Lobbyists Ramp Up Pressure To Get PROTECT IP Passed

from the but-of-course dept

The world's largest lobbying organization, the US Chamber of Commerce (which thrives off the fact that many people mistake it for a US government body), along with the biggest lobbyists representing the recording and movie industry, have ramped up their efforts to get PROTECT IP approved as quickly as possible. The groups held a conference on Capitol Hill and then began visiting Senators to talk about how much they needed this protectionism, because they're unable to adapt to a dynamic internet where they're no longer the gatekeepers. Who's doing this? Well, along with the Chamber of Commerce, we have NBC Universal, Sony Music and Pictures, Walt Disney Company, the MPAA, the RIAA, News Corp. (watch your voicemails, senators), the National Association of Theater Owners, Warner Music and the American Federation of Musicians.

Basically it's a who's who of those who want to change the internet from a communications platform into a simple broadcast medium that they can control.

And, of course, Steven Tepp, the main guy at the Chamber of Commerce (and a former government official with a history of mocking concerns of consumers when it comes to copyright issues) trotted out totally debunked stats:

"IP-intensive industries are responsible for the jobs of 19 million Americans, $7.7 trillion of our gross output, and 60 percent of U.S. exports."

Note the basic fallacy here. It assumes that "IP-intensive industries" only exist due to stricter IP laws. This is false. In fact, some of the most "IP intensive industries" around, such as the tech industry, are opposed to this law. That the Chamber of Commerce would stoop so low as to include those who are against this law in its argument for why this law should be passed really just highlights the kind of sleazy politicking the organization is famous for.

Either way, there's no doubt (there's never been any doubt) that PROTECT IP was introduced with tremendous support from certain lobbying groups who have tremendous sway in DC. They've actually come up against more roadblocks than they expected, but they're not going to let that stop them. This is the first stage of the endgame to get the law passed. To be honest, I'm surprised they've even had to go this far, because from the beginning it looked like they had the easy support. The fact that they felt the need to break out this little stunt shows that the opposition to PROTECT IP has actually drummed up enough noise that some politicians are concerned about the very real unintended consequences of the law.

And while politicians may be confused and send back the wrong form letters, don't let that stop you from at least making your voice heard. The folks at DemandProgress (with whom I have no direct connection, even if the MPAA will claim otherwise) have set up an easy form to use to make your voice heard. The EFF has set up a similar form. Both of these let you edit the form and say what you want, and making an impassioned and reasoned (and calm) argument in your own words is much more powerful than just submitting the form letter. Of course, the entertainment industry has set up its own form letter generator too -- but it's completely uneditable. In their world, creativity from the people is not allowed. Only the big industry gatekeepers are allowed to be creative.

Filed Under: lobbyists, protect ip
Companies: chamber of commerce, disney, mpaa, nbc universal, news corp., riaa

Killing The Golden Goose: Is Hollywood To Blame For Netflix's Poorly Thought Out Massive Price Hike?

from the what-blockbuster-and-walmart-couldn't-kill... dept

If you remember back a decade ago, Netflix was definitely the darling of the modern movie rental business, but there was concern everywhere that the "little startup" was about to get killed when bigger competitors entered the market. After all, Walmart itself created a near-identical copycat offering in 2002. In 2004, Amazon started kicking the tires on a Netflix-like offering as well (amusingly, Netflix broke the news of Amazon's impending arrival in the market, effectively deflating some of the hype for Amazon's own announcement). And, of course, all along there was Blockbuster. The king of movie rentals in the 90s was going to destroy Netflix with its own offering, leveraging its brick-and-mortar stores, according to the common wisdom.

Exactly none of that played out the way people expected. Netflix continued to grow, and successfully expanded into video streaming, rather than just DVD rentals, with a very convenient flat-rate program. Walmart gave up on its Netflix-like business in 2005, and actually handed over the keys to Netflix, to let it run Walmart's online movie rental business. Amazon realized it couldn't really compete with DVD rentals and never brought that business to the US. Blockbuster tried over and over again to compete, but never got much traction, went bankrupt, and eventually was bought by Dish Network earlier this year.

Meanwhile, Netflix has continued to thrive, and plenty of people have pointed to its online streaming, which represents a giant chunk of US internet traffic, as an example of how if you provide a convenient, user-friendly and well-priced offering, you can compete with unauthorized file sharing. With Netflix, the company seems to realize that it's that convenience and access that people are paying for, rather than the content itself.

But, of course, as with so many things involving technology and services that make content more valuable, the copyright holders get jealous and start complaining that they're not making enough. With Netflix's growing power, the studios have been on the warpath to cripple Netflix in protest of the current pricing scheme. In some ways, they really hate some of Netflix's early deals, which allowed the company to offer such a convenient and reasonably priced offering. Pretty much all of the later online streaming movie offerings are, instead, forced to play by the big studios' rules, which makes most of those services totally undesirable.

This has also resulted in some fights with studios directly, and some studios even pulling movies from Netflix.

Given all that, it's hardly a surprise that Netflix decided it needed to raise its prices around 60% for many users. AS you've probably heard, they've basically separated the physical DVD rentals and the online streaming, which used to be included with most accounts. Now you have to pay for each separately, so to get what people had before, their bills are going up quite a bit.

The result of this announcement has been all over the internet (including Netflix's blog and Facebook page), and it would be safe to say that everyone hates the new pricing with a passion. It's incredibly aggressive on the pricing front, but it's not difficult to see why Netflix did this. First, the competitive playing field looks a lot clearer today than it did a few years ago. When companies have no real competition, they jack up prices massively.

Second, however, I'd bet that Netflix is currently in a battle to control its destiny behind closed doors with Hollywood. The studios are demanding lots more cash than in the past, and Netflix seems to think that jacking up prices quite a lot is one way to get the necessary revenue. But Hollywood, of course, couldn't care much less if Netflix survives. They still think that their endorsed crappy online services, with their DRM and massive limitations, is legitimate competition.

So while some are blaming Netflix for the giant price hike, I think it makes more sense to look at the studios and their unwillingness to fully embrace Netflix, always worrying that it would "take away" from their existing business lines.

Filed Under: internet, movies, pricing
Companies: mpaa, netflix

ISP's Five Strikes Plan: Railroading, MPAA/RIAA-Style

from the guilty-until-proven-innocent dept

Another day, and more questions are being raised about the "voluntary" (if you consider the US government telling ISPs they had better agree to something, "voluntary") agreement by ISPs to act as copyright cops and punish people accused (not convicted) of infringement. We already have a big issue with any plan that's based on accusations, rather than convictions. If the history of the DMCA has taught us anything, it's that people abuse these accusations regularly, and it can create massive unintended consequences and chilling effects. It's sad that ISPs would agree to such a program in the first place, but the details keep making it seem even worse.

We've already pointed out that it'll cost you $35, if you want to protest your innocence, but that's just the beginning. You see, you can't just protest your innocence. Oh no. That would be way too forgiving. Instead, you're limited to one of only six defenses, which some have pointed out fall way short of what copyright law allows. In other words, even if you aren't violating someone's copyright, just because you're accused of doing so, you might not even effectively be able to show that you're innocent, if your defense isn't one of the six official ones.

That's pretty ridiculous.

The official (misnumbered -- there's no fifth defense) list is as follows:

(i) Misidentification of Account - that the ISP account has been incorrectly identified as one through which acts of alleged copyright infringement have occurred.

(ii) Unauthorized Use of Account - that the alleged activity was the result of the unauthorized use of the Subscriber’s account of which the Subscriber was unaware and that the Subscriber could not reasonably have prevented.

(iii) Authorization - that the use of the work made by the Subscriber was authorized by its Copyright Owner.

(iv) Fair Use - that the Subscriber’s reproducing the copyrighted work(s) and distributing it/them over a P2P network is defensible as a fair use.

(vi) Misidentification of File - that the file in question does not consist primarily of the alleged copyrighted work at issue.

(vii) Work Published Before 1923 - that the alleged copyrighted work was published prior to 1923.

Take, for example, that last one. Note that it doesn't say "work is in the public domain." It just says "work was published before 1923," meaning that the work is probably (though, with sound recordings, not definitely) in the public domain. Why not just have a defense that says "work is in the public domain"? There are works that were published after 1923 that are in the public domain -- including works that people put into the public domain, or other works that were published after 1923 and before 1978, which didn't have a copyright notice (among some other options). So why aren't those allowed as defenses?

It appears that you can get into serious trouble here even if you're sharing public domain works.

Even worse, the plan says that you can use the defense that you have an open WiFi network only once:

Except as set forth herein, this defense may be asserted by a Subscriber only one (1) time to give the Subscriber the opportunity to take steps to prevent future unauthorized use of the Subscriber’s account. Any subsequent assertion of this defense by a Subscriber shall be denied as barred, unless the Subscriber can show by clear and convincing evidence that the unauthorized use occurred despite reasonable steps to secure the Internet account and that the breach of such security could not reasonably have been avoided.

This assumes that open WiFi is a mistake, rather than a choice. There are plenty of good reasons why one might want to offer an open WiFi connection, and there are ways to do so safely. But under this plan, they could get in trouble for it, despite it being perfectly legal.

So, let's see: under this plan, people are guilty until proven innocent, they have to pay to protest their innocence, their "defenses" are greatly limited, they can still get in trouble for sharing public domain content... and they can get in trouble for offering a perfectly legitimate open WiFi network. I'm curious how that's helping to "win the future," as IP Czar Victoria Espinel stated in response to this "voluntary" deal.

Filed Under: challenges, copyright, defenses, five strikes
Companies: mpaa, riaa

Judge Drops Key Claim In MPAA's Case Against Hotfile: Cyberlocker Didn't Directly Infringe

from the a-good-start dept

The MPAA has recently decided that "cyberlockers" are enemy number one on its most wanted list, even though they serve perfectly legitimate purposes. As something of a test case, the MPAA sued Hotfile (and its owner, directly) with an astonishingly weak case. After reading it, we were surprised that it didn't include more detail. The case seemed full of conjecture and claims that simply didn't match with reality. While I still think the main show is whether or not Hotfile is guilty of secondary infringement via inducement, the MPAA was certainly betting on a direct infringement claim to be a key part of the argument.

Thankfully, the judge wasted little time in dismissing the direct infringement claims. The judge points out, as we did in our initial post on the lawsuit, that the MPAA's weak filing fails to point out any evidence of direct infringement:

"Nothing in the complaint alleges that Hotfile or Mr. Titov took direct, volitional steps to violate the plaintiffs' infringement. There are no allegations, say, that Hotfile uploaded copyrighted material. Therefore, under the great weight of authority, the plaintiffs have failed to allege direct copyright infringement."

Where this becomes really important is that it means that Hotfile may be protected by the DMCA's safe harbors. Direct infringement isn't covered by the safe harbors. Now, the case will shift (among other things) to see whether or not (like YouTube and Veoh) Hotfile has correctly met the conditions to get safe harbor protection. Of course, it's entirely likely that the MPAA, in its quixotic quest, will appeal this particular part of the ruling, but next time, they should try to provide some actual evidence of direct infringement rather than just insisting that it must be true.

Filed Under: copyright, cyberlocker, direct infringement, dmca, infringement, safe harbors
Companies: hotfile, mpaa

Major US ISPs Agree To Five Strikes Plan, Rather Than Three

from the how-unfortunate dept

Well, this is hardly a surprise, given the leaks about this last month, but most of the major US ISPs have agreed to a "voluntary graduated response" plan at the urging of the RIAA and the MPAA (with some shoving from the US government).

In our original discussion, we noted that ISPs would have the option to kick people off the web entirely, and in our comments we were attacked by an anonymous person involved in the negotiations, saying we made that up. And yet, the agreement today confirms that kicking users off the web entirely is a possible measure for these ISPs. Of course, the folks behind the plan were careful to try to talk their way around this. They say that it's only the web that gets blocked. Email (um, not if you use web-based email), VoIP "or any security or health service (such as home security or medical monitoring)" will still be allowed to go through. Also the agreement explicitly says that they're not talking about killing anyone's account. This is disingenuous, of course. For most people, having their web access blocked is as good as losing your account entirely. Access to the web is pretty much the whole point of an internet access account these days.

Participating ISPs include AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Verizon and Time Warner Cable -- also known as pretty much the only choices the vast majority of Americans have for serious broadband connections. The basics of the plan are a "five strike" plan, rather than the traditional "three." After the fifth strike (and by strike, we mean accusation, not conviction), the ISPs can resort to "mitigation measures":

If, after these educational and acknowledgment alerts, the subscriber’s account still appears to be engaged in content theft, the ISP will send yet another alert. At this time, the ISP may take one of several steps, referred to as “Mitigation Measures” reasonably calculated to stop future content theft. These Mitigation Measures may include, for example: temporary reductions of Internet speeds, redirection to a landing page until the subscriber contacts the ISP to discuss the matter or reviews and responds to some educational information about copyright, or other measures (as specified in published policies) that the ISP may deem necessary to help resolve the matter.

Now, the interesting question: will any of this get people to actually buy music and movies again? That seems doubtful. And, of course, it's worth noting that even with this in place, the MPAA and RIAA are insisting that PROTECT IP is necessary. Funny, I thought that the problem was solved once graduated response was in place.

Those behind the plan bend over backwards to claim this is just an "educational" plan. But education plans don't mean people can no longer access the web. Words mean something. On top of that you can pretty much bet that the "education materials" that will be provided will be typically one-sided and misleading.

The other problem with the plan is that it's still based on accusations, rather than convictions, and if the DMCA has taught us anything, it's that people make false claims of infringement all the time. And if you get an alert that you think is wrong? Well, you have to pay to have it reviewed. Now suddenly this can become a "profit center" for ISPs.

Is this plan as bad as three strikes plans found in Europe and Asia? No. But it's still a bad plan. Anything that involves crippling your internet access based on accusations is ripe for serious abuse. Furthermore, there is little to no evidence that this will actually help the RIAA or MPAA and their associated companies. This is yet another case where the industry is so focused on "piracy" they forgot that they have to actually give people reasons to buy. The problem isn't piracy. The problem is their inability to adapt to a changing market.

Filed Under: copyright, entertainment industry, graduated response, isps
Companies: at&t, cablevision, comcast, mpaa, riaa, time warner cable, verizon

MPAA: Forget National Security, This Is About Internet Security!

from the it's-the-worst-thing-of-all...oh-wait,-it's-just-a-botnet dept

Just the other day, famed troll-magnet Marcus Carab and I were discussing my fear of diving too deeply into HTML code.  What am I afraid of, you ask? Well, because I'm an idiot, part of me believes that there is some kind of HTML super code out there that, if inputted into a simple blog post, would literally undo the internet.  Techdirt itself would simply fade away into dissolved binary.  It'd be a great disturbance, as though millions of lolcats meowed out in terror and were suddenly silenced.  Exposed Sony customer information would just melt into oblivion, leaving literally trillions of angry hackers with idle hands and too much Cheetohs residue on their fingers.

This, of course, is stupid.  But it's this kind of uninformed fear that folks like the MPAA play upon when they insist that so-called "rogue websites" are a major threat to everyone connected to the interwebz.  It's a scaled up political play, stemming from their appeals to nationalism.  Take a gander at what the MPAA’s Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Policy Officer Paul Brigner wrote on their website's (snicker) blog:

"Internet users who go looking for stolen movies online may end up getting more than they bargained for – a practically 'indestructible' form of malicious software designed to give cyber criminals remote control over users’ computers."

Wow.  Indestructible malware.  That's pretty effing scary, right?  You'd have to expect that this would be some kind of new holy terror brought down upon us by the likes of zombie bin Laden.

Well, from the Kaspersky post Brigner based his words on, not really.  It's a new evolution in a traditional botnet, one which requires less centralization and an affiliate installation payment program.  Hell, the writer in the post follows up with folks in the comments section with free software that can be used to detect and fight off the malware.  And keep in mind, of course, that these dire warnings are coming from a company that sells antivirus to protect against these threats.  But this is the launching pad for Brigner's conclusion:

"All the more reason to keep rogue sites from reaching U.S. consumers.  Stealing movies isn’t worth the risk to American jobs – or the risk to Internet security."

Somehow I'm not shaking in my boots yet.  Oh, and nice phraseology there.  Rogue sites reaching U.S. consumers?  I was unaware that these rogue sites we've been discussing the past few months were accessing users rather than the other way around.  It's a symptom of the problem that Brigner doesn't realize his customers are seeking out the sites when they should be seeking out his member filmmakers.

 

Filed Under: movies, rogue sites, security
Companies: mpaa

MPAA Still More Focused On Those Darn 'Pirates' Rather Than Making Money

from the good-luck-with-that dept

It appears that the MPAA's whac-a-mole game of pointlessness continues. As a whole bunch of you have been submitting, the MPAA's international arm (just chop off the last "A" in the name and you get the MPA) is asking a court in the UK to issue an injunction forcing ISP BT to block everyone's access to Newzbin. Newzbin, of course, is a Usenet aggregator, that was found liable for infringement via its service, in large part because the site's staffers actively promoted that you could use the service to infringe. This was no surprise, as courts don't look kindly on encouraging people to infringe. What then followed was a bizarre and convoluted mess, in which Newzbin reappeared -- though it's not entirely clear how or who was behind it.

So, now, the MPA has decided that it's easier to just try to block access to it. Apparently the UK already has a "Great Firewall" type of system that requires ISPs to block access to sites deemed to be child porn sites, and the MPA says that it should be simple to start censoring "pirate" sites that it doesn't like as well. Of course, if you don't see the slippery slope there, you probably missed the story about how a list of "pirate sites" to be blocked, which was put together for ad giant GroupM with help from MPAA members Viacom and Warner Bros., included such evil sites as the Internet Archive, Vimeo and SoundCloud. How long until the MPAA asks them to be blocked from the UK as well? Of course, this is what happens when "fighting piracy," rather than "helping studios adapt and make money" is your number one priority. You end up with an entire "content protection" division with multiple vice presidents... but no "here's how we adapt and make money" division. And all those "content protection" lawyers have to have something to do, so why not press for blanket censorship? It sure beats working...

Filed Under: access, censorship, mpa, mpaa, uk
Companies: bt, mpa, mpaa, newzbin

MPAA Directly Lobbies Law Enforcement To Be Its Own Private Police Force

from the and-that's-what-you-get dept

For years, we've discussed how questionable it is that federal law enforcement, including the Justice Department and Homeland Security, often acts as the private police force of the entertainment industry. At times there's been a bit of a revolving door, with the RIAA/MPAA hiring former federal law enforcement officials to head up their "anti-piracy" efforts, and the existing federal groups sometimes seem to return the favor by taking on cases that clearly should be civil matters between the private companies in the entertainment business and those it feels infringed on their rights.

Over the last few years, the fact that the feds have effectively been working as the entertainment industry's private police force has grown more and more obvious. No one from Homeland Security seems willing to explain (and trust me, I've asked multiple times) why it is that when ICE did its domain seizures, it relied solely on claims from the industry and (even more ridiculous) announced the first round of seizures from Disney headquarters. Can you imagine how people would react if the FTC announced it was filing antitrust charges against Google... from Microsoft's offices? Or if the FCC announced it was blocking the AT&T-T-Mobile merger from Sprint's offices? Such scenarios seem preposterous, but ICE doesn't seem to recognize the clear conflict of interest in acting as the private police force for an industry, rather than actually doing its job.

Perhaps part of that is because the entertainment industry is spending a ton of money lobbying law enforcement agencies directly. Most of the time when you think about lobbying activities, you think about talking to politicians to try to get them to pass certain laws, or talking to regulators to have them adjust or change certain rules and regulations. You don't tend to think of lobbying law enforcement directly in order to convince them to do your private bidding. But, the MPAA does.

According to a disclosure report, the MPAA spent $400,000 lobbying a wide range of US government departments in the first quarter of 2011 including the FBI, Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, ICE and the Vice President’s Office. Issues on the table include so-called “rogue sites” including RapidShare, streaming, graduated response (3 strikes) and domain seizures.

There are no real surprises in the content covered. It's the same stuff the MPAA has been pushing for a while now. But the fact that they're directly lobbying the FBI, the Justice Department, Homeland Security and ICE should raise some eyebrows. Law enforcement should not be influenced by the desires of private companies -- especially ones with a long history of failing to adapt to changing technologies and trying to get those technologies declared illegal. Imagine if, rather than a civil lawsuit, when the VCR was introduced, the movie industry could have just had the FBI declare the things illegal?

Filed Under: copyright, criminal, doj, fbi, homeland security, ice, joe biden, law enforcement, lobbying
Companies: mpaa

MPAA Attacks Demand Progress With Ridiculous & Unsubstantiated Claims

from the getting-desperate dept

Demand Progress is an online activist group that runs campaigns to get lots of people involved on political issues that impact the internet, innovation and free speech. You can see the list of campaigns that it's working on currently, and you'll see lots of stuff that we regularly talk about. The organization has been doing a bang up job trying to point out problems with the PROTECT IP Act, and apparently the lovely folks over at the MPAA finally noticed, and decided that rather than respond with facts, it was instead going to smear the well respected organization in a blog post (which, of course, you can't comment on, because the MPAA knows that very few people actually support its stance).

Karl, who pointed this story out to us, highlights the ridiculous nature of the blog post:

It claims:

1. Demand Progress is an "ally" and a "partner in business" with "criminal enterprises that have a strong, direct, personal and commercial interest in continuing to steal from American creative workers and businesses." It source for this? A screenshot where someone from Demand Progrss posted about COICA on Demonoid's message boards. That's right: merely posting on a forum makes you a "partner in business" with the site. Update: Demand Progress clarifies: the message board post wasn't even by someone at Demand Progress, it was just someone at Demonoid who posted the info...

2. It says the signatures from Demand Progress are fakes. This is backed up by a claim that they tried using fake emails to sign the petition, and it worked. Demand Progress now has a system where emails from their site are sent to representatives directly, and asks for addresses and emails. However, other than their two fake emails, they show no evidence that any other signature is actually fake. Furthermore, the way Demand Progress usually works is that you sign their mailing list; they send an email to that list; and in that email is a link to sign the petition using your signup info. That system is hardly condusive to abuse.

And we should talk about the fact that they called Demonoid a "rogue website." In their very next post, also from May 24, they quote Floyd Abrams (their hired lawyer), who claimed this:

"any website basically engaged in legal activities, such as commentary, socializing or commerce, cannot be pursued under the PROTECT IP Act. Indeed, the definitions of 'dedicated to infringing activities' specifically exclude websites that have any other 'significant use,' or websites that are not 'primarily' used for infringement."

If Abrams is right, then Demonoid should NOT be considered a "rogue website." Their forums constitute "commentary or socializing," and is a "significant use." Yet the MPAA presents this "commentary or socializing" as evidence of criminal consipiracy!

Separately, in looking at the MPAA's blog post, I noted that it had no byline other than "MPAA." As far as I can tell, every other blog post that the MPAA has put up has been signed by the person who actually wrote it. Kinda makes you wonder if whoever wrote this particular blog post knew that it was full of crap, and didn't want their name associated with it.

Filed Under: protect ip, smears
Companies: demand progress, mpaa

Being Concerned With Free Speech Implications Of PROTECT IP Does Not Mean You Think You're Above The Law

from the oh-come-on dept

Wow. In the legacy entertainment industry's latest "you're either with us or against us" mentality, it appears that expressing concern about the free speech implications of bills like PROTECT IP means you're a horrible, horrible person. Both the MPAA and RIAA are quite upset about Eric Schmidt coming out against PROTECT IP and saying that the impact on free speech would be disastrous. Both responses are so sickeningly disingenuous, it really makes you wonder how out of touch they are.

Let's start with the RIAA's statement:

"This is baffling. As a legitimate company, Google has a responsibility to not benefit from criminal activity. In substance and spirit, this contradicts the recent testimony of Google's General Counsel that the company takes copyright theft seriously and was willing to step up to the plate in a cooperative and serious way."

Um. Except that nothing in what Schmidt said actually contradicted Kent Walkers speech, nor did he say they don't take copyright infringement (not theft guys) seriously. He was expressing very legitimate concerns about the free speech implications.

On to the MPAA's statement, which echoes the RIAAs, but is a little more fleshed out:

In April, Google senior vice president and general counsel Kent Walker testified before Congress that 'Google supports developing effective policy and technology tools to combat large-scale commercial infringement.' That’s exactly what the PROTECT IP Act is designed to do -- it creates a narrowly-drawn, carefully constructed solution to the threat to American jobs and America's economy, a solution that protects and strengthens our right to free speech. As constitutional law expert Floyd Abrams wrote, '[c]opyright violations are not protected by the First Amendment.'

This is really shameful how the MPAA twists the debate. First of all, the PROTECT IP does not effectively combat large-scale commercial infringement at all. That's just wishful thinking. The actual infringement will continue. Second, there is no evidence that it will support American jobs or the economy. In fact, the reverse is almost certainly true, as these kinds of laws will harm large parts of the internet that enable new jobs.

But the really sickening part is the Floyd Abrams quote. While it is entirely true that copyright violation is not protected by the First Amendment that's not what Schmidt or anyone else raising these issues are concerned about. No one -- not Schmidt, not us -- is arguing that copyright infringement is protected by the First Amendment. We're saying that this tool will be used against non-infringing and perfectly legal speech. And that's not a theoretical concern. We've already seen it happen multiple times with the existing ICE domain seizures, in which blogs and sites that were not violating the law were seized.

That's the concern.

Furthermore, as Schmidt made clear in his statement, he was also noting that once you justify the censorship of some speech just because you're trying to stop infringement, you open the door to much more censorship of speech. Traditionally, the First Amendment caselaw has been clear: if you're going to strike against illegal speech, you have to very narrowly focus on just that speech. PROTECT IP does not do that. It casts a wide net. But, once you have that door open, saying that it's okay to shut down some legitimate speech in an effort to stop some others, that will only expand.

Is Eric Schmidt really suggesting that if Congress passes a law and President Obama signs it, Google wouldn’t follow it? As an American company respected around the world, it’s unfortunate that, at least according to its executive chairman’s comments, Google seems to think it’s above America’s laws.

Oh, come on! Of course that's not what Schmidt is saying and the MPAA is being obnoxiously disingenuous in suggesting otherwise. He's not saying they're "above America's laws." He says that the RIAA/MPAA-written laws should not be above the Constitution. That is, these laws should not violate the First (or in other cases the Fourth) Amendment. By saying that Google would fight, he doesn't mean ignore, he means challenging the Constitutionality of these laws in court.

Sad that the MPAA has so little actual substance behind its arguments that it's forced to blatantly mislead like that. Typical, but sad.

Filed Under: copyright, eric schmidt, free speech, protect ip
Companies: google, mpaa, riaa