Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012

SOPA on the ropes?

Can Congress craft legislation to combat online piracy without becoming Big Brother?

Paul Reynolds, of The Digitel Myrtle Beach, a hyper-local news site that went dark in protest of SOPA/PIPA on Jan. 18.
Photo by Steve Jessmore sjessmore@thesunnews.com

 

Did you head to Wikipedia on Jan. 18 to settle a heated debate only to find a blackout screen?

By now, you’ve probably heard about SOPA and PIPA, but what does it all mean, and why did some of the Web’s most popular players go dark in protest a little more than a week ago?

No, SOPA isn’t the newest product from Johnson & Johnson and PIPA isn’t going to make your food taste any better. The Stop Online Piracy Act, also known as SOPA or H.R. 3261, and Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act, also known as PIPA or S. 968, are two pieces of controversial legislation that have gotten a lot of buzz lately, but what to do they mean for the average person?

For starters, it could have meant the potential end of social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. It also could have meant the end to streaming media sites like Youtube or Grooveshark. It also would have meant larger corporations would have the power to strike down smaller start-ups if they got too close to their copyrights on the Web. When does the protection of copyrighted material become Draconian censorship?

It looked like the two bills were on the fast track to becoming law, and any outcry against them was falling on deaf ears. Luckily, a flex of Internet muscle from some very big name Websites finally made politicians take notice and put both bills on hold, if only temporarily. Here’s the quick and dirty on the two bills, how they would work if made law as is, where South Carolina representatives stand on the issues, the growing fear surrounding them, and the local business who are taking a stand against them. Finally, with the recent tabling of the bills, we take a look at if the free Internet is really out of the woods yet or if these bills are just lurking in the darkness, waiting to return. The bills may be back at the drawing board, but the debate rages on.

Property protection

At their hearts, both bills are about protecting any kind of intellectual property from pirates. This applies to music, art, photography, films, anything with a copyright. SOPA also aims to stop trafficking of counterfeit goods. PIPA would block sites that give access to pirated products. This would target Web sites such as Piratebay, which allows users to share files peer-to-peer, and file sharing sites including Megaupload, where users can download entire files directly. Well, that doesn’t sound so bad, does it? “Don’t steal my stuff” is a pretty basic request. Heck, it’s a commandment.

The mounting outcry against the bills is not so much about the “Why?” There is no question that creators deserve to profit and be credited for their works and theft of intellectual property is wrong. The rub is the fear of what could happen to the Internet as we know it, and any future innovators, if these bills were passed and taken to the extreme. Some critics of the bills say they are overreaching when there are already laws in place to protect copyrighted material. Others fear the broad strokes and vague language of the bills could be a step into an Orwellian future of corporate censorship if they become law.

Where did these bills come from and how do they work? Glad you asked.

SOPA was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on Oct. 26 by Judiciary Committee Chair Representative Lamar Smith (R - Texas). The bill, if passed, would allow copyright holders to seek out legal action against entire Web sites for the copyright infringement of a single user. This means if you uploaded something illegally, now it’s not just your problem, it’s Youtube’s problem. Why is this a big deal? Up until now, there’s been a little something called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Often referred to as a safe-harbor provision, the DMCA, protected service providers from being responsible for the actions of their users. If SOPA came into law, this would not be the case.

Simply put, under SOPA as proposed, if a Web site is even capable of hosting content that has an existing copyright, the owner of the copyright can go after the site directly. For example, if an aspiring musician were to record a cover version of a copyrighted song and post it on a video sharing Web site such as Youtube, the record label could legally take action against Youtube for the infringement of the user. They could even go to the extreme of shutting the entire site down with no due process and no prior notification based on that single infraction. Another analogy would be if Smith & Wesson were to be held responsible for a robbery committed using one of its guns. How’s that for putting it in perspective? But what about the so-called “criminal” in our Youtube example? No one gets away clean with SOPA. The uploader of the content could face jail time for up to five years for uploading the copyrighted material. That’s for one upload of a single copyrighted song.

But, that all seems really extreme, right? Would entertainment corporations really take it that far? Perhaps. Jammie Thomas, a 32-year-old single mother of two was hit with a $220,000 penalty by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for sharing 24 songs on peer-to-peer service Kazaa. That’s $9,250 per song. She fought the penalty...and lost. Stephanie Lenz, a mother in Pennsylvania posted a 30-second video on Youtube of her son dancing. The song in the background, which is hardly discernible, is Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy.” Claiming the video violated copyright, Universal, which owns the copyright to the song, had Youtube pull the video. Lenz now has a pending lawsuit against Universal stating the music is fair use. If these are the kinds of cases showing up without SOPA and PIPA, how much further would behemoths like Universal go if given the extra authority the bills would offer?

SOPA could be applied not only to Youtube, but any site where a user could upload content they did not hold a copyright to. This includes sites such as Facebook, Imgur, Reddit, Vimeo, Photobucket, Twitter, anywhere a copyright could potentially be infringed upon. Sites featuring music such as SoundCloud and Grooveshark would be hit hard by this legislation. According to the wording of the bill, as long as there is “reasonable belief” of infringement, the site can be shut down with no due process, no court order. And, yes, let’s just go ahead and talk about the gorilla in the room. The bills also apply to porn and the sites hosting all funny videos that people keep forwarding you. If it’s copyrighted and it’s streaming or posted, the owner could bring down the whole site. But, hey, that might free up a lot of time for some folks.

PIPA, introduced to the U.S. Senate on May 12 by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D – Vermont), is actually a re-written version of the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) of 2010, which failed to pass. It’s basically SOPA’s sister from another mister. It allows corporations to seek legal action against any Web site, U.S. or otherwise, that may enable copyright infringement. Why “U.S. or otherwise?” Because plenty of pirate Web sites are outside of U.S. borders.

The goal of this bill is to give a means to shut down unauthorized sites where music, television shows, and video games can be downloaded without purchase by punishing sites within the U.S. for giving access to them. The bill would result in U.S. Internet providers blocking access to Web sites that copyright holders deem “enabling of infringement.” This extends to suing search engines, blog sites, or any site in general that could potentially give access to a blacklisted site. PIPA would also lets companies sue any site they feel isn’t doing its filtering well enough. “Sorry Google, shouldn’t have let that pirate site slip through. Howzabout a lawsuit?”

Where SOPA goes after the illegal content, PIPA goes after the sites that are the distributors of the content. This could be a major problem for search engines as they would have to self police and exist in constant fear of not doing it well enough. These bills could also result in social media sites like Facebook or Twitter screening and policing all of the links that users upload and preemptively censoring posts.

PIPA additionally gives corporations the power to force advertisers to close the accounts of infringing Web sites, cutting off a major source of revenue for the Web site in an attempt to shut it down.

Palmetto State Politics and Loopholes

But what about our South Carolina representatives? What do they think of all this? In a recent tweet, Sen. Jim DeMint (R - Greenville) stated, “I support intellectual property rights, but oppose SOPA and PIPA. They are misguided bills that will cause more harm than good.” South Carolina’s U.S. Congressman Tim Scott (R- Charleston) tweeted that while he doesn’t support piracy, “SOPA [is] not a good option and don’t support it in its current form.” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-Seneca), initially a co-sponsor of the PIPA bill, recently told Charleston’s Post and Courier that opponents to the bill "have raised some really legitimate questions,” adding “if this bill can be made better, let’s do it," sending a message that he too may be thinking twice about supporting the legislation.

Opponents of the legislation have several very big problems with the wording of the bills, which they argue is ambiguous at best, but also with the repercussions for the Internet as we know it. Experts argue that the method which PIPA would use to block what it considers “rogue sites” would damage the structural integrity and of the actual Internet, rendering it less stable and less secure.

The planned method of blocking sites with PIPA, known as DNS blocking, would mean that the basic way the Internet works would have to be rewritten, essentially tricking your browser into redirecting you away from the requested site. The real problem with that is it is easily circumvented by typing in a series of numbers that correlates to whatever Web site you’re trying to get to. If you know the numbers, called an IP address, you can still get to the site, rendering the block totally useless. Too complicated? There are already browser plug-ins developed by free Internet-minded proponents that do the hard work for you. Install the work around add-on, no more blocked Internet. By implementing the blocking, all PIPA would really do is that it would force users who still wanted access to restricted sites to take the less secure work around instead of simply using the actual Web site’s address to get to the site.

Stifling innovation?

Another big fear is that SOPA and PIPA could stop any future innovation. Startups would have a harder time getting funding because they would be viewed as a risky venture when corporations can play fast and loose with their shutdowns. The digital market would be filled with exactly what the media giants in power would want you to see.

In their original forms, SOPA and PIPA could have blacked out major parts of the Internet, but several sites, including Myrtle Beach’s own TheDigitel, beat the government to it in a 24-hour blackout of their pages Jan. 18. Others, such as Myrtle Beach’s own Fuel Interactive and Twitter, stood in solidarity with the blackout participants, while still offering their services. Online reference Web site Wikipedia led the charge against the bills, joining with approximately 10,000 Web sites, including Craigslist, Wired, Reddit, and Boing Boing. Visitors to most of the sites were met with a warning that this is what the Internet could look like if the bills were made law. Some even included bullet lists of exactly what was wrong with the bills to educate their readers. Even the search engine Google redacted its logo for the day in protest by placing a large black bar over it for the day.

“This is something the Internet industry has monitored for a long time,” said Stuart Butler, Chief Operating Officer of Fuel Interactive, a digital marketing and advertising agency located in Myrtle Beach. Fuel Interactive sent out a press release the day of the blackout voicing its stand against SOPA and PIPA. In the release, Butler also said, “One of the things that makes this country great is the freedom people have, especially freedom on the Internet. If passed, this legislation would hinder that freedom and send a powerful, negative message across the world.” When asked how the bills becoming law would affect his clients, Butler stated , “It would (affect) our clients dramatically. Marketing has become more of a conversation with the consumer,” adding that clients are often communicated with via social media in this new and changing market. Butler also said that the bills were certain to be a point of discussion at Myrtle Beach’s upcoming New South Digital Conference on March 26, where many of the crowned heads of the Internet will be meeting to discuss the future of digital marketing.

In a recent e-mail interview, Paul Reynolds, of the Myrtle Beach online hyper local news site TheDigitel said, “My personal opinion is that it was poorly thought out but [was] not well intentioned. Let’s face it – the major proponents of the bills, the film and television industry, don’t understand how the Internet fundamentally works. If they did, they wouldn’t be turning to legislation to fix their broken businesses. The irony is if they were willing to let go of their antiquated business models, they would make much bigger profits and could use the resources spent on lobbying legislators to create more original content.” Reynolds went on to say that, during the blackout, TheDigitel actually received above average traffic.

It’s important to note that a stand against SOPA and PIPA is not a stand for piracy. Both local businessmen Butler and Reynolds made sure to stress that. “We are opposed to piracy and infringements on copyright and intellectual property,” said Butler. “We already have great respect for our media partners’ intellectual property and take it very seriously. That is why you’ll never see excerpted text or photos from another media outlet unless we have received prior permission from them,” said Reynolds. When asked about his stance on piracy Reynolds replied, “I think the value proposition for pirating content and software has quickly diminished in the past few years. There are lots of great online services that make it incredibly convenient and affordable to obtain exactly what you’re looking for in a legitimate, legal way. My impression is that the majority of digital content that is pirated today is either not available by convenient and fairly priced means. Either that or the pirate simply isn’t willing to pay for the value they are receiving which isn’t truly a lost customer or revenue in my opinion.” With the falling price of digital audio through services like iTunes, and Amazon, or the totally free services such as Internet radio or Grooveshark, is the idea of a compromise between the consumer and the corporations really such a long shot?

Not dead yet

Following the Internet blackout of Jan. 18, SOPA was shelved indefinitely by Congress and several representative dropped their support for the bill. The Obama Administration also finally made a statement on the bills. A blog from the White House Web site reads that the Obama Administration said that it will oppose any legislation that “reduces freedom of expression, increases cyber security risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.” In its current form, SOPA will not fly, many legislators have said. PIPA has been withdrawn as of press time as well, narrowly missing its date with the Senate that had been set for Tuesday.

The quick retreat by lawmakers was being heralded as a watershed moment, a victory for the Internet and the Digital Generation.

Then we’re safe, right?

Not really. The bills have gone back to the drawing board, but are not gone. When asked if he thought the free, Wild West, anything goes Internet was in the clear, Reynolds responded, “I think in this election year, we’ve heard the last of SOPA/PIPA. But, with the money invested into getting the legislation as far as it did, I wouldn’t expect those stakeholders to just let the general sentiment just disappear. The biggest concern would be sneaking something in under the radar once everyone cools off.”

Where is the solution then? In the words of the White House Blog, “This is not just a matter for legislation. We expect and encourage all private parties, including both content creators and Internet platform providers working together, to adopt voluntary measures and best practices to reduce online piracy.” If corporations believe that the existing measures are not enough, they must find a way to either adapt to the new marketplace, or propose measures that will not compromise the liberties of others or prevent new innovations before they can even begin.

Butler, like many others, hopes that lawmakers and experts can work together in a way that thwarts piracy without treading on liberty.

“I am extremely pleased that lawmakers have listened to the voices of the people. The intent of this legislation was admirable. It was simply flawed and would have resulted in senseless restrictions and frivolous lawsuits. It’s important to note that this is just a temporary delay. The problem of international piracy is still very real and is costing this country billions of dollars each year. It is a problem that still needs to be addressed,” he said.

If some kind of compromise cannot be reached, there is a very real chance that users will find that the bills were not dead, only sleeping.