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A summary for those who don't have 18 minutes: 1. Excellent introduction and overview of the debate by Chris Hayes 2. NBC General Counsel makes three intere

A summary for those who don't have 18 minutes: 1. Excellent introduction and overview of the debate by Chris Hayes 2. NBC General Counsel makes three interesting (cringe-worthy) points: -jobs -this only applies to international sites -the internet is a lawless place 3. He is mostly shot down by Hayes who said if it really only applied to international rogue sites then people wouldn't be making such a big deal about it 4. Alexis makes the points: -the problem of piracy will best be solved by innovation, not legislation -the internet is not a "lawless" place and the DMCA is effective -"piracy is a service problem" ie, if you provide better access to information you will win 5. Random other dude chimes in and says the government did a massive study and can't conclusively say that piracy is killing jobs at all... the entertainment industry is actually growing 6. NBC GC talks a little bit more, mostly being hysterical about how piracy is rampant and terrible. Great job Alexis!!

badclient 15y ago
-"piracy is a service problem" ie, if you provide better access to information you will win I see this argument time and again and as much as I agree with it, it just doesn't sound very convincing to the mainstream argument against piracy. This is gonna be a huge-ass debate and HN, in some ways, is preparing ground for our folks. One of the things I hope we will do is be dicks and challenge the arguments laid out by folks we like and support, including Alexis, so that the next time they go on, they are better prepared. I know personally when I prepared for debates in debate class, I'd purpose take a completely opposite position to my own and try to crush my own arguments. It helped me lots - better me crushing nuances in my arguments than my opponents. To play devil's advocate, here's a counter: Indeed, piracy may be a service problem. But that does not keep it from also being an enforcement problem. Even in the best case scenario where we have optimal innovation, piracy will require enforcement. We believe there isn't enough of enforcement right now. This has little to do with innovation.
- cbs 15y ago
  >Even in the best case scenario where we have optimal innovation, piracy will require enforcement. I disagree. Copyright, at least in the US, was created as a tool to encourage innovation. If innovation is at its maximum potential, there is no need for more enforcement.
- NyxWulf 15y ago
  I agree. In particular I don't find the efficacy argument very strong. Making murder against the law doesn't stop it either, does that mean we should just let it go? China also knows that their censoring doesn't stop everyone, but it stops an awful lot of people. So saying it's not going to work and then criticizing China for censorship feels like talking out of both sides of our mouth. The broader implications are that his has a chilling effect on any type of user generated content and free speech in general. It turns international business entities into enforcement arms for the government. Particularly problematic is that it's an attempt to extend the reach of our laws into jurisdictions with different laws and to do so through a business. People get all fired up when someone violates one of our laws, but they don't like it when China or Muslims attempt to push their laws into our jurisdictions.
  - marshray 15y ago
    There are some pretty big differences between the way the US and Chinese ISPs and societies are organized. In order to make net censorship work, you'd have to turn the US into China in the process. No thank you. I think the argument here is that the Internet was invented, developed, and commercialized in the US and Western Europe (and not in China) precisely because our belief in freedom of communication provided the room for the explosion of communication technology (and all the jobs that enables). If it had been heavily regulated and litigated as SOPA/PIPA propose, it would have taken off somewhere else. Attempts to regulate the flow of information always sound like a great idea to those who propose them. But (aside from it being contradictory to our fundamental values as a nation) what no one can predict is what future revolutionary innovations it will be killing off.
- Natsu 15y ago
  > I see this argument time and again and as much as I agree with it, it just doesn't sound very convincing to the mainstream argument against piracy. People need to be shown, not told. Look at iTunes: it came after Napster, when everyone knew how to get MP3s for free. Or the O'Reilly Safari. Part of the problem is that many businesses don't know how to adapt. Maybe some of them simply aren't capable of doing that for whatever reason. Thing is, I'm convinced that they have to, for their own survival, because I don't believe that piracy will be stopped any time soon, SOPA or no SOPA. So I think the best way to help them recover is to help or convince them move to new ways of doing business, but that's a pretty tall order.
- chernevik 15y ago
  In this context, it's a rhetorical mistake to even engage _their_ concern. They're talking about circumventing core technical and political principles. Who cares why they're doing it? It's stupid, incompetent and dangerous. Once everyone agrees DNS filtering is just wrong, _then_ we can talk about their problems. Otherwise we're just being held hostage. And if that means fewer people care about copyright, well, it's their job to make people care about copyright for the right reasons. Not because they'll otherwise blow things up.
  - badclient 15y ago
    Once everyone agrees DNS filtering is just wrong, _then_ we can talk about their problems. Your response is a perfect example of why we are failing the communication war. We simply want to get to the technical end: dns filtering is wrong. Meanwhile, the opposition is saying: SOPA means more US jobs. You tell me which idea has a better chance of sticking in the average consumer's mind? A better counter would be something like: SOPA means Americans going to jail for watching a YouTube video. Let them counter with "that's not true!". Well, it is as true as saying SOPA means more jobs.
    - chernevik 15y ago
      It's a mistake to get into a shouting match with someone who has the money to shout much louder than you.
      - badclient 15y ago
        Not really sure what you mean by that.
        chernevik 15y ago
        If we answer their lies with our lies, observers have to sort their way through a huge muddle. At that point, the contest comes down who can get their message out the best. And showbiz has the money, and the interest, to buy a lot more airtime than the SOPA opponents. When you're right, you want to move the argument to principles and facts. You don't want the debate muddled, b/c the more people know the likelier they are to agree with you. (Unless you mean that Youtube really does mean jail? I haven't tracked the less bad parts of the bill so closely.)
- wormwood28 15y ago
  Quite right. Especially using Valve -- a company that refuses to disclose anything substantive, but could* play the reddit community, who worships it, like a fiddle -- as the prime example that it's a service problem isn't particularly convincing and should be challenged. * I say 'could'...whether they do or not is unknown to me.
flatline 15y ago
> the DMCA is effective I love this: keep pushing things further out of whack and all of a sudden the previous onerous policies start looking pretty good. The DMCA takedown provisions do give the little guy some power to defend copyright without going to federal court, but there is little recourse when abuse occurs and many of the other provisions of the act were a pure profit taking by industry giants.
- burgerbrain 15y ago
  Seriously. 10 years ago calling the DMCA effective would have made you "one of them". Now we seem to be championing it.
  - chc 15y ago
    Well, several of the more insane parts have been struck down in the intervening years, so it actually is more palatable today.
    - burgerbrain 15y ago
      As long as DMCA takedowns still exist I will refuse to describe it as "palatable".
      - eropple 15y ago
        That's nice. Meanwhile, amongst people who engage in the production of IP, DMCA takedowns are a reasonably fair, easily challengeable method for dealing with copyright infringement. The anti-circumvention parts of the DMCA are insane, but the takedown stuff isn't bad and benefits the little guy just as much as the big guy.
        burgerbrain 15y ago
        You're insane. DMCA takedowns have such absurd abuse potential that it completely overshadows any perceived "benefit" for "people who engage in the production of IP". To say that "big guys" and "little guys" are on equal footing with takedowns is to be willfully ignorant of reality. This completely ignores the blatant due process issues. Aside: WTF? Everyone produces "IP". These are not a separate class of people.
paul9290 15y ago
Indeed it is a service problem, one that Hollywood has faced time and time again. Hollywood's bottom line each time only increased, once they finally were force to innovate. Innovation is the answer and without innovating they are just losing millions/billions of dollars due to their foolishness! Create an Internet license where each site who distributes and or facilitates distribution pays up!
kn0thing 15y ago
Thanks for the recap and all the comments below; I'm doing a heavy post-mortem on this. I really didn't expect him to so adamantly lie like that. And then to first be called out by Chris about it and boldly say "Chris, seriously, that is wrong" and then declare that we're making it up -- that takes stones. I'd really love to know what the best way to confront this in such a format (my first time doing live TV debate). Is it: "No, you're wrong. Anti-circumvention provisions affect US sites, US sites with foreign domain names (like .it) are affected, and US companies who would have to remove links from search results are all examples of how you're wrong." I worry I've lost the average TV viewer by the second sentence. And then there's dealing with someone interrupting you... I'm curious to see what the HN community thinks about optimally handling that one.
- cbo 15y ago
  I'm no expert on debates, but I was paying significantly more attention to your message simply because he was being so rude and obstinate. For your part, you did extremely well to not even acknowledge that he was trying to interrupt you at all. But of course, I walked in with a bias on the subject.
  - CognitiveLens 15y ago
    Echoing cbo a little bit, I agree that you did well dealing with the NBC GC's interruptions - you were steady even when he was trying to jump in, and as long you have a reasonably effective moderator (like Chris in this segment), you will be heard. Creating that contrast is important - rather than letting it escalate on both sides, you get points for sincerity over obstinacy.
- spolsky 15y ago
  This law is too complicated for the average TV viewer to understand. Debating it on the merits is going to make you lose. You have to find counterpoints that the average TV viewer WILL understand. They have to fit comfortably in a tweet. When they say, "This is a jobs bill," you say, "This is a typical big government attempt to meddle in something they don't understand." When they say, "This won't affect American sites," you say, "Search engines don't pirate movies. Neither do Visa or Paypal. Going after them is just unfair." [Note: Search engines. Not DNS. The minute you say DNS you lose.] When they say, "Google profits from pirated software," you say, "Not as much as the congressmen are profiting from the $95 million dollars in lobbyist money that paid for this bill." Other talking points: "How come congress can't seem to agree on anything that matters to the country? Unemployment, the deficit... they're totally gridlocked. But when the entertainment industry pays lobbyists $95 million to get a bill they wrote passed, both Republicans and Democrats line up to co-sponsor it." Trying to say something that actually gets to the merit of the bill is a waste of time on a Sunday morning talk show... it's just too complicated an issue.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
D_Alex 15y ago
Near the very end, Rick Cotton, claims that SOPA would not be restrictive on US businesses and states that "the only thing that can happen is that a search engine or a credit card company has to respond with respect to a specific [foreign] site ... after a judge has made a specific finding after a full due process...", etc. If that is true, the act seems ineffective. How hard would it be to shut down The Pirate Bay and open up an identical site like The Buccaneer Bay, followed by the Corsair Bay etc? Of course this may invite another round of legislation, which would contain more severe provisions... ... or it could be that Cotton is just wrong.
e-dragoev 15y ago
The word "Piracy" was mentioned so many times in this post that I can't resist: Copyright infringement is not "Piracy". The special interests that brainwashed the masses into using the term "Piracy" have scored a major win. Every time you use the term "Piracy" you play by their rules. The situation is the same with the P-A-T-R-I-O-T act. Every time you pronounce it simply as "Patriot Act" - you are playing by the rules of those who crated it.

badclient 15y ago

-"piracy is a service problem" ie, if you provide better access to information you will win I see this argument time and again and as much as I agree with it, it just doesn't sound very convincing to the mainstream argument against piracy. This is gonna be a huge-ass debate and HN, in some ways, is preparing ground for our folks. One of the things I hope we will do is be dicks and challenge the arguments laid out by folks we like and support, including Alexis, so that the next time they go on, they are better prepared. I know personally when I prepared for debates in debate class, I'd purpose take a completely opposite position to my own and try to crush my own arguments. It helped me lots - better me crushing nuances in my arguments than my opponents. To play devil's advocate, here's a counter: Indeed, piracy may be a service problem. But that does not keep it from also being an enforcement problem. Even in the best case scenario where we have optimal innovation, piracy will require enforcement. We believe there isn't enough of enforcement right now. This has little to do with innovation.

cbs 15y ago
>Even in the best case scenario where we have optimal innovation, piracy will require enforcement. I disagree. Copyright, at least in the US, was created as a tool to encourage innovation. If innovation is at its maximum potential, there is no need for more enforcement.
NyxWulf 15y ago
I agree. In particular I don't find the efficacy argument very strong. Making murder against the law doesn't stop it either, does that mean we should just let it go? China also knows that their censoring doesn't stop everyone, but it stops an awful lot of people. So saying it's not going to work and then criticizing China for censorship feels like talking out of both sides of our mouth. The broader implications are that his has a chilling effect on any type of user generated content and free speech in general. It turns international business entities into enforcement arms for the government. Particularly problematic is that it's an attempt to extend the reach of our laws into jurisdictions with different laws and to do so through a business. People get all fired up when someone violates one of our laws, but they don't like it when China or Muslims attempt to push their laws into our jurisdictions.
- marshray 15y ago
  There are some pretty big differences between the way the US and Chinese ISPs and societies are organized. In order to make net censorship work, you'd have to turn the US into China in the process. No thank you. I think the argument here is that the Internet was invented, developed, and commercialized in the US and Western Europe (and not in China) precisely because our belief in freedom of communication provided the room for the explosion of communication technology (and all the jobs that enables). If it had been heavily regulated and litigated as SOPA/PIPA propose, it would have taken off somewhere else. Attempts to regulate the flow of information always sound like a great idea to those who propose them. But (aside from it being contradictory to our fundamental values as a nation) what no one can predict is what future revolutionary innovations it will be killing off.
Natsu 15y ago
> I see this argument time and again and as much as I agree with it, it just doesn't sound very convincing to the mainstream argument against piracy. People need to be shown, not told. Look at iTunes: it came after Napster, when everyone knew how to get MP3s for free. Or the O'Reilly Safari. Part of the problem is that many businesses don't know how to adapt. Maybe some of them simply aren't capable of doing that for whatever reason. Thing is, I'm convinced that they have to, for their own survival, because I don't believe that piracy will be stopped any time soon, SOPA or no SOPA. So I think the best way to help them recover is to help or convince them move to new ways of doing business, but that's a pretty tall order.
chernevik 15y ago
In this context, it's a rhetorical mistake to even engage _their_ concern. They're talking about circumventing core technical and political principles. Who cares why they're doing it? It's stupid, incompetent and dangerous. Once everyone agrees DNS filtering is just wrong, _then_ we can talk about their problems. Otherwise we're just being held hostage. And if that means fewer people care about copyright, well, it's their job to make people care about copyright for the right reasons. Not because they'll otherwise blow things up.
- badclient 15y ago
  Once everyone agrees DNS filtering is just wrong, _then_ we can talk about their problems. Your response is a perfect example of why we are failing the communication war. We simply want to get to the technical end: dns filtering is wrong. Meanwhile, the opposition is saying: SOPA means more US jobs. You tell me which idea has a better chance of sticking in the average consumer's mind? A better counter would be something like: SOPA means Americans going to jail for watching a YouTube video. Let them counter with "that's not true!". Well, it is as true as saying SOPA means more jobs.
  - chernevik 15y ago
    It's a mistake to get into a shouting match with someone who has the money to shout much louder than you.
    - badclient 15y ago
      Not really sure what you mean by that.
      - chernevik 15y ago
        If we answer their lies with our lies, observers have to sort their way through a huge muddle. At that point, the contest comes down who can get their message out the best. And showbiz has the money, and the interest, to buy a lot more airtime than the SOPA opponents. When you're right, you want to move the argument to principles and facts. You don't want the debate muddled, b/c the more people know the likelier they are to agree with you. (Unless you mean that Youtube really does mean jail? I haven't tracked the less bad parts of the bill so closely.)
wormwood28 15y ago
Quite right. Especially using Valve -- a company that refuses to disclose anything substantive, but could* play the reddit community, who worships it, like a fiddle -- as the prime example that it's a service problem isn't particularly convincing and should be challenged. * I say 'could'...whether they do or not is unknown to me.

flatline 15y ago

> the DMCA is effective I love this: keep pushing things further out of whack and all of a sudden the previous onerous policies start looking pretty good. The DMCA takedown provisions do give the little guy some power to defend copyright without going to federal court, but there is little recourse when abuse occurs and many of the other provisions of the act were a pure profit taking by industry giants.

burgerbrain 15y ago
Seriously. 10 years ago calling the DMCA effective would have made you "one of them". Now we seem to be championing it.
- chc 15y ago
  Well, several of the more insane parts have been struck down in the intervening years, so it actually is more palatable today.
  - burgerbrain 15y ago
    As long as DMCA takedowns still exist I will refuse to describe it as "palatable".
    - eropple 15y ago
      That's nice. Meanwhile, amongst people who engage in the production of IP, DMCA takedowns are a reasonably fair, easily challengeable method for dealing with copyright infringement. The anti-circumvention parts of the DMCA are insane, but the takedown stuff isn't bad and benefits the little guy just as much as the big guy.
      - burgerbrain 15y ago
        You're insane. DMCA takedowns have such absurd abuse potential that it completely overshadows any perceived "benefit" for "people who engage in the production of IP". To say that "big guys" and "little guys" are on equal footing with takedowns is to be willfully ignorant of reality. This completely ignores the blatant due process issues. Aside: WTF? Everyone produces "IP". These are not a separate class of people.

paul9290 15y ago

Indeed it is a service problem, one that Hollywood has faced time and time again. Hollywood's bottom line each time only increased, once they finally were force to innovate. Innovation is the answer and without innovating they are just losing millions/billions of dollars due to their foolishness! Create an Internet license where each site who distributes and or facilitates distribution pays up!

kn0thing 15y ago

Thanks for the recap and all the comments below; I'm doing a heavy post-mortem on this. I really didn't expect him to so adamantly lie like that. And then to first be called out by Chris about it and boldly say "Chris, seriously, that is wrong" and then declare that we're making it up -- that takes stones. I'd really love to know what the best way to confront this in such a format (my first time doing live TV debate). Is it: "No, you're wrong. Anti-circumvention provisions affect US sites, US sites with foreign domain names (like .it) are affected, and US companies who would have to remove links from search results are all examples of how you're wrong." I worry I've lost the average TV viewer by the second sentence. And then there's dealing with someone interrupting you... I'm curious to see what the HN community thinks about optimally handling that one.

cbo 15y ago
I'm no expert on debates, but I was paying significantly more attention to your message simply because he was being so rude and obstinate. For your part, you did extremely well to not even acknowledge that he was trying to interrupt you at all. But of course, I walked in with a bias on the subject.
- CognitiveLens 15y ago
  Echoing cbo a little bit, I agree that you did well dealing with the NBC GC's interruptions - you were steady even when he was trying to jump in, and as long you have a reasonably effective moderator (like Chris in this segment), you will be heard. Creating that contrast is important - rather than letting it escalate on both sides, you get points for sincerity over obstinacy.
spolsky 15y ago
This law is too complicated for the average TV viewer to understand. Debating it on the merits is going to make you lose. You have to find counterpoints that the average TV viewer WILL understand. They have to fit comfortably in a tweet. When they say, "This is a jobs bill," you say, "This is a typical big government attempt to meddle in something they don't understand." When they say, "This won't affect American sites," you say, "Search engines don't pirate movies. Neither do Visa or Paypal. Going after them is just unfair." [Note: Search engines. Not DNS. The minute you say DNS you lose.] When they say, "Google profits from pirated software," you say, "Not as much as the congressmen are profiting from the $95 million dollars in lobbyist money that paid for this bill." Other talking points: "How come congress can't seem to agree on anything that matters to the country? Unemployment, the deficit... they're totally gridlocked. But when the entertainment industry pays lobbyists $95 million to get a bill they wrote passed, both Republicans and Democrats line up to co-sponsor it." Trying to say something that actually gets to the merit of the bill is a waste of time on a Sunday morning talk show... it's just too complicated an issue.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

D_Alex 15y ago

Near the very end, Rick Cotton, claims that SOPA would not be restrictive on US businesses and states that "the only thing that can happen is that a search engine or a credit card company has to respond with respect to a specific [foreign] site ... after a judge has made a specific finding after a full due process...", etc. If that is true, the act seems ineffective. How hard would it be to shut down The Pirate Bay and open up an identical site like The Buccaneer Bay, followed by the Corsair Bay etc? Of course this may invite another round of legislation, which would contain more severe provisions... ... or it could be that Cotton is just wrong.

e-dragoev 15y ago

The word "Piracy" was mentioned so many times in this post that I can't resist: Copyright infringement is not "Piracy". The special interests that brainwashed the masses into using the term "Piracy" have scored a major win. Every time you use the term "Piracy" you play by their rules. The situation is the same with the P-A-T-R-I-O-T act. Every time you pronounce it simply as "Patriot Act" - you are playing by the rules of those who crated it.