Writer's Block: Stop Online Piracy Act

[eowyn_315]

Today, Congress holds hearings on the first American Internet censorship system.
This bill can pass. If it does the Internet and free speech will never be the same. [Learn more here.]

Do you support this bill?

First, let me say that this question is absurdly biased.

Second, yes, I support the bill, and not just because I'm being paid to. :) I generally

Comments

[eowyn_315]

Yeah, a lot of Silicon Valley is opposed to it. Frankly, for a lot of them, it's simply about the bottom line. Google doesn't want the bill to pass, because if it does, it means they would lose a lot of ad revenue from all these infringing sites that they're no longer allowed to do business with. Visa is opposed to it because they want the transaction fees from all the credit card payments on the infringing sites. You get the idea.

As for the potential unintended consequences, there are four main arguments that I've seen:

1. It's a violation of the First Amendment.
2. It will "break the internet."
3. Third-party companies (i.e. search engines, ISPs, payment processors, and ad networks) would be liable for infringing sites.

The first one is totally bunk. Last I checked, stealing wasn't covered under freedom of speech. You know what IS protected by the Constitution, though? Copyrights. Numerous court decisions support the right of intellectual property.

The opposition makes a lot of noise about legal content being taken down along with the illegal stuff. If that were true, yes, that'd be a free speech concern. But that's patently false, going by the definition in the bill - to meet the standard, a website has to be primarily dedicated to infringement. The burden of proof is set pretty high precisely to prevent abuse. We're talking TVShack, the Pirate Bay, sites that are pretty much exclusively set up to distribute pirated content, not Twitter or Facebook, which by and large are designed for totally lawful purposes. A few people misusing it doesn't make it an infringing site. Also, as I said in my post, those sites are dot-coms, which means they're considered domestic sites - if they were infringing, US law already allows them to be taken down. They haven't been.

If you're up for some First Amendment law study, Floyd Abrams, a respected Constitutional scholar has a detailed analysis of the legislation here, as well as letters of support from Attorneys General across the country. (Also lots of reports on the impact of piracy! I know you like reports!)

The second one is also pretty unfounded. It's a little over my head, so I'm not sure I could explain the technical stuff, but essentially, they have a problem with the DNS blocking - if TVShack is deemed an infringing site, ISPs get a court order to block the site from US users. When you type in tvshack.bz, the URL won't resolve and you can't go to the website. They claim that this will cause security problems (making things easier to hack, maybe? I'm not sure). But the fact is - they already do this! DNS blocking is used for things like child pornography (which everyone seems to agree doesn't qualify for free speech protection). And no one has suggested THAT might break the internet.

Frankly, though, our section of the coalition isn't too wedded to the DNS blocking provision. It's probably enough to get the payment processors and ad networks - if the sites can't make money, they'll shut themselves down - so we'd happily give on the DNS blocking if that was a major sticking point. Alas, we are not the only ones who get a say, haha.

The third point, that third parties would be held liable, is directly contradicted in the bill. It's made very clear that third parties are not liable for anything - and in fact are protected from lawsuits if they choose to voluntarily take steps to block infringing sites.

There's a Myths vs. Facts document on the website I linked, which goes into more detail about the arguments. One of the things I've found, though, is that the opposition tends to deal in hypotheticals - "well, this MIGHT happen, or this COULD be used the wrong way" - without any evidence that it WILL hurt anyone. (Which, I would note, are the same arguments that were trotted out around the Grokster case and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act - and actually, the opposite happened. Internet-based innovation has thrived in the wake of those decisions, not been stymied as was suggested would happen.)

[eowyn_315]

Hahahaha, I can totally count, I swear.

I didn't leave out a fourth argument - I combined the first two into #1 and forgot to change the "four" to a "three." Oops.

[gabrielleabelle]

Thanks for the info. I tried to look at a link to the fact sheet on the site you linked to, but I got a 404 error.

One of the things I've found, though, is that the opposition tends to deal in hypotheticals - "well, this MIGHT happen, or this COULD be used the wrong way" - without any evidence that it WILL hurt anyone.

Okay, but honestly? I can see the concern there. After all, my objection to that annoying personhood amendment in MS was over what COULD and MIGHT happen as a result. And even though the supporters of the amendment tried to assure everyone that it wouldn't, that doesn't exactly assuage my concerns. This is a similar thing, and that's why I'd really like to find something that breaks down the language in the bill so I can see exactly what it might be opening things up to. I'm not impressed with the random protest articles that just make wide claims that I'm supposed to take on faith, but I'm not impressed either with refutations that I'm also supposed to take on faith.

[eowyn_315]

Well, the key part of my comment is the without any evidence that it WILL hurt anyone. With the personhood amendment, you had examples of where what might happen was actually happening in some places. I'd say that's pretty good evidence.

U.S. law already provides the authority to shut down infringing domestic websites, so theoretically, these hypothetical misuses could already be taking place. If that were the case, you'd think Google and Facebook and the rest would be shouting it from the rooftops, saying, "Look at all these sites that are being censored!" They're not. In fact, they acknowledge that piracy is a problem. They just can't be bothered to fix it.

Not sure why you had trouble with the link - I just tried it and it worked fine for me, but I can email you the PDFs if it's still not working.

[gabrielleabelle]

It's the "Fact Sheet: Section by Section breakdown of SOPA" on this page that isn't working. Might be the space in the title, actually.

I've spent the morning doing some reading, and I'm sorry. I think I'm gonna disagree with you on this one. I think there are some things that concern me about how broadly the bill is written and the potential consequences thereof. I still would have spoken out against the personhood amendment without the evidence you require, so we have a difference in tolerance there. I'm not gonna join the protest against SOPA, though, cause, really, I'm busy and choose to focus my attention on other issues.

[eowyn_315]

Oh, I have that one. Emailed it to you.

NO NO NO WE HAVE TO AGREE ON EVERYTHING! Nah, it's cool. At least you took the time to educate yourself before making a decision. I can respect that. :)