More And More People Speak Up Against SOPA
from the speak-up dept
With the hearings this morning (more on that later), there were also more statements publicly made against SOPA this morning. Two key ones are, unfortunately, behind Politico's paywall, so I can't link or quote too much. The first, by former Homeland Security Assistant Secretary and former NSA General Counsel, Stewart Baker, was raised a few times during the hearings. Baker focused on the problems of SOPA and PROTECT IP and their impact on online security. He notes that the DNS blocking portions of both bills "run directly counter" to the government's cybersecurity efforts:Because �block and redirect� is exactly what crooks are doing today to bank customers. If the bills become law, the security system won�t be able to tell the difference between sites that have been blocked by law and those that have been sabotaged by hackers. Indeed, it isn�t hard to imagine crooks redirecting users to sites that say, �You were redirected here because the site you asked for has violated copyright,� while at the same time planting malware on the user�s computer.There's much more in the article as well, noting that these laws won't actually help Hollywood and will "leave the rest of us hurting and poorer for years." The really tragic part of the hearing is that when all of the panelists were asked about Baker's statement, every single one of them admitted that they didn't understand the technology enough to really comment. The best that the MPAA's Michael O'Leary could blurt out was that he "didn't agree."
The second interesting piece at Politico comes from famed Constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe, who more or less acts as a counterweight to Floyd Abram's letter. He basically highlights all of the problems we've discussed over the past few weeks: vague definitions, broadly targeted, will impact perfectly legitimate sites. And, he notes clearly: "It would violate the First Amendment."
A key provision of the bill would give copyright owners the power to stop online advertisers and credit card processors from doing business with a website, merely by filing a unilateral notice that the site is �dedicated to the theft of U.S. property� � even if no court has actually found any infringement.Just as we have said in the past. It seems that more and more lawyers are making this point. So far, the pro-SOPA side has Floyd Abrams. He's respected, sure, but so is Tribe and so are many of the other lawyers who have questions SOPA's impact on the First Amendment.
The immunity provisions in the bill create an overwhelming incentive for advertisers and payment processors to comply with such a request immediately upon receipt. Courts have always treated such cutoffs of revenue from speech as a suppression of that speech, and the silencing of expression in the absence of judicial review is a classic prior restraint forbidden by the First Amendment.
Lots of internet companies have come out against the bill as well. Reddit and Tumblr both joined with American Censorship Day, blocking out parts of their site. Tumblr went so far as to blackout their entire dashboard. Along with them Kickstarter and FourSquare both spoke out against the bills as well. These are all platforms that content creators today rely on to create, connect, promote, distribute and monetize their works. In other words, these are the platforms of the future -- the platforms that could be crippled with legal and regulatory compliance under these bills. Burdening them doesn't help content creators. It may help the big record labels and the big studios -- the ones who don't want musicians and filmmakers "going direct" via these platforms... but it doesn't help actual content creators or the public.
Web hosting platform/CDN Cloudflare has weighed in by warning of legal denial of service attacks that would be enabled under the bill:
We've been seeing a disturbing trend recently. Increasingly, we're receiving purported DMCA requests that ask us to identify website hosts that are actually from attackers abusing the legal code. If we reveal the requested information, attacks are launched directly at those hosts, bypassing CloudFlare's protections and knocking legitimate sites offline. Initially, these requests were relatively easy to spot. When we recognized the new attack method, we changed our policies and trained our customer support team to more carefully screen DMCA requests. Increasingly, however, the requests are becoming more sophisticated and difficult to detect.Yes, read that again, because it's downright scary.
Imagine the challenge for someone on CloudFlare's support team. If someone writes to us alleging that they are a photographer who took a picture that appears on a website, or a designer who drew a logo, or an author who wrote some text, how can that claim be verified? I'm an attorney and member of the bar. I teach a course on intellectual property and technology law at the John Marshall Law School. I serve on the Board of the Center for Information Technology and Privacy Law. I've reviewed many of these requests and, even with my training in the subject, I have no idea how to effectively and efficiently tell the difference between valid and invalid complaints.
In an Internet without bad guys, the consequences of revealing a host's information is relatively minimal. Unfortunately, the Internet is full of bad guys. There has been a steady rise in attacks, increasingly affecting legitimate small businesses and ecommerce sites. These attacks have been part of why more than 100,000 websites have sought shelter behind CloudFlare in just the last 12 months. We offer great technical protections to shield sites from attack, but I'm concerned some of our efforts could be undermined by new laws like SOPA.
Mozilla, the makers of Firefox, also joined in, with the following on their website:
Perhaps most interesting of all, even Rep. Zoe Lofgren joined in with American Censorship Day by censoring her own logo on her official House website:
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: copyright, cybersecurity, dns, first amendment, laurence tribe, sopa, stewart baker
Companies: foursquare, kickstarter, reddit, tumblr
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
But I fear, that if SOPA doesn't come through, that the Media Association For Incinerating America (MAFIA or NAMBLA) will come up with another harebrained stupid idea, that's even worse than this one.
It won't end until finally the labels have lost all their cash, the movie studios can't pay their stars and the book publishers have lost all their authors. And even then they are still dangerous.
They are like that scorpion that took a ride on a turtle to cross a stream, only to sting the turtle midstream. They are destroying themselves, and they don't even realize they are doing it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
"Media Association For Incinerating America"
I LOVE IT!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
http://act.demandprogress.org/sign/pipa_house/
Look at where the letter is, write your own, and also put in your country.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I did..this is the response I got.....
Dear $me,
Thank you for contacting me regarding S. 968, the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property (PROTECT IP) Act of 2011. It is good to hear from you.
The PROTECT IP Act was introduced by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) on May 12, 2011. This bill allows the U.S. attorney general to seek court orders requiring U.S.-based search engines and internet service providers to stop providing links to infringing sites, in addition to requiring payment processors and online advertising networks to refrain from conducting business with such sites.
While I believe individuals and entities who possess copyrights and patents deserve to fully benefit from the legal protection afforded them, any legislation of this magnitude must be carefully considered. The PROTECT IP Act was reported by voice vote from the Senate Judiciary Committee and is currently pending before the full Senate for passage. Should this legislation come before the House of Representatives, I assure you I will keep your thoughts in mind.
Again, thank you for contacting me regarding S.968, the PROTECT IP Act of 2011. Please continue to keep me informed of the issues that are important to you, and be sure to visit my website, www.womack.house.gov, for more information.
Sincerely,
Congressman Steve Womack
Member of Congress
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: I did..this is the response I got.....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: I did..this is the response I got.....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Then every pirate has at some point probably been guilty of prior restraint.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: "prior restraint"
Criminal conduct over-rides 1st amendment rights. Tribe is of course removing context.
I don't think pre-emption is a good hook, either, as there'll presumably be no take-downs UNTIL offending links have been published.
BUT if Mike and his pirates wanted to add some stiff penalties for false accusations, I'd be for that. I'm always against falsehoods.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
First, don't use Microsoft Windows.
@ Tribe: Is there NOT a judicial review process? Sure, getting payments stopped immediately and the site taken down COULD be an injury IF falsified, but that can be redressed in subsequent action. Problem is that NOTHING is being done currently about obvious infringement. Rapidshare and others simply shut their eyes and "share" out petabytes a day.
>>> "It may help the big record labels and the big studios -- the ones who don't want musicians and filmmakers "going direct" via these platforms... but it doesn't help actual content creators or the public." -- So your position is that "big record labels and the big studios" aren't "actual content creators"?
@ CloudFlare: What about those whose whole MOVIES are definitely posted online? Just let it go? Phooey. You may just be another company that'll become redundant after SOPA.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: First, don't use Microsoft Windows.
You simply don't get it that the world has moved on from the past, do you? It's adapt or die in this world. The internet has made the gatekeepers irrelevant, and with SOPA they are trying to win back that relevancy. It's futile, because I don't think a single US citizen is going to follow that law whatsoever.
All it will accomplish is that the pirated stuff will go deeper underground, harder to reach by law, but still easier to get than to get the legal alternative (if that's even available).
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: First, don't use Microsoft Windows.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: First, don't use Microsoft Windows.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: First, don't use Microsoft Windows.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: First, don't use Microsoft Windows.
Either way, the amount of exposure that comes out of the net and even infringement is beneficial in many ways. Companies are hurting because of a rough economy. People are downloading more because of a rough economy. It leads to rash decisions being made that make absolutely no sense. They are cutting off their nose to spite their face.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: First, don't use Microsoft Windows.
Idiot. The words "private right to action" apparently haven't sunk into your brain yet, despite the thousands of times we here at Techdirt have mentioned it.
Viacom is in the middle of a billion dollar lawsuit against Youtube. Under SOPA, all it would then have to do is fire off a simple form letter, and Youtube would be cut off from payment processors. Sure, Youtube has the cash on hand to pay for lawyers and counter-sue, but in the meantime, its cut off from income.
As for those who don't have a huge pile of cash on hand? They can either shut down or spend their limited resources counter-suing. Even if they win, they'll have burned through their capital defending themselves in court. They'll have nothing on which to operate. While defending themselves in court, they'll be barred from making an income.
As for "NOTHING is being done about infringement", shut the hell up. Youtube has ContentID, and it and the cyberlockers take down links all the time. They're over-aggressive when it comes to that, in that many innocent people have their links taken down as well. Didn't you hear about Warner Bros. using an automated tool from Hotfile to take down stuff it simply didn't like?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
A key provision of the bill would give copyright owners the power to stop online advertisers and credit card processors from doing business with a website, merely by filing a unilateral notice that the site is �dedicated to the theft of U.S. property� � even if no court has actually found any infringement.
The immunity provisions in the bill create an overwhelming incentive for advertisers and payment processors to comply with such a request immediately upon receipt. Courts have always treated such cutoffs of revenue from speech as a suppression of that speech, and the silencing of expression in the absence of judicial review is a classic prior restraint forbidden by the First Amendment.
Clear to everyone that absent a court order (voluntary) cut off is not a violation. I think as long as notice is attempted that a court order meets the requirements of Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Would you bet your business and livelyhood on that "I think..." ?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I wrote my Senator about SOPA and this is what he said:
Interestingly, this is the exact same boilerplate I got when I wrote about PROTECT IP at the end of August. It appears that he is so bought and paid for that he is not even bothering to update his responses.
My other senator (Kirsten E. Gillibrand D, NY) said thanks for the contact but did not even send a boilerplate response. My Representative (Hinchey, NY 22) has not responded in any way to my contact, although as I recall he has had a pretty decent record on 'net affairs.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: I wrote my Senator about SOPA and this is what he said:
How utterly shocking.
LOL
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: I wrote my Senator about SOPA and this is what he said:
It is already illegal to make copies, it is already illegal to distribute them, there are severe consequences for it and despite all of that people just ignore the law, now what makes you believe that people will stop doing what they are doing if Facebook closes, Twitter closes, Google closes, Hotmail closes?
Can you explain how that bill will stop anyone from copying anything or sharing it?
I say that if politicians don't give a flying fuck about harming business that is fine, people also don't give a flying fuck about imaginary rights that no one can fallow, not even you.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: I wrote my Senator about SOPA and this is what he said:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: I wrote my Senator about SOPA and this is what he said:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: I wrote my Senator about SOPA and this is what he said:
Right now with this scale of piracy, it is basically "open the store and take what you want", everyone makes money off our work but us....Unless you are willing to propose other solutions all of you talk about censorship rings totally hollow.
Content creators are powerless to stop this wholesale theft. Hard to compete with free. DMCA is comletely inadequate, it is like wack a mole and you'd pretty much have to spend your entire day writing them just so fifty more links can be reposted a minute later. Even worse is that the pirates, cyberlockers, the credit card companies, and advertising providers (a la google's ad sense), are all making lots of money off our stolen work. This isn't just about big media companies. Piracy has become big business, so think about who you are really supporting.
And if you do not like this bill maybe it is about time all you people flapping on about free speech propose some real solutions to support content creators. This scale of piracy is totally undermining the creative potential of a generation of artists, filmmakers, writers and musicians.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I need help
But i need to grab their attention somehow. This is scary!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the submission by the "100 Law Professors", many of whose work I have studied over the years, and none of whom I generally associate with significant expertise in constitutional law. Had they taken the time to engage and traverse Mr. Abrams legal opinion, I would have given their work product fair consideration. Unfortunately, and for reasons unknown, they chose a different path, and it is this failing that leaves those of us who study the law to lend it little credence. Perhaps some time in the future they will cure this glaring defect, but until such time their argument in my opinion carries very little, if any, persuasive force.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
When Mike said he didn't like Abrams, he said it was because Abrams was being paid by the MPAA to make his statement. If true, that is a good reason to hold Abrams' opinion suspect. What about the 100 Law Professors?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Look, just because you don't like what they said, doesn't mean that you get to brush off their expertise. Many of those signed onto the letter are extremely well respected in their fields.
And, I might ask: who the hell are you anyway, if you're going to besmirch the reputations of those who signed on to the letter?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
My objection stems from the fact that the letter they presented is in no sense a legal opinion backed up by citations to relevant precedent. If you are going to say something is illegal, then it is incumbent upon you to explain why it is so, and especially if your goal is to provide a persuasive argument.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
sopa
The RIAA needs to quit calling on the rest of the world to pay its social security, and it needs to quit pretending that music and art will die if it does. Music created the giant record companies not the other way around. Music thrived before this oppressive media empire developed from it, and it will thrive long after that empire has fallen.
Empires don't go down without a fight, though. Their time has come. They can either adapt or go extinct. But they do not have the right to rule over us as they have for decades.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
SOPA isn't about battling piracy
No, SOPA is all about control, it's about the gatekeepers trying to gain control back over the distribution methods on the web. They want to be able to tell people what to watch. They hate the cat videos on youtube, and the indie artists on Bandcamp etc and the self-publishing (Lulu for instance), because it removes their gatekeeping control.
They hate it that people can now go around them and still reach an audience. They used to be able to say what the public could watch/read/listen to, and suddenly with the birth of the Internet they couldn't any more.
It isn't about piracy, it never was. It is just used as a crutch, to make Congress think that Big Media was hurting for cash, and that the campaign funds from that side could dry up.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Why is that so interesting? She's pimping for her Silicon Valley contributors.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It scares me to think of our future is SOPA passes
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: It scares me to think of our future is SOPA passes
[ link to this | view in chronology ]