacceptable on principle, it goes on to place responsibility for piracy prevention on everyone -- "Washington needs to hear your best ideas". In short, the statement accepts the MPAA's bottom line as an absolute requirement -- something must be done about piracy! -- without recognizing the tech community's as such. That, my friends, is how you lay the groundwork for a "compromise" in the eyes of well-meaning moderates who don't really understand the issue. If I were trying to set someone up as an unrealistic radical, I'd do so just like this. Does the WH care about getting the fundamentals right in the eyes of those who really understand them? Or does it want to position those fundamentals as the excess demands of unreasonable people who just won't compromise constructively? A great deal could ride on the answer. And remember, the question is being put here by some White House staffer who doesn't seem to grasp the implications of the 5th Amendment.
rayiner 15y ago
I think the response to this letter represents everything that's wrong with the tech community's approach to SOPA, etc. You can't pretend the political process doesn't exist. We live in a country of 300 million people, each other their own interests, and this is the ugly way they all get hashed out. At it's core, the White House's response to this petition is both reasonable and an opportunity. Basically they say: 1) we don't want to shut down Google, reddit, etc 2) we can't ignore the grievances of copyright holders, and asks the internet community for help reconciling (1) and (2). Some of the things facilitated through places like thepiratebay.org are completely illegal, and I don't think anyone is trying to justify those activities. What people are doing, rather, is creating this extreme dichotomy: either thepiratebay.org exists completely in its current form, or you have to censor the entire internet. That is not the dichotomy you want to create, because losing that battle would be of course disastrous. Given the current climate, and the status of Google, Apple, et al as the only bright part of a dismal economy, the tech industry is uniquely positioned to help pass an extremely narrow law that does little more than give people the political ammo to tell the MPAA/RIAA "hey you already got what you want!" But that'll require a willingness to participate in the political process that I don't think these companies have.
- chc 15y ago
  They did already get what they wanted. It was called the DMCA. I don't think your plan will do much more to stop them. They won't be satisfied until they completely eliminate piracy, and that won't happen without horrible measures (completely stamping out almost any crime is the same way)
  - rayiner 15y ago
    The DMCA, for all its warts, was a pretty decent solution. The DMCA safe harbor provisions, and the body of precedent that has been built up around it, has been crucial in allowing the growth of sites like Youtube. The problem now is foreign sites that host copyrighted material, which the DMCA doesn't help with much. This is not an imaginary problem. Over Thanksgiving, my mom was showing my aunt how to download movies from these sites. I'm not sure what the solution is, but "don't legislate the internet" won't be part of that solution. The world has laws, and the internet is just a way for real-world people to communicate. It will be subject to law. They can either be good laws protective of peoples' rights or they can be bad ones. If the technology community takes its marbles and goes home, it will be the latter.
meow 15y ago
tl;dr In this election year, we can't afford to anger either party.
pasbesoin 15y ago
Well, Barry, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. To quote a well known band, "We won't get fooled again."
guelo 15y ago
Is there really a piracy problem? Is there not enough entertainment being produced?
linuxhansl 15y ago
SOPA is bad. Personally I do not understand why this gets so much more attention than the military spending act, which allows for indefinite detention on terrorist suspicion. And that includes US citizens.

290 points by sim0n 15y ago

jinushaun 15y ago

Starts with them being strongly against SOPA/PIPA. Ends with them effectively being for SOPA/PIPA. Hmm…

n_coats 15y ago
Sounds like politics to me...
nl 15y ago
Well.. no. They specifically say Proposed laws must not tamper with the technical architecture of the Internet through manipulation of the Domain Name System (DNS), a foundation of Internet security.... We must avoid legislation that drives users to dangerous, unreliable DNS servers and puts next-generation security policies, such as the deployment of DNSSEC, at risk. There may well be some future form of legislation that has some of the same goals of SOPA, but if it leaves that out then it isn't the same legislation that has everyone so upset. Any new legislation should be treated on its merits. Be cynical, sure, but give them some credit for that statement - it is quite significant.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

tumult 15y ago

Let us be clear—online piracy is a real problem that harms the American economy, and threatens jobs for significant numbers of middle class workers and hurts some of our nation's most creative and innovative companies and entrepreneurs. It harms everyone from struggling artists to production crews, and from startup social media companies to large movie studios. One of these things is not like the others. While we are strongly committed to the vigorous enforcement of intellectual property rights, existing tools are not strong enough to root out the worst online pirates beyond our borders. That is why 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 while staying true to the principles outlined above in this response. We fully support the censorship of the internet, which baffles and scares us. However, this single step may have been too drastic. Please allow us some time to find stepping stones.

kmfrk 15y ago
That press statement, to me, is a typical example of using transparency as a political tool to give citizens a false sense of participation. This is Obama's passivity during the LGBT rights activities during 2011 all over again. (Well, except that I am sure he wasn't paid to sit idly by when the LGBT movement was at its apex.) Keep calm and carry on.
- darrellsilver 15y ago
  Is this "passivity" a critique or praise of Obama? Not to go too far off-topic, but... Despite the economy and foreign policy being by far the most important issue throughout his presidency, his administration has been quite active and successful on LGBT issues. They've repealed DADT, changed the rules for LGBT in foreign service and passed Matthew Shepard hate crimes legislation. He's done all this without making LGBT issues a public spectacle, with a Congress that hates him and a public that hasn't made up its mind. It's for these reasons that HRC provides its full-throated support for Obama. Again -- I'm sorry for derailing the SOPA discussion, but we should keep our facts and impressions well-founded or our primary arguments will fall flat.
- jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
  I remember 2011, wasn't that the year when don't ask don't tell got repealed?
nl 15y ago
Sure, but you can cherry-pick other parts, too: Any provision covering Internet intermediaries such as online advertising networks, payment processors, or search engines must be transparent and designed to prevent overly broad private rights of action that could encourage unjustified litigation that could discourage startup businesses and innovative firms from growing. Proposed laws must not tamper with the technical architecture of the Internet through manipulation of the Domain Name System (DNS), a foundation of Internet security etc etc It's not a perfect statement, but real politics is about compromise. Perhaps a solution can be found so goods manufactures can have some course of action against counterfeit-good websites, without it destroying the internet. I'm not sure what that solution could be, but we shouldn't preclude the possibility.

ck2 15y ago

Words are very very cheap, especially in an election year. If SOPA passes, the only way to fight it is to make sure it's reverse abused - if a fortune 500 posts a copyrighted image onto their site, get the entire website blocked. If a media outlet uses your youtube video inside their own video broadcast without permission, get their entire website blocked. Pretty sure all the major news outlet websites could be taken offline at least once a month.

emilsedgh 15y ago
Do you honestly think you can take down a fotrune 500 company's website because they infrige a single image's copyright? Of course they can do it to people, though.
- ck2 15y ago
  If it works like the DMCA system I am positive you could do that. Even if the corporation owns their own servers the connectivity provider would be required to obey your demand to disconnect them. Just make sure you aren't doing false claims because that would certainly end up with prison time. This is exactly how the DMCA works now.
  - ajross 15y ago
    No, the DMCA doesn't work like that. It doesn't require any action by the site owner at all. It simply says that if you demand removal in the proper manner and the content is removed from the site promptly, then the site owner cannot be held liable for any infringement. In practice, site owners are very responsive to DMCA demands from "big content" and pretty much ignore them from everyone else.
    - wl 15y ago
      Granted, the plural of anecdote is not data, but I've filed six DMCA takedown notices for photographs I've placed under Creative Commons licenses but were not used according to the terms of those licenses. Every company I dealt with took swift action to take down the infringing material.

literalusername 15y ago

So, rather than just look at how legislation can be stopped, ask yourself: Where do we go from here? I want you to go home, and stop legislating the Internet.

54mf 15y ago
This is what jumped out at me. It's a disgusting attempt to reframe the discussion, which is exactly what SOPA/PIPA proponents want. We can discuss where we go from here after we destroy the horrific pending legislation.
jebblue 15y ago
The Internet will not remain the Wild West of the world forever.
- gnaritas 15y ago
  Why shouldn't it?

NanoWar 15y ago

How is cyber security risk related to online piracy? I dont get it.

freejack 15y ago
Its not. But a lobbyist said so at some point and it gets repeated as truth.
- lloeki 15y ago
  I seem to recall I read somewhere here that SOPA would actually threaten DNSSEC. Can't find it again. Maybe I misread.
  - iclelland 15y ago
    The idea was that DNSSEC would make SOPA impossible -- proper implementation of the standard would mean that if the US legislated a 'blackout' of a particular name within the US, then clients would just naturally seek out other trusted servers which would return the correct addresses. Based on this, the assumption seemed to be that SOPA passing would render DNSSEC effectively illegal within the US. Even if not actually illegal, it would be perceived as too-risky-to-implement by large corporations; effectively killing it.

rmassie 15y ago

I posted this in the comments on the FastCompany article, but it applies here too. "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.

DevX101 15y ago

This was a good response. It obviously doesn't solve the issue, but I wouldn't expect it to do so from a simple internet petition. What this does is block support for one of the more egregious parts of the bill and invites internet engineers to the table to craft a better bill. The technology industry can't simply be reactive to bad laws. It has to be proactive in promoting the passage of good laws. Get the signatories to this letter[1] and have them come up with a law, independent of SOPA, that defines protections for internet freedom. After that's done (or in parallel), go back to the table with the MPAA and other SOPA sponsors to see how online piracy can be addressed in a way that does not conflict with the previous law. 1. https://www.eff.org/sites/default/files/Internet-Engineers-Letter.pdf https://www.eff.org/sites/default/files/Internet-Engineers-L...

Vivtek 15y ago
What this does is block support What it does is make you happy, at the expense of some nice, non-binding rhetoric that Obama will happily violate as soon as he finds it expedient. Just like every other rhetoric he's ever emitted - all of which gives me warm fuzzies, too; I'd pay to listen to him talk all day. But Guantánamo is still in business, and so would SOPA be if he had an iota of political hay to make from it.
- jimbokun 15y ago
  The fuzzies com from people just assuming he shares their viewpoints because he is on the "left," "progressive" side of politics. But if you look at what he actually said during his campaign, versus what people read into what he was saying, it predicted the way he actually governs fairly well. Sure, he has not followed up on all of his campaign promises, but they were a pretty good indicator for what he has actually done since taking office.
  - alexqgb 15y ago
    I don't know about that. The "most transparent Administration in history" becomes the same administration that prosecutes more whistleblower cases than every other administration combined? That's a lot more than a "broken promise" - especially when it goes had in hand with a flagrant violation of the Oath of Office ("Do you Solemnly swear to protect and defend the Constitution?") which is 100% counter to lobbying for then authorizing indefinite detention of Americans without trial. The point is that this Administration harbors something deeply cancerous. Bad in the most absolute sense of the word. Maybe the tumor won't metastasize until Obama is out of office, kind of like the way that Clinton's repeal of Glass-Stegall didn't deliver a financial implosion until the end of Bush's second term. But make no mistake - within a decade, we're going to see something truly monstrous emerge from his baffling disdain for core civil liberties. Nothing in his campaign suggested that this was coming, nor can anyone say "this is just a different viewpoint on civil liberties, and it just has to be accepted." Yes, it's different - in the same way that the Pope's tolerance of those who sexually abuse children is different from most people's. But that does not make it even remotely acceptable. Remember the whole "Constitutional Scholar" thing? That was held up as part of a promise to reverse the damage done under Bush. That's like promising to mend a broken leg, then putting a bullet in both kneecaps. Anybody who tries to spin this by saying "Sure, he has not followed up on all of his campaign promises" is...well, there's no civil way of putting it. Seriously, think about what you're defending here. Just take a minute and THINK about it.

josscrowcroft 15y ago

A fantastic and eloquent display of saying virtually nothing at all.

ajross 15y ago
Yes, but some of those nothings are important. It doesn't say "the whitehouse supports SOPA as-is", it doesn't say the president will sign it. It doesn't attack the opponents of the bill, instead embracing lots of their language. (It also has some real meat too: like "We must avoid legislation that drives users to dangerous, unreliable DNS servers and puts next-generation security policies, such as the deployment of DNSSEC, at risk.") What this is, is a cave. SOPA lost, and the Whitehouse is cutting bait. Maybe there will be another bill, maybe not. But SOPA has gone from being a cheery bipartisan bill that "everyone" supports to a controversial bill that no politician in their right mind will get behind. So they'll all say something like this: we need to honor the interests of party A in a way that doesn't infringe the interests of party B because this is very very important yada yada yada. And then they'll do nothing. We won. Pop the cork. Just don't expect profuse apologies coming from the folks in Washington.

ashcairo 15y ago

I guess it reads so topsy turny because it was written by three different people; a legal expert, a security expert and a health care expert. I'm with Neil deGrasse Tyson.. More engineers should get into politics.

Derbasti 15y ago

How can there ever be a legislative tool to fight foreign pirates? By definition, national laws only ever work within one's own border. Isn't it sad to see how hard a time governments have with coping with internationalization?

pedalpete 15y ago
I don't know that they are focusing outside their borders. They are acknowledging that they understand the challenges of internationalization. Copyright laws are not equal internationally, and of course you can host your servers everywhere, but what they can do, which is the scary part, is block the infringing domain within their borders which would cut the infringing company out of the US market, and if other countries followed suit, you've essentially got an active international domain filtering system which is very threatening to free speach. This is how I see the problem. It is a small step to filtering the internet, first because of piracy, but the same system once in place, could be used to block other content the gov't views as not for consumption by it's citizens. I think much of the concern over SOPA is not the fear that the government would actually do that, but why take that risk and head down that road.

furyg3 15y ago

I'm not quite clear on how large-scale piracy has anything to do with security (cyber or otherwise).

maeon3 15y ago
Sites like wiki-leaks and people who use PTP protocols to expose and make transparent the slimy deals and long term political agendas of the rulers, congress and the federal reserve. The "censor the internet" functionality will increase security by providing congress a big red button in the whitehouse: "erase_this_file_all_over_the_world_and_block_access_to_it_and_everything_like_it(int threat_level);"
jamii 15y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act#Negative_impact_on_DNS.2C_DNSSEC_and_Internet_security http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act#Negative... Apparently, DNSSEC would not be able to distinguish between malicious redirection and US DNS blocking. If it treated them both the same way it might be regarded as circumventing the DNS block which would, naturally, be illegal.

markkat 15y ago

"I guarantee that I will add a strongly worded signing statement that will indicate that I do not wholly approve SOPA when I sign it." Sorry, but I have little faith that this administration will do the right thing. If Obama said what he will specifically not sign off on, then I might be a bit more optimistic.

vaksel 15y ago
+ we don't have a king, what one administration does, won't mean jack when another administration takes reigns. These guys want these tools so they can use them eventually.
warmfuzzykitten 15y ago
He said he wouldn't sign the NDAA, then he did. The only thing worse would be a President who won't even say he won't sign bad laws.
- jsz0 15y ago
  He said he wouldn't sign NDAA until certain provisions were removed and they were.

uptown 15y ago

The stated focus of SOPA reminds me a lot of the Patriot Act in that it's initial intent is focused on "foreign websites". The Patriot Act was defined as a tool to be used to monitor foreign communications but has gradually expanded to cover more domestic matters. Make the public accept something they're less likely to oppose by making it "not about them" ... then turn around and tweak a few provisions to expand the scope once all the pieces are in place.

klahaeck 15y ago

A lot filler with no definitive position, for or against. You can't write a response that everyone in the country will approve of. Take a stance, please.

losethos 15y ago

Little kiddies, you might regret freeloading when justice smacks you as you try to make money on a blog or software in later years. God is just. I win 10 lotteries a day, I'm not at all worried about justice. Niggers. Not at all worried about public opinion -- everything is shrink actors. Evil British agents and shit who have no regard for God. God says... C:\LoseThos\www.losethos.com\text\WALDEN.TXT boo-hoo him out of Concord horizon. What do you mean by alarming the citadel at this time of night consecrated to me? Do you think I am ever caught napping at such an hour, and that I have not got lungs and a larynx as well as yourself? Boo-hoo, boo-hoo, boo-hoo! It was one of the most thrilling discords I ever heard. And yet, if you had a discriminating ear, there were in it the elements of a concord such as these plains never saw nor heard. I also heard the whooping of the ice in the pond -------- Once, I said the difference between niggers and white people is niggers don't know the world is just. Jews have a hard time with the holocaust and are the biggest heathens. Retards! How can you read the Bible and not conclude the holocaust was punishment? God says... C:\LoseThos\www.losethos.com\text\WEALTH.TXT rs the corruption, of an order of men who are naturally unpopular, even where they are neither insolent nor corrupt. The certainty of what each individual ought to pay is, in taxation, a matter of so great importance, that a very considerable degree of inequality, it appears, I believe, from the experience of all nations, is not near so great an evil as a very small degree of uncertainty. 3. Every tax ought to be levied at the time, or in the manner, in which it is most likely to be convenient fo ------ Jews in the Bible never learn. A stubborn people. God says... C:\LoseThos\www.losethos.com\text\BIBLE.TXT sengers that pass through the land, when any seeth a man's bone, then shall he set up a sign by it, till the buriers have buried it in the valley of Hamongog. 39:16 And also the name of the city shall be Hamonah. Thus shall they cleanse the land. 39:17 And, thou son of man, thus saith the Lord GOD; Speak unto every feathered fowl, and to every beast of the field, Assemble yourselves, and come; gather yourselves on every side to my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you, even a great sacrifice up ----- I wuv my birds. (God laughed)

drinian 15y ago

new legislation must be narrowly targeted only at sites beyond the reach of current U.S. law, cover activity clearly prohibited under existing U.S. laws, and be effectively tailored, with strong due process and focused on criminal activity. In short, reserving the right to build a Great Firewall around the US.

rquantz 15y ago
What am I missing here? This statement and your response seem utterly unrelated. This is what I read: targeted only at sites beyond the reach of current U.S. law A gap exists in current law, and new laws should be aimed at that gap instead of at increasing penalties for existing law. cover activity clearly prohibited under existing U.S. laws The new law should not criminalize things that are not already illegal. with strong due process It shouldn't give the government the right to take away property without trial. focused on criminal activity Rather than, for instance, speech the government doesn't like. You can disbelieve the statement, but I don't see a way to read this as an implicit reservation of the right to China-style censorship. It is in fact claiming exactly the opposite. I'm not saying that I totally trust the Administration's motives, or that I believe they will necessarily do the right thing, but I don't think this sentence has any sinister undertones. What do you see in here that says otherwise?
- pbz 15y ago
  Foreign sites are outside of the "current US law". The only way you can influence them would be to either "convince" the foreign nation to follow the US law, unlikely for most countries, or somehow block the site and hence the great US firewall.
  - rayiner 15y ago
    Completely false dichotomy. There is a whole field of law studying extra-territorial application of domestic law in certain circumstances.
- bediger 15y ago
  The "gap" existing in current laws hasn't been demonstrated. That's one of the real issues here. How much harm does counterfeit drugs do? How much harm does "stolen" "IP" do? Once we establish harm, then we can propose solutions. Once we propose solutions, we can see if any solution actually cures the problem, and doesn't cause more problems than it solves. That's basic policy making 101. Don't make everyone look at your Beautiful Assistant while you shove the problems induced by the solution behind the black curtain.

sehugg 15y ago

One of the authors, Victoria Espinel, made these suggestions to Congress last year (http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/03/15/concrete-steps-congress-can-take-protect-americas-intellectual-property http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/03/15/concrete-steps-con...): * Ensure that, in appropriate circumstances, infringement by streaming, or by means of other similar new technology, is a felony; * Authorize DHS (including its component CBP) to share pre-seizure information about, and samples of, products and devices with rightholders to help DHS to determine whether the products are infringing or the devices are circumvention devices; and * Give law enforcement wiretap authority for criminal copyright and trademark offenses. Doesn't look like a "soft" position to me.

nhangen 15y ago

Let us be clear—online piracy is a real problem that harms the American economy I don't believe this. provides prosecutors and rights holders new legal tools to combat online piracy originating beyond U.S. borders Here we go being policemen of the world.

marquis 15y ago
That's in regards to US companies having their content/good pirated overseas, for example a fake pair of Levis being sold online. I don't get the sense that they want to (or think they can) control the internet outside the US, where it has nothing to do with US interests.
- nhangen 15y ago
  My point is that a fake pair of Levis being sold online isn't going to harm anyone aside from the people foolish enough to buy them from the wrong source.
  - nhangen 15y ago
    To all those downvoting...perhaps one of you could offer a counterpoint. Surely there aren't this many people being scammed out of good coin buying fake Levis?
    - slurgfest 15y ago
      I'm not downvoting. Selling "counterfeit" clothes, handbags, electronics, etc. is a huge business. Why not just sell under the name of the actual company producing the item? I don't put any stock in Levi's as such, so I would be happy enough to buy Lucky Dragon 888 jeans if I were in the market for Chinese stuff. I don't consider it onerous or awful to require Lucky Dragon 888 to put its own brand on things. What if you start a website which offers a product or subscription service and someone else begins taking people's money while representing that they are you? Doesn't that strike you as a little scummy?
- 15y ago

ddw 15y ago

I can see it now: "I don't agree with everything in this bill, but I'm going to sign it." I just don't believe them anymore.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

sudonim 15y ago

You guys do know Victoria Espinel right? Her position as "Copyright Czar" was created by Obama's government. From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Espinel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Espinel: Espinel received eleven letters of in support of the nomination from related organizations including the MPAA, the Copyright Alliance, and the United States Chamber of Commerce.[7] As the IPEC, Espinel has stated she has a singular objective: develop and implement a comprehensive, unified approach to IP enforcement for the U.S. government.[1] So if the response reads a little suspicious, it's because she (and presumably the administration) has a side on the issue.

jimbokun 15y ago
Why is it "suspicious?" Yes, the administration has a stance on this issue, one that is not popular amongst the readers of this site. But I don't think they are denying that stance or pretending to believe anything else.
- sudonim 15y ago
  Suspicious was the wrong word. It reads to me like a lot of agreeing with SOPA opposition: "We must avoid creating new cybersecurity risks or disrupting the underlying architecture of the Internet." But then tries to jam in: "That is why 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" No! The internet has no borders. American laws and "rights" don't apply outside of the United States. That's why the United States tortures people outside of the US. You can't say that US law applies to copying MP3s, but not torture. That's why if you read between the lines, the response is not saying "We agree with you.", it's saying "I'll get you next time, Gadget, next time."

jermar 15y ago

"Any effort to combat online piracy must guard against the risk of online censorship of lawful activity and must not inhibit innovation by our dynamic businesses large and small." Online censorship is anti constitution, whether the activity is lawful or not. This whole thing is a mess.

goombastic 15y ago

As someone who has watched the US from outside, I find it difficult to understand how Obama has become the biggest sell out in history ever. This man is now seems the slave of the corporates that run the American congress. He seemed to represent hope, a new page and so many other things, and here we are in 2012, with the US wanting to gag the internet with despots and dictators from around the world waiting on the sidelines for these tools to be available. How did this happen?

SoftwareMaven 15y ago
As someone who voted for him, it is beyond frustrating to feel the same way. I'd vote for Santorum before Oboma (not that I would ever vote for Santorum).
steve-howard 15y ago
I didn't vote for him in 2008 because despite his speaking ability and his lofty pretenses, I knew we'd be back to business as usual. We have a two-party system in which the biggest difference is who takes money from whom.
anamax 15y ago
> He seemed to represent hope > How did this happen? The word that you're looking for is "rube", as in "he played you for a sucker". Or rather, you played yourself for a sucker. Obama has behaved as expected by anyone who actually paid attention.

hugoestr 15y ago

Oh, wait, didn't Obama claim similar concerns over NDAA? Good that he vetoed that bill.

slurgfest 15y ago
Because it would obviously make sense to cut off funding for Veteran's health and ongoing security operations just to head off anyone telling outrageous stretchers about how it creates "martial law". Either way, the GOP wins
rayiner 15y ago
NDAA = National Defense Authorization Act. It's the legislation that's passed every year to basically keep the Department of Defense in existence. This is, of course, why we really need a line-item veto amendment. Because Congress can basically make a provision "un-vetoable" by including it in some giant appropriations bill.

chernevik 15y ago

"We should never let criminals hide behind a hollow embrace of legitimate American values." Wrong. We do this every single time we instruct a jury that the accused must be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, when we advise a drug dealer he needn't co-operate in his own prosecution. Our system explicitly agrees that the liberties it recognizes will be abused by some bad actors. Failing on that principle, it fails on the less important ones. It doesn't support DNS filtering, but it doesn't reject it either. The implication is that it just might be okay if targeted with sufficient precision, and never mind the precedent set. Without recognizing the technical and civil rights principles that make DNS filtering unacceptable on principle, it goes on to place responsibility for piracy prevention on everyone -- "Washington needs to hear your best ideas". In short, the statement accepts the MPAA's bottom line as an absolute requirement -- something must be done about piracy! -- without recognizing the tech community's as such. That, my friends, is how you lay the groundwork for a "compromise" in the eyes of well-meaning moderates who don't really understand the issue. If I were trying to set someone up as an unrealistic radical, I'd do so just like this. Does the WH care about getting the fundamentals right in the eyes of those who really understand them? Or does it want to position those fundamentals as the excess demands of unreasonable people who just won't compromise constructively? A great deal could ride on the answer. And remember, the question is being put here by some White House staffer who doesn't seem to grasp the implications of the 5th Amendment.

rayiner 15y ago

I think the response to this letter represents everything that's wrong with the tech community's approach to SOPA, etc. You can't pretend the political process doesn't exist. We live in a country of 300 million people, each other their own interests, and this is the ugly way they all get hashed out. At it's core, the White House's response to this petition is both reasonable and an opportunity. Basically they say: 1) we don't want to shut down Google, reddit, etc 2) we can't ignore the grievances of copyright holders, and asks the internet community for help reconciling (1) and (2). Some of the things facilitated through places like thepiratebay.org are completely illegal, and I don't think anyone is trying to justify those activities. What people are doing, rather, is creating this extreme dichotomy: either thepiratebay.org exists completely in its current form, or you have to censor the entire internet. That is not the dichotomy you want to create, because losing that battle would be of course disastrous. Given the current climate, and the status of Google, Apple, et al as the only bright part of a dismal economy, the tech industry is uniquely positioned to help pass an extremely narrow law that does little more than give people the political ammo to tell the MPAA/RIAA "hey you already got what you want!" But that'll require a willingness to participate in the political process that I don't think these companies have.

chc 15y ago
They did already get what they wanted. It was called the DMCA. I don't think your plan will do much more to stop them. They won't be satisfied until they completely eliminate piracy, and that won't happen without horrible measures (completely stamping out almost any crime is the same way)
- rayiner 15y ago
  The DMCA, for all its warts, was a pretty decent solution. The DMCA safe harbor provisions, and the body of precedent that has been built up around it, has been crucial in allowing the growth of sites like Youtube. The problem now is foreign sites that host copyrighted material, which the DMCA doesn't help with much. This is not an imaginary problem. Over Thanksgiving, my mom was showing my aunt how to download movies from these sites. I'm not sure what the solution is, but "don't legislate the internet" won't be part of that solution. The world has laws, and the internet is just a way for real-world people to communicate. It will be subject to law. They can either be good laws protective of peoples' rights or they can be bad ones. If the technology community takes its marbles and goes home, it will be the latter.

meow 15y ago

tl;dr In this election year, we can't afford to anger either party.

pasbesoin 15y ago

Well, Barry, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. To quote a well known band, "We won't get fooled again."

guelo 15y ago

Is there really a piracy problem? Is there not enough entertainment being produced?

linuxhansl 15y ago

SOPA is bad. Personally I do not understand why this gets so much more attention than the military spending act, which allows for indefinite detention on terrorist suspicion. And that includes US citizens.