Surprise: Heritage Foundation, Who Almost Always Supports MPAA, Comes Out Against SOPA

from the didn't-see-that-coming dept

Increasingly, it looks like the MPAA and the US Chamber of Commerce can't even count on their closest "friends" to support SOPA. The latest surprise is that the Heritage Foundation has come out against SOPA, warning that it would likely have dangerous unintended consequences. They note both the security concerns as well as the First Amendment concerns:

The requirement that search engines omit links to rogue sites undercuts the role of search firms as trusted intermediaries in conveying information to users. There are, of course, other circumstances where search engines already omit information and links—for instance, Google routinely screens out child pornography from its search results. But there has never been a government mandate that information be withheld from search results. Imposing such a mandate would represent the first step down a classic slippery slope of government interference that has no clear stopping point.

Arguably, the limits placed on search engines as well as other third parties under SOPA would also violate constitutional protections of freedom of speech. But even if not barred legally, any such restrictions should be imposed only after the most careful consideration, only when absolutely necessary, and even then, to the smallest degree possible.

What's really shocking about this is that the Heritage Foundation has a long, long history of being strongly in favor of more draconian copyright law, and a big supporter of efforts by the RIAA and MPAA to go legal at the drop of a hat over copyright issues:

Unlike some Washington advocacy groups that are predictably anti-copyright, Heritage has historically taken the opposite position. It called the Motion Picture Association of America's decision to sue peer-to-peer pirates a "wise choice," and suggested that disrupting P2P networks to curb piracy, an idea that some politicians actually proposed, is a step "in the right direction."

[....]

Ed Meese, Reagan's attorney general who's now a Heritage fellow, seemed to be channelling an MPAA lobbyist when writing in 2005 that "there is no difference between shoplifting a DVD from a store and illegally downloading a copyrighted movie from Kazaa." Heritage's warnings of international "threats to intellectual property rights" date back to at least 1987. And it scores protection of intellectual property rights in its annual Index of Economic Freedom.

To now have the group go the other way is a huge surprise -- and furthers the rapidly growing momentum against SOPA. It had appeared that much (though certainly not all) of the momentum had been on "the left." But, with recent concerns from DC groups that "the right" tends to follow and respect (including CATO, CEI and now Heritage), it seems like plenty of politicians on both sides of the aisle may be increasingly skeptical of SOPA. It may have the votes to get out of the House Judiciary Committee, but it may be difficult for it to survive a floor vote.

Filed Under: copyright, protect ip, sopa, support
Companies: heritage foundation

SOPA Supporters Learning (Slowly) That Pissing Off Reddit Is A Bad Idea

from the don't-mess-with-reddit dept

There's been a lot of talk in the past few days about the companies supporting SOPA. As we've noted, it's pretty damn difficult to find too many individuals who like SOPA (or PROTECT IP), but there are a fair number of companies who might find it advantageous to be able to cause all sorts of problems for foreign competition. There are a few lists floating around of SOPA supporters, but Andrew Couts has put together a big list of 439 organizations culled both from the Judiciary Committee's website and the letter sent by the US Chamber of Commerce in support of the law.

We'd noted that there was some backlash towards companies supporting SOPA, but as more and more people recognize how bad these laws are, it's getting more attention. Add to that the awesome power of Reddit... and the whole thing has kicked into overdrive.

Enemy number one on the list appears to be GoDaddy, with Redditor's organizing a day (Dec. 29th) for GoDaddy customers to transfer their domains away from the registrar. We've discussed GoDaddy's bizarre support for the law in the past -- including the fact that, under the original definitions of SOPA, GoDaddy itself qualified as a "rogue site" since it recommended people buy domains violating the trademarks of lots of big companies. Of course, it's also notable that GoDaddy recently hired a top lawyer... whose previous job was in "IP enforcement" for the federal government.

GoDaddy doesn't quite seem to know how to deal with the rising backlash on Reddit, and has (somewhat bizarrely) reissued two previous statements about SOPA. The first was what it wrote when the bill first came out, and the second was its filing for the original (November 15th) Judiciary Committee hearings on SOPA. Neither of these statements address the concerns of the folks on Reddit and appear to be very much a "talk to the hand!" response to the Reddit community. I would suggest that this may not have been the keenest strategic move on the part of GoDaddy. And it's not just small domain holders. Ben Huh, CEO of the infamous (and awesome) Cheezburger network of sites is promising to move all 1,000+ of his domains off of GoDaddy unless it changes its position on SOPA.

Others on the list of supporters are starting to feel the wrath of Reddit for supporting SOPA as well. 3M, who has been a strong supporter is discovering that their customers are not pleased: Others are starting to feel similar pressure. It wouldn't surprise me to see some of the companies start backing down. In fact, we're already hearing that some of the companies on the list (especially the law firms) have no idea how they got on the list in the first place. Some of the law firms may have clients who support the law, but that's a big difference from actually supporting the law themselves.

On top of that, the backlash is coming out in other ways as well. Paul Graham, the founder/head of YCombinator (where Reddit was first incubated) has announced that he will bar employees from any of those companies from attending YCombinator's famed Demo Days. For those in the Silicon Valley/entrepreneurship/startup world, you know that YCombinator Demo Days are a big deal. It's where all sorts of amazing new stuff gets launched, and big deals are made. Barring SOPA supporters from that event can really hurt those companies. Graham made himself clear:

Several of those companies send people to Demo Day, and when I saw the list I thought: we should stop inviting them. So yes, we’ll remove anyone from those companies from the Demo Day invite list.

He's apparently told the people in charge of Demo Day invites not to allow anyone from those lists. "I don’t know exactly which companies had people on the list. But I know which will now: none of them." He furthermore told TechCrunch that he'll recommend YCombinator startups not take investment money from any of those companies too: "If these companies are so clueless about technology that they think SOPA is a good idea, how could they be good investors?"

Either way, what's becoming clear is that even if some companies support the law, it's not because it's good for their customers. It's precisely the opposite. It's because it'll be useful as a protectionist law to stomp out competition or to protect against having to adapt to innovation. In the past, consumers might not have paid attention, but thanks to efforts like what Reddit and others (Tumblr, Wikipedia, etc.) are doing, it seems like those consumers are starting to speak up and make themselves heard. And the end result is going to be bad for business for the companies supporting SOPA.

Filed Under: activism, boycotts, net roots, pipa, protect ip, sopa, supporters
Companies: 3m, godaddy, reddit, ycombinator

Hollywood Star Ashton Kutcher Says 'SOPA Is The Problem, Not The Solution'

from the speak-out-speak-up dept

We've been pointing out that more and more people, whom the MPAA and US Chamber of Commerce pretend to be representing in their please to pass SOPA and PIPA, are actually very much against the bill. The latest is famed actor Ashton Kutcher. Kutcher, of course, isn't just an actor but has spent a fair amount of time in the entrepreneur/startup world as well, both working on startups himself and (more prominently) investing in a bunch of startups. He's also a very active user of a variety of online platforms. So he definitely has experience both with the "Hollywood" side as well as the "Silicon Valley" side -- though, he's obviously much more well known for his Hollywood success.

Either way, he's come out extremely strongly against SOPA and shows that he really gets the issues here. The key point that he makes, which we've been trying to get across for many months, is that SOPA works by putting tremendous compliance costs and liability on tech companies and startups:

Forcing social media sites and ISP's responsible for users content is amazingly burdensome and costly. SOPA will create economic problems for Internet start-ups which will be an additional negative side effect. This may cause a slow down in the Internet economic sector, which is providing real jobs and innovation for the US economy.

He points out that while the DMCA may not be perfect, it does mostly work for takedowns of infringing content, and that it doesn't make sense to add liability to service providers. Furthermore, he admits that SOPA supporters are correct that the DMCA process doesn't always work for foreign sites, "but SOPA as it is written causes more problems [than it] solves."

Separately, he recognizes how ridiculous it is to put technological choices in the hands of judges, rather than technologists:

Moreover, what is most shocking, is SOPA's idea of giving judges determination of Internet DNS. The bill suggests DNS administrators remove bad actor domains on judges orders; thus breaking the fundamentals of the Internet. It is a disastrous precedent to have Congress legislate Internet DNS control.

He points out that his colleagues supporting SOPA may be "well-meaning people," but that they "fundamentally don't understand how the internet works," and that what comes out is a "bad and confused" attempt at regulating the internet.

Finally, he points out that SOPA's actual result will be to do the exact opposite of what it claims to want to do, since its methods of enforcement will harm the economy. He closes with a call to action:

I don't support SOPA and I believe we all need to call and write our Congress to help them know we want a No vote on SOPA.

Indeed. It's fantastic to see someone like Ashton Kutcher speaking out so publicly on this issue. Yet, you can rest assured that the MPAA, US Chamber of Commerce and the politicians pushing this bill will, once again, pretend that they're supporting SOPA to help people like Ashton Kutcher. Yet, he's making it clear, this is not the kind of help that the industry wants or needs.

Filed Under: ashton kutcher, copyright, innovation, pipa, protect ip, sopa

How SOPA Creates The Architecture For Much More Widespread Censorship

from the easy-to-amend dept

We've discussed many times how the censorship provisions of SOPA and PIPA require US companies to set up a system that is technically identical to internet censorship systems in countries like China and Iran. This always upsets supporters of these bills, because they prefer to focus solely on what's being censored, with the argument being that as long as the target of the censorship is infringement, rather than, say, political speech, it's okay. I've had two different arguments for why that line of thinking is ridiculous. First, while the bill may target infringing works, it will, without doubt, end up censoring tons of non-infringing works, as with the Dajaz1 seizure. The second point is that countries have a history of censoring political speech under the guise of copyright law. So, even if the intent is not to censor political speech, we have enough examples of it happening that it seems like a perfectly legitimate point to raise.

However, Julian Sanchez has taken this discussion even further, and pointed out an additional reason that we should be quite worried about the censorship portion of the bill. Even if it's only designed to be used for stopping infringement, we'll have now set up the legal framework for censorship, meaning that it will be quite easy to expand the law to cover other forms of expression:

With the legal framework in place, expanding it to cover other conduct—obscenity, defamation, “unfair competition,” patent infringement, publication of classified information, advocacy in support of terror groups--would be a matter of adding a few words to those paragraphs. One sentence slipped in as a rider on some must-pass omnibus bill would do it: “Section 102(2)(B) is amended to add ‘or civil action under 17 USC §271′.”—voila, a nuclear weapon for patent trolls.

And it's not just the legal framework and architecture he's worried about. Once DNS providers are set up to easily censor sites at the drop of a hat, does anyone honestly believe that the government and the courts won't be tempted to just use it in other cases outside of what's covered under SOPA/PIPA?

Then there’s the technological architecture. If SOPA passes, thousands of commercial ISPs, colleges, small businesses, nonprofits, and other entities that maintain domain servers are going to have to reconfigure their networks, potentially at substantial cost, in order to easily comply with the new law. There is an introductory clause in the latest version of the bill stipulating that no network operator will be required to implement a specific technology or redesign their networks in any particular manner in order to be considered in compliance. But let’s think realistically about what compliance will look like. Genuine “rogue sites” often operate via dozens of different domains, which means we’re apt to see regular updates to the government’s standing blacklist, potentially adding dozens or hundreds of domains in one go. Any sane network operator is just going to build a filter that reads off the current list of banned domains from a government feed and automatically stops resolving them. (This will, incidentally, be an enormously attractive attack surface for hackers: Spoof the SOPA feed—either at the source or to a particular provider—and you’ve got an instant bulk denial of service attack!)

Once the up-front costs of implementing that filter mechanism are paid, the marginal cost of additional censorship is effectively zero for the providers. It won’t much matter to the providers, at that point, whether the blacklist contains 10 domains or 10,000. The technology itself, needless to say, will be indifferent to the rationale for blacklisting. The filter will just automatically implement the list of domains it’s given; it won’t know or care whether they’re being blocked for hosting pirated movies, Hamas propaganda, or the Pentagon Papers.

And, as Sanchez notes, once you've got those two pieces in place, the broadening of US censorship online is almost inevitable, because the "cost" of doing so becomes so low:

Political actors—or special interest groups—who want to expand the scope of blocking will no longer have to justify putting in place a wholly new system of Internet blocking. Instead, the rhetorical question will become: Now that we’ve got this whole filter architecture in place for music and movie pirates, how can we possibly justify not using it for sites that host terrorist propaganda or classified documents, for sites that implement a patented business model without permission, for sites enabling speech some U.S. court has held libelous, and for whatever new moral panic is gracing the cover of Time in five years. Surely you’re not suggesting that illicit downloads of Norbit are a bigger problem than whatever outrage Joe Lieberman is fulminating against this week, are you?

This is a major concern with SOPA/PIPA, and one that supporters of the bill keep trying to brush off, because they have no good answer to these concerns other than "trust us, the US government doesn't want to censor." I'd like to believe that's true. In fact, it very likely is true for many people in the government. But the scenarios Sanchez predicts are not out of line with what we already see regularly today. It happens so frequently, in fact, that it's difficult to imagine how Congress won't expand the law to make use of this censorship apparatus.

Filed Under: censorship, framework, law, pipa, protect ip, sopa, technology

The Myth That SOPA/PIPA Only Impact 'Foreign Sites'

from the targeted,-perhaps,-but-the-impact-is-much-wider dept

One of the key talking points of supporters of PIPA and SOPA is that these bills "only target foreign sites," so domestic sites and companies shouldn't be complaining. Of course, for a while SOPA's private right of action was open to domestic sites as well, but that was removed in Lamar Smith's "manager's amendment." But it remains a total myth that these bills only impact foreign sites. They may target foreign sites, but the entire setup, compliance costs, and legal liability is applied to domestic sites and companies. The blacklisting remedies all require a variety of US companies to take significant and costly actions that will burden many startups.

The recent discussion by Reddit General Manager Erik Marin about why SOPA would lead to the end of Reddit highlights the point nicely.

If SOPA passes in anything like it's current form, it would almost certainly mean the end of reddit. It may not happen overnight, but we have a very small staff (~11, mostly engineers), and even dealing with DMCA stuff is a big burden for us. SOPA would make running reddit near impossible. And we have access to great lawyers through our parent company. I can't imagine how smaller sites without those kind of resources could even attempt a go at it if SOPA passes.

We've been trying to make this point for months, and the folks in favor of these bills just keep ignoring it insisting time and time again that this is just about foreign sites. Most of those people have never been entrepreneurs. They've never worked at a company where the threat of legal action is a BIG DEAL, that can massively disrupt operations (and cash flow). They don't realize that increasing liability, compliance costs and legal risks isn't just a nuisance -- it can force an entire business to shut down. We've talked about how these bills change things so that it's not just two engineers in a garage any more, but two engineers... who need a team of a dozen lawyers.

Considering that nearly all of the net job creation in the US comes from startups (pdf), to massively burden all of these companies with ridiculous compliance and legal costs makes no sense at all. It makes even less sense when you look at the details, and realize that the entertainment industry has actually continued to grow significantly over the past decade, contrary to the gloom and doom stories you keep hearing. Yes, a few of the big companies with big lobbying budgets have struggled with their own business model, but that's no excuse for massively hindering jobs and economic growth, messing with the fundamentals of the internet, and giving foreign regimes a blueprint on how to censor the internet in a way that the US can't complain.

Filed Under: compliance, copyright, erik martin, pipa, protect ip, sopa, startups
Companies: reddit

Scribd Comes Out Against SOPA By Making Documents Disappear

from the good-for-them dept

One of the more interesting things about what's happening as the tech and startup world recognizes just how ridiculous SOPA and PROTECT IP are, is that many tech companies are coming up with their own unique and interesting ways to make their users aware of it. Tumblr blacked out its dashboard. Reddit set up a SOPA subreddit and has publicly advocated against the bill. Etsy alerted all of its users to the threat of SOPA on Etsy (multiple times). The latest interesting one, as noted by Alex Howard, is that Scribd has officially come out against the bill and is doing so by making text from various documents (including the analysis from famed Constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe about how SOPA & PIPA violate the First Amendment) disappear before your eyes, before asking you to call Congress.

Filed Under: pipa, protect ip, sopa
Companies: scribd

Do We Really Want To Hand Over Control Of The Internet To A Group That Sued A Dead Grandmother

from the just-saying dept

Via Julian Sanchez, we get the best-titled story we've seen yet concerning SOPA. Written by Kevin Fogarty at ITWorld, it reads:

Best idea of 2011: Give control of Internet content to group that sued a dead grandmother

It's a must read, highlighting the insanity of SOPA -- while also being pretty funny:

Supporters aren't willing to talk compromise, claim not clamping down on speech as well as piracy will "crush" artists and other creators of content, and appear, with good evidence, to be doing the bidding of SOPA's financial backers, who no interest in the public good and a bottomless reservoir of shameless self-interest they believe is more important than the liberties protected by the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments.

On the positive side, that's not even a third of the Bill of Rights, so accusations that SOPA supporters are willing to crush the Constitution to line their own pockets are clearly exaggerated by at least seven Rights.

Elsewhere, it describes, quite accurately, that this is about control and misplaced blame:

The RIAA and the intent of SOPA itself stems from an irrational rage that the world has changed and unquestioned belief that the change is the fault of the industry's customers, who should be made to pay for the self-inflicted misfortunes of the record industry....

So…how do you feel about giving the same people the power to command that agents of federal law enforcement agencies give up on drug runners, kidnappers, terrorists and spies in order to shut down web sites and confiscate domains for simply being accused of having offended members of a group willing to sue a dead grandmother and grill a 10-year-old girl to discover who from outside the house was spoofing her address in order to download a song 10-year-old girls don't listen to, at an hour they're not generally awake?

We're seeing more and more widespread recognition of what a joke SOPA and PIPA are... but with it, we're hearing people believe that the bill is so crazy that there's no way it can pass. Unfortunately, nothing is further from the truth. Inside the beltway, where common sense goes to die, the thinking remains that these bills have a pretty easy path to becoming law. And that's what should scare you most of all.

Filed Under: copyright, dead grandmothers, pipa, protect ip, sopa
Companies: mpaa, riaa

MythBuster's Adam Savage: Why PROTECT IP & SOPA Could Destroy The Internet As We Know It

from the speak-up dept

One of the more interesting things that I've seen over the last few months as the SOPA/PIPA fight has become more involved, is that people I respect in the entertainment industry itself have been speaking out against the bill, and talking about how horrible it would be -- even though they work "in the industry." The latest is famed MythBuster's host Adam Savage, who recently admitted that he's a "serious copyright law geek" (in linking to Bill Patry's excellent new book, which I'll have a writeup on relatively soon). Savage is using his column space at Popular Mechanics to rip apart PIPA and SOPA, urging people to call their elected officials in protest of the bills, and noting that they "would be laughable if they weren't in fact real."

Think of all the stories you've read over the past 14 years of people slapping DMCA takedowns of content that they didn't own, just because they didn't like what it had to say. One that comes to mind is Uri Gellar, the popular psychic who performed spoon bending and other tricks on TV in the 1970s. Using a DMCA claim, he had YouTube pull videos of him being humiliated during a 1973 appearance on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, when he had no copyright claim to them at all.

This is exactly what will happen with Protect IP and SOPA. We've seen it again and again. Give people a club like this and you can kiss the Internet as you know it goodbye. It's really that bad. And it's a clear violation of our First Amendment right to free speech.

The Internet is probably the most important technological advancement of my lifetime. Its strength lies in its open architecture and its ability to allow a framework where all voices can be heard. Like the printing press before it (which states also tried to regulate, for centuries), it democratizes information, and thus it democratizes power. If we allow Congress to pass these draconian laws, we'll be joining nations like China and Iran in filtering what we allow people to see, do, and say on the Web.

Again, Savage is the kind of person that the industry is claiming needs this law -- and yet he's clearly vehemently against it. When you see the US Chamber of Commerce dump out their bogus line about "19 million jobs in IP-intensive industries," that includes Savage and all of his colleagues at MythBusters. How much longer will we let Tepp, the US Chamber of Commerce and the MPAA pretend that they represent the will of people who are actually very much against these bills and everything they represent?

Filed Under: adam savage, copyright, internet, internet freedom, protect ip, sopa

Public Opposition Accelerates As Latest Anti-SOPA Petition Hits Goal In Two Days

from the that-was-fast dept

One of the tactics deployed by supporters of SOPA is that there is no real concern from the public regarding the legislation. They like to claim that only those who profit from piracy really want to block this bill. Yet, we see time and time again this is not true. With letter writing campaigns from groups such as the EFF, Public Knowledge and Demand Progress having generated hundreds of thousands of letters, emails and phone calls from concerned citizens, the pro-SOPA groups have had to resort to drastic inflation to defend their side. We now have further evidence that such widespread opposition to SOPA is not only growing but accelerating as well. This evidence comes in the form of two We The People petitions on the White House website.

The first of these petitions, titled "Stop the E-PARASITE Act", was created back on October 31 when SOPA was known as E-PARASITES. This petition slowly gained signatures for about two weeks and then had a surge of support when the House Judiciary Committee held its stacked hearing on the legislation. On November 16, the petition hit its 25,000 signature goal, a full 14 days before its deadline.

Fast forward to December 18. Only a few days after the House Judiciary Committee held its SOPA markup, a new petition surfaced, "VETO the SOPA bill and any other future bills that threaten to diminish the free flow of information". With the markup fresh in the minds of those opposed to SOPA, this petition reached its target of 25,000 signatures on December 19, the second day after going public. That is quite the feat.

If there is no real public concern over SOPA, as supporters of the bill claim, who are these people? Why are they so mobilized to sign and complete far ahead of the deadline not one but two White House petitions in opposition to the legislation? Regardless of who these people are or what their motivations for opposition to SOPA are, one thing is clear, these people want action and answers. While there is no time frame for when the Obama Administration will respond, one thing is clear, SOPA is a hot button issue and those trying to force its way through Congress will not be able to ignore the public for much longer.

Filed Under: copyright, petitions, pipa, president obama, protect ip, public awareness, sopa, white house

Major Labels, RIAA, Homeland Security All Spotted 'Pirating' Works

from the telling dept

Early last week we noted that, using the tool, YouHaveDownloaded, some folks in the Netherlands noticed that the local music collection society appeared to be engaging in infringement. You knew that wasn't where things would end. Soon after that, people spotted infringement emanating from NBC Universal, Sony Pictures and Fox Entertainment -- three of the biggest supporters of ever more draconian copyright law. And, of course, that was just the beginning. The RIAA and Homeland Security have now also been identified. And, no, in most of these cases, it's clearly not just for research purposes or to find infringers. The RIAA, for example, could probably get away with downloading music... but the first five seasons of the TV show, Dexter? That's tougher to believe. The folks at Gizmodo have calculated just how much the RIAA's likely infringement here should cost, using the RIAA's own metric of the maximum statutory rates of $150,000 per infringement... and figured the RIAA owes about $9 million. Somehow I doubt we'll see the RIAA pay up any time soon.

Filed Under: copyright, dhs, infringement, pipa, protect ip, sopa, you have downloaded
Companies: fox entertainment, nbc universal, riaa, sony pictures