How Senator Wyden's PIPA Filibuster Will Work, And What Harry Reid Will Try To Do To Kill It

from the cloture dept

Last month, Senator Harry Reid decided that the massive and growing public outcry against SOPA shouldn't be of any concern at all to the Democratic Party in the Senate, and announced plans to bring the Senate's companion bill, PROTECT IP (or PIPA) to the floor, in an attempt to get around Senator Ron Wyden's hold on the bill (Wyden has been joined by Senators Rand Paul, Jerry Moran and Maria Cantwell, in objecting to the bill and promising to fight against it). As has been noted, Senator Wyden has promised to read aloud the names of those who have signed a petition against the bill.

There has been some confusion over the whole process of the filibuster, as well as the process of the "cloture" vote to both get around the "hold" on the bill, as well as end the filibuster. Some have insisted that Wyden simply won't get to speak on the floor at all if there are the necessary 60 votes for cloture. So, thankfully, Ernesto Falcon at Public Knowledge has put together a fantastic post that explains the hold/cloture/filibuster process and more or less explains what will happen at the end of January if Reid can get the votes to get cloture:

On January 23^rd, the United States Senate will reconvene to begin legislative business for 2012. After the first order of business is taken care of, Majority Leader Harry Reid will then continue the process he started on December 17th of moving PIPA towards a Senate floor vote. This process is known as invoking "cloture," which is a rule that allows any Senator to impose a 30 hour time limit on debate subject to three-fifths of the Senate agreeing to end debate. Senator Ron Wyden has stated he will filibuster PIPA along with Senators Jerry Moran, Maria Cantwell, and Rand Paul and together they will use the full 30 hours available resulting in the cloture vote being held the next day.

On January 24^th, Majority Leader Reid’s cloture motion will have matured its 30 hours and he will then be allowed to call for an up-or-down vote on moving forward to consider PIPA. If three-fifths of the U.S. Senate agree by voting yes on cloture (ending debate), then the bill can be taken up for consideration and the process where Senators can offer amendments will begin as well as another cloture motion (resulting in another 30 hours of debate). The general rule of thumb is a bill that has 60 Senators in support of its passage will take about three days to pass the U.S. Senate.

However, if 60 Senators do not vote yes on cloture, then Senators Wyden, Moran, Cantwell, and Paul will be allowed to continue to speak in opposition to PIPA forever. That being said, what would likely happen in the aftermath if PIPA fails to gain 60 yes votes is the bill is withdrawn and a compromise is negotiated. If no compromise is possible, then the bill officially dies. It is important to note that three-fifths of the Senate must vote yes to move PIPA forward. For example, if 59 Senators voted yes on cloture and 41 Senators voted present or do not vote at all, it fails to pass. The key factor in cloture is three-fifths of the Senate voting yes on cloture and not how many votes are against PIPA.

In other words, as we noted at the time, the race is now on for an additional 20 Senators to sign on with the existing 40 supporters of the bill. If supporters can't find 20 more Senators willing to put their name on the record as supporting PIPA, then the bill likely won't move forward. They already have 40 Senators signed on -- putting their names on a bill that sets up the fundamental legal and technological framework to censor the internet in the US. But, over the last few weeks, this bill has certainly become more toxic as people have spoken out. Unfortunately, it's not toxic enough, and there are plenty of out-of-touch Senators, who don't even realize what's in the bill and what its likely impact will be. That's why there's basically three more weeks in which to make it clear to both supporters of PIPA, as well as those who haven't yet taken a side, that supporting this bill is a huge mistake with serious consequences. If you do have a chance to go to a Town Hall meeting, or otherwise meet your Senator, Public Knowledge has also put together a handy information packet (pdf) with some quick points about the bill, and some sample questions you might want to ask your Senator.

Filed Under: cloture, copyright, filibuster, harry reid, pipa, process, protect ip, ron wyden, senate

Mommy's Best Games Says ESA SOPA Support Should End

from the mommy-knows-best dept

Over all the brouhaha regarding SOPA, a number of industries have come out either for or against SOPA. We have seen comments from the tech, film, music, publishing industries and many consumer organizations. However, one industry that would benefit from SOPA has remained relatively quiet on this front, the video games industry. There have been no actual public comments from any video game company or organization representing video game companies expressing anything in regard to SOPA. Yet, it shouldn't come as a surprise to note that the ESA, the chief lobbying organization of video game publishers, has quietly supported SOPA. This quiet support from the ESA doesn't sit well with at least one game developer, Mommy's Best Games, the developers of Serious Sam Double D.

In a combined call to action for both game developers and gamers, Mommy's Best wants these individuals to contact member companies in an effort to get two reactions: 1) a public statement from the company on its position regarding SOPA. 2) pressure the ESA to pull its support of SOPA.

Fellow gamers developers,
If you work for any of the companies that are ESA members, please talk to your higher ups about contacting the ESA to have them withdraw SOPA support. In effect, your company is supporting the SOPA bill. There are over 30 really great companies that have made amazing games that are effectively supporting the SOPA bill.

Fellow gamers,
If you love those companies, get on your favorite company's forums and complain that they are letting the ESA support SOPA by proxy! And consider writing the actual ESA as well.

While the internet world made a big stink about several companies no longer supporting SOPA, which we pointed out never actually happened, this is a move toward making that dream a reality. If the companies represented by the ESA were to come out against SOPA, the ESA would have only one option, to drop support of SOPA. We have already seen this happen when the BSA dropped support for SOPA after fans of its member companies expressed anger over the implied support for SOPA by those companies. Mommy's Best is hoping for a similar response from the ESA.

Additionally, Mommy's Best points out that over the past few years, the ESA has done some tremendous good for the games industry specifically in its victory over the California law that sought to restrict the sale of violent games and that supporting SOPA is a direct contrast to that legacy.

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) has done a lot of good for the video games industry, including facilitating the landmark Supreme Court ruling that games should be protected by the First Amendment like books and movies, and promoting STEM to further games and learning.

Unfortunately the ESA is still shown on the SOPA support list. The "Stop Online Piracy Act" bill will be voted on some time this year (probably soon). The proposed bill will likely stifle innovation and self-expression on the internet, and grant corporations plenty of power to abuse, given the broad manner in which the bill is written. If you're wondering what the fuss is all about, here's a detailed explanation as to why constitutional scholars believe the bill infringes on the First Amendment, and a general overview of what the bill is about.

This does call into question the intentions of the ESA. The company claims to support the free speech rights of game developers but supports legislation that would threaten the free speech rights of gamers. Why would this organization not see the disconnect here? Is it that it is still riding on the collective good will of its victory in the Supreme Court and is trying to remain quiet over SOPA in order to maintain that good will? If that is the case, why allow itself to continue to be associated as a supporter of the bill? One would think that supporting SOPA would be a sure fire way to kill any good will an organization has with its customers.

In the end, Mommy's Best provides a number of useful tips for contacting the ESA and its member companies. It also provides a nice template letter on which to base your own letters. I agree with Mommy's Best. It is no longer viable to remain quiet on this issue. It is time for the ESA to come clean with its support.

Filed Under: copyright, pipa, protect ip, sopa, video games
Companies: esa, mommy's best games

David Carr Explains Why Everyone Should Be Against SOPA

from the too-much-collateral-damage dept

NY Times media columnist David Carr -- who it should be known has been a critic of "free" economics in the past -- has put up an interesting new column explaining why even those who are vehemently against copyright infringement should be concerned about SOPA and the unintended consequences it will cause for the internet. He takes Hollywood's (somewhat laughable) numbers of jobs at risk and "losses" from infringement, to note that there is a real problem, but he still worries that SOPA's solution will make things worse. It won't actually do much to slow down or stop infringement -- but it will (almost certainly) create massive problems for the rest of the internet.

I like my movies (and music and television) as much as the next couch potato, probably more. And I wouldn’t steal content for any reason, in part because I make a living generating a fair amount of it. But it’s worth remembering that the film industry initially opposed the video cassette recorder and the introduction of DVDs, platforms that became very lucrative businesses for them and remarkable conveniences for the rest of us.

Given both Congress’s and the entertainment industry’s historically wobbly grasp of technology, I don’t think they should be the ones re-engineering the Internet. The rest of us might have to just hold our noses and learn enough about SOPA to school them in why it’s a bad idea.

While SOPA supporters have been bending over backwards to insist that anyone who points out the problems of these bills are "siding with the pirates," the fact is that many, many people are recognizing the serious collateral damage that SOPA (and PIPA) would have on the internet. The key reason much of this is happening is actually explained earlier in the article. You have those who don't understand and fear the technology trying to legislate that technology. And it's become something of a generational thing:

There is also a cultural divide at work, according to Yancey Stickler, one of the founders of Kickstarter, a Web site that helps raise funds for creative projects, and a critic of SOPA.

“The schism between content creators and platforms like Kickstarter, Tumblr and YouTube is generational,” he wrote in an e-mail. “It’s people who grew up on the Web versus people who still don’t use it. In Washington, they simply don’t see the way that the Web has completely reconfigured society across classes, education and race. The Internet isn’t real to them yet.”

The debate has highlighted how little Congress knows about the Internet they are proposing to re-tool. In a piece often cited on the Web, the computer culture journalist Joshua Kopstein watched the debate in Congress in which members bragged about their online ignorance, and he wrote an open letter on the technology Web site Motherboard titled, “Dear Congress, It’s No Longer O.K. to Not Know How the Internet Works.”

I'd argue that is true of some in Congress, but there's another element as well. There are, certainly, some in Hollywood who have a basic grasp of the technology. The issue there is more that they just don't like it. SOPA is an attempt to try to put things back into Pandora's box. The problem there isn't that they don't necessarily understand how the internet is being used... but that they don't understand how technology progresses, and how you can never take away features that consumers want once they know those features and capabilities exist.

Filed Under: censorship, copyright, david carr, internet security, lobbying, pipa, protect ip, sopa

EA: We Have Never Taken A Position, Either Way, On SOPA Or PIPA

from the but-should-they dept

As a follow up to our post this morning concerning the status of EA (and Sony and Nintendo) concerning the false report that the three had quietly removed their support of SOPA, we spoke with someone at EA who made it clear that the company has not stated an opinion either way on either SOPA or PIPA.

In September, we joined 400 other companies and associations in a letter asking Congress to explore legislative solutions to piracy. However we NEVER expressed an opinion on any of the specific proposals that have been drafted.

That's what I had assumed prior to my post, but now it's official.

That said, as people have pointed out, EA is a major member of the ESA, and the ESA is listed as a current supporter (pdf) though they were not on the original supporter list.

Separately, while the US Chamber of Commerce letter that EA refers to does not directly support SOPA or PIPA, it certainly implies that the companies would like this kind of legislation. I recognize why EA would like to stay out of making a definitive statement either way on these bills, but it still seems to reflect poorly on the company in the long run. By now these bills have been out for quite some time, and the company surely has had a chance to review them. It seems like it should be willing to make a direct statement one way or the other on how it feels about the bills. The original story may have been wrong, but not stating a position on the bill seems like a cop out to avoid pissing people (on either side) off.

Filed Under: pipa, protect ip, sopa, video games
Companies: ea, esa

Another Candidate Campaigning Against SOPA Supporter: Jack Arnold

from the keep-'em-coming dept

On Friday we posted about Karen Kwiatkowski running for Congress against Rep. Bob Goodlatte in Virginia using SOPA as a key campaign point. With Goodlatte being one of the key supporters of SOPA this makes a lot of sense. Soon after we posted that, we heard from Jack Arnold (and from his campaign, separately), noting that he's running against Rep. Marsha Blackburn in Tennessee and is also using SOPA as a key campaign issue. His "common sense" writeup about SOPA is absolutely worth reading. Here's a snippet:

As SOPA is drafted at present, no thinking person could possibly support it. It would give unheard-of censorship power to the Department of Justice and would have numerous foreseeable negative consequences. For example, it would cripple the internet as it exists today and would remove Google, Yahoo and Bing from their positions as market leaders in internet searches in favor of less-restricted foreign search engines. Plainly, this would move U.S. jobs overseas.

Worst of all, Congressman Marsha Blackburn claims (in public) to be staunchly anti-regulation, but she co-sponsored this bill. The same woman who is so “anti-regulation” that she leapt to the defense of Gibson Guitar’s right to use foreign endangered lumber instead of the home-grown kind – literally jumping in front of an ongoing federal investigation – now finds herself to be regulation-loving. The same politician who is in the fore of (correctly) lambasting Eric Holder’s mismanagement of The Fast and the Furious wants to turn over our right to use the internet to the management of the same man.

What gives? Well, the answer isn’t hard to find. We’re coming up on an election year. Some heavy-hitting lobbyists are behind SOPA: the MPAA and other media conglomerates, including ones that own record labels, pay their D.C. firms well. And these big corporations and interests are tired of seeing their bottom-line eroded by the theft of their products. These corporations, like Gibson and its Brentwood CEO, have deep pockets and are spreading around a lot of free cash and campaign ads to get the most draconian version possible of an anti-piracy law through Congress. Congressman Blackburn isn’t the only co-sponsor they bought. This bill has a total of 31 of them, from both parties.

I expect that, as other candidates pop up around the country and realize that the incumbent they're challenging is actively supporting a bill that would enable censorship of the internet, hurt the American economy and put online security at risk, we're going to see plenty of others campaigning on this issue as well.

Filed Under: censorship, copyright, free speech, jack arnold, marsha blackburn, pipa, protect ip, sopa

Hollywood Union Members Sign Petition Asking MPAA & Hollywood Unions To Stop Supporting PIPA/SOPA

from the losing-your-own-members dept

The opposition to SOPA and PIPA continues to come from all sorts of places. The latest interesting one? Union members who work on movies and TV... whose bosses signed them up as supporters of SOPA and PIPA against their wishes. They've put together a petition urging the MPAA, IATSE, IBT, WGA, SAG, DGA, and AFTRA to formally oppose both SOPA and PIPA, noting that it would be a barrier to innovation that Hollywood desperately needs, wouldn't actually stop infringement, and would also be an online security nightmare. The groups listed in the petition are basically all of the groups that have been major supporters of the bill, but as some of the signatories note, they want no part of this. Just a few examples:

I'm a proud Local One and USA829 member, and am appalled to find my union supporting this act. While I agree that piracy is bad, this act is ill-designed by legislators with no clue how the internet works, and guided by greedy corporations who have ulterior motives, and who have a track record of abusing the DMCA the same way they'll abuse this.

It will do nothing to stop it, will give unfettered power prone to abuse to corporations who don't deserve it, will short circuit due process, and will have huge unintended negative effects on the internet as a whole.

And, another one from a studio grip:

Proud Local 80 Motion Picture Studio Grip and I'm signing because these bills go too far. I'd like to think that IATSE is just trying to do what's best for its members. But, I think once they dig past the surface they will see the same thing I did. And that is that these bills need to be quashed. We need another way to deal with piracy.

Once again, for all the talk of widespread "support" of SOPA and PIPA, it seems to be crumbling in every direction, including from within the groups who have acted as if these bills were absolutely necessary.

Filed Under: hollywood, pipa, protect ip, sopa, unions
Companies: aftra, dga, iatse, ibt, mpaa, sag, wga

No, Sony Electronics, Nintendo And EA Have NOT Publicly Changed Their Position On SOPA

from the come-on-people dept

It's amazing how a little bad reporting turns into a big story. Late last week, we saw a report on Business Insider, by Matt Lynley, claiming that Nintendo, EA and Sony Electronics had dropped support of SOPA. However, the reporting on this story is highly questionable. It was based on a report from November from Joystiq about how those three companies supported the bill. But, if you read the actual article on Joystiq, you'll see that it notes that these three companies had not specifically come out in favor of SOPA, but rather had signed onto a letter from the US Chamber of Commerce (or, rather, its front group, the Global IP Center) which was sent before SOPA was introduced. While it does urge Congress to support something like SOPA, it was not a direct endorsement of SOPA itself.

Now, jump forward to last week. A number of lists have been put out listing the companies who supposedly support SOPA -- but many of the lists were made up by combining two separate lists. One was the official list from the House Judiciary site, which does, in fact, list out companies who have explicitly said they support SOPA. The other... was that letter that the Global IP Center sent. So, here's the problem. It appears that Lynley just checked the list from the House Judiciary Committee... and saw that Sony Electronics, EA and Nintendo were not on that list... and decided they must have quietly removed themselves from the list.

Here's the problem: those three companies were apparently never on that list. They were on the other list.

You can see an older version of the House Judiciary Committee list of SOPA supporters here. Note that it has GoDaddy on it, as well as all those law firms who demanded removal from the list. This was the original list that the Judiciary Committee came out with. You know what you'll see? Absolutely no mention of EA, Sony Electronics or Nintendo.

And yet... a ton of news sites have picked up on the BI story and written their own versions, claiming that those three companies have quietly dropped their SOPA support: Yet, as far as I can tell, none of these three companies has made any statement suggesting they've changed their position at all. Perhaps they did change their position, but it's not because they're missing from the House Judiciary list... because they were never on that list as far as we can tell. It's kind of amazing to me that people kept demanding specific statements from GoDaddy to prove they'd really changed their position on SOPA but eagerly accept that these three companies have changed their position. It's really quite amazing to me that so many publications (many well respected) all seemed to key off this one, highly questionable, Business Insider report, which was based on someone who never checked the earlier list, and assumed that it must be accurate.

Filed Under: pipa, protect ip, sopa, supporters
Companies: ea, nintendo, sony electronics

Hackers Figuring Out How To Set Up Satellites To Route Around Internet Censorship

from the hackers-find-a-way dept

It's been pointed out over and over again that censoring the internet is no way to deal with things like copyright infringement -- and that people will always figure out ways to route around such censorship. That's why it's interesting to hear that some folks at the famed Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin last week outlined some plans to set up their own satellite system for routing around internet censorship around the globe. And... a key reason given for why this is needed? SOPA, of course:

He cited the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa) in the United States as an example of the kind of threat facing online freedom. If passed, the act would allow for some sites to be blocked on copyright grounds.

They're obviously a long way from this, but the ability of amateurs to build and launch their own satellites into space has been growing and that's only going to accelerate. On top of that, with efforts like SOPA and other censorship efforts around the globe, it's giving more urgency to folks who believe in freedom of speech and civil liberties to figure out ways to decentralize and move away from systems that can be controlled by governments.

We've noted in the past couple of years that a few big events have started to call attention to the parts of the network that are centarlized and vulnerable to censorship -- and that's resulted in numerous efforts to decentralize those elements and make them censorship-proof. These projects won't all work (and some will certainly fail miserably), but as more and more people realize that these censor-proof systems are needed, it means that they will get created.

Filed Under: censorship, free speech, hackers, pipa, protect ip, satellites, sopa

Will Politicians' Support For Draconian IP Laws While Ignoring Civil Liberties Issues Come Back To Bite Them?

from the what-happens-next dept

I'm usually not one for the typical "end of year" summaries of what happened over the preceding twelve months, but Dave Kravets at Wired has put together an excellent post, bringing together a series of separate events that showed that politicians were quite eager to pass new draconian intellectual property laws all year, but shied away from anything that involved protecting our civil liberties. Reading through the article, it's a really sad statement over how the past year went from a politics perspective.

Of course, it will be interesting to see the coming backlash over this. We're already seeing the beginning elements of a reaction over SOPA (as well as the massive support for Ron Paul) and 2012 may make for an interesting year. Declan McCullough is wondering if the internet world is ready to "go nuclear" in the effort to stop SOPA/PIPA next year. As with anything, I think that there will be some mistakes made along the way, but as the internet community gets more organized and more vocal, I do wonder if these two trend lines (more draconian IP laws and less civil liberties protections) can really continue to move in the same direction much longer.

Filed Under: civil liberties, ecpa, intellectual property, ndaa, pipa, politicians, protect ip, sopa

GoDaddy Boycott Fizzles; Twice As Many Domains Transfer In As Out

from the not-sustainable dept

Yesterday, we noted that it appeared that the "GoDaddy boycott" concept may have been losing steam, thanks to the company's decision to move away from supporting the bill... combined with a new aggressive advertising campaign. Finally, on Thursday morning, the company went a step further: saying it hadn't just stopped supporting SOPA but now directly opposed SOPA. Even though the company notes that it saw "a spike in domain name transfers," it looks like the actual "boycott" day fizzled out. Looking at the results from DailyChanges shows that GoDaddy actually had a strongly positive day, netting 20,748 more domains at the end of the day than the beginning. On transfers alone, there were nearly double the number of transfers in as out (27,843 in to 14,492 out) as well as more new registrations than deleted domains (43,304 new registrations compared to 35,907 deletions). This isn't that surprising, really. There was a big burst last week, which is what resulted in GoDaddy changing its stance on the bills. In other words, it seemed like most people jumped to make the move immediately, rather than waiting a week. On top of that, GoDaddy's change in position very likely did ease the concerns of many. And, many made the quite reasonable argument that continuing the boycott after GoDaddy officially changed positions would be counterproductive, since it would discourage other companies from changing their position as well. Of course, a counter argument would be that the goal of the boycott was less about convincing others on the list to change positions as it was to make sure that no other companies decided to support SOPA or any similar future regulations.

Either way, it appears that for those who were hoping for a big boycott on Thursday, that didn't happen. I'm sure some SOPA supporters will use this as fodder to suggest the whole effort was a failure, but that's ridiculous. The whole thing still got a large company that was a huge supporter of these terrible bills to switch its position and recognize that it can't run roughshod over the wishes of its customers. It also helped draw more attention to the overall issue, and helped in getting other companies to back away from supporting the bill. It also got some attention among elected officials about how supporting this bill could get the internet activated. It may not be enough to kill the bills yet, but more politicians are aware of the issues. All in all, getting GoDaddy to change its position was a huge victory against SOPA and PIPA, but remains just one battle in a long and still ongoing war.

Update: There are a bunch of comments insisting that this can't be true, and I'm happy to see more data. NameCheap claims that it had 32,000 domains transfer in, and it's true that Daily Changes isn't a perfect proxy for domain transfers -- but it's a pretty good one. Some are suggesting that delays in processing will show more transfers over the next few days. We'll be watching. It's possible that there were a lot more transfers, but just because people want it to happen, doesn't mean it actually happened. Update 2: NameCheap says in the last week they've received around 80,000 transfers.

Filed Under: boycott, domains, pipa, protect ip, public, sopa
Companies: godaddy